Total pages in book: 86
Estimated words: 86596 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 433(@200wpm)___ 346(@250wpm)___ 289(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 86596 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 433(@200wpm)___ 346(@250wpm)___ 289(@300wpm)
“You couldn’t have called my office and set up a meeting?”
The look she gives me could freeze ice. “Are you still upset about the Keith thing?”
The Keith thing.
I laugh.
Molly stands motionless behind me, and for a moment, I’d forgotten she was there.
“What do you want?”
Funny. I’d asked her that same question one evening when I thought we could fix things. When I thought I could make them better.
Work less.
Be more affectionate.
Include her in the business.
“What do you want? I’d asked her over and over.
“You can’t give me what I want.”
“How do you know? How can I know what you want if you won’t tell me?”
I’d caught her with Keith the following weekend, on a weekend Keith didn’t have a game and a night I wasn’t supposed to be home.
Funny how life comes full circle…
“What do I want?” she repeats, undeterred. “I guess the better question is what do I need.”
I swear to god if this woman asks me for a favor… Laura needs to stop talking in riddles and get to the point.
I cross my arms, irritated. “And what is it you need?”
“I need you to do a DNA test so we can determine the paternity.” Her hands are on her stomach as if soothing the unborn baby inside—or perhaps the motion is soothing her.
I glance behind me to see Molly’s reaction, but she’s disappeared into the bedroom—and who would blame her? This situation has just gone from bad to worse in a matter of seconds.
A million replies fly through my head; a million questions.
Thoughts.
How is this happening?
Why now?
“How far along is she?” Molly had asked me only yesterday—yesterday for fuck’s sake—and like a fool, I’d brushed off the question as being irrelevant. Laura’s due date had nothing to do with me, so why would I know or care how far along she was?
Famous last words, I guess.
Leave it to a woman to notice the small details.
I barely notice Molly skirting past me with her things, walking toward the door with only a backward glance over her shoulder.
Quietly, she slips out, door clicking closed behind her.
And just like that, I’m alone with Laura.
I haven’t been alone in the same room with her since…shit. Since the day she was packing her designer bags to leave. Her clothes, shoes, cosmetics, and toiletries. The rest she left here as if it were disposable; the books, the knickknacks, her work-out gear and equipment. All that shit I’d donated to charity when she’d gone, not wanting to see it every day.
Laura helps herself to a glass of ice water, puttering in my kitchen, belly encased in a tight dress.
She sips from the glass at a leisurely pace as if she hadn’t just detonated a bomb on me; as if she hadn’t just delivered the most shocking fucking news I’ve had since Mario Smith had the balls to refuse his contract with the Steam unless they gave him a fifty-million-dollar bonus.
“Paternity?” I pause, my head all shades of fucked up. “Why?”
Laura gives me a look that says it all. Are you fucking stupid? You know why.
“How far along are you?” I finally ask, wanting to throw up. How can she be doing this to me? And now, after all these months? If she had doubts about who the father was, she should have said something sooner, shouldn’t she? “Like, how pregnant are you?”
Jesus Christ, I feel like Maury Povich is going to come flying out of the bedroom to announce the results. YOU ARE THE FATHER. And why the hell did I clarify my question? I should act like the bloody moron she obviously thinks I am.
“I’m thirty-two weeks.”
I have no idea how many months that is, but her belly is big and round, so I imagine she’s super pregnant.
“Does Keith know you’re here?”
Laura rolls her eyes, setting her cup in the sink. “Yes.”
“What does he have to say about it?”
I can’t imagine he’s thrilled with this news. I’m assuming he assumed the baby was his from the beginning. For her to be questioning who the father is would rattle me to my core, like having the rug pulled out from under me.
“Not a lot.” She widens her stance, trying to look authoritative and in control of the situation. “As usual.”
If she’s having regrets about hooking up and becoming engaged to a football player—a man who stereotypically has more brawn than brains—it’s a bit too late for that.
You can’t turn back the hands of time, and a good, decent woman just walked out my door because the one in front of me is an asshole.
Spoiled.
Conceited.
Arrogant.
“So you broke into my apartment to deliver news you could have delivered over the phone or in an email.”
“No one barged into your penthouse.” Laura shrugs. “The doorman let me in, and besides, I have a key.”
I stalk to the counter and snatch up the small pile of keys she’d laid there, hands shaking, efficiently removing my house key from the ring and dumping it into the pocket of my track pants.