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“Uh, well, so she says,” Houston tried joking, playing off my question. His buddies shifted nervously. I knew I had to be radiating rage, but I didn’t care. I was so pissed off and mad at the world that I’d take the first sorry sap with the misfortune to cross me. It just so happened, fate was smiling at me and threw me a bone by putting Houston Beaumont in my path.
“You’re a piece of shit,” I said, my voice hard as steel. “Anyone who abandons their kid is an asshole.”
“Hey, fuck you, you don’t know my life. How the fuck was I even supposed to know if the kid was mine? I’ve seen pictures. He doesn’t look anything like me. You know how girls like her are...the kid could’ve been anyone’s.”
Now he was calling Lauren a whore? I advanced toward Houston, my fists curled. “You’re right, the boy doesn’t look anything like you—that’s a blessing—but I’d advise you to watch your mouth before it overloads your ass. You’re five seconds away from getting my fist in it.”
Houston scowled and bowed up on me, going toe-to-toe. “You seem to know a lot about business that doesn’t concern you, Donato. Why don’t you back the fuck up and stick your nose elsewhere.”
“Lauren and Grady are my business,” I growled. “You don’t deserve to say their names, much less talk shit about them.”
Houston looked to Dante for backup but Dante was enjoying the show, resting his arm on his driver, a cool smile on his face. Like I said, Dante had never been a Houston fan, not enough action to back up his running mouth.
“Yeah? Fuck you, Donato. You want to champion a slut who had the bad luck to get knocked up, go ahead...but step off before I fuck up your world.”
That was all the invitation I needed. I reared back and popped Houston in the nose with a savage cross that sent blood spraying from his busted schnoz, and I took immense satisfaction in the gurgling howls as I dragged him up from the ground, my hands curling in his golf polo. “Don’t you ever talk about Lauren, think about Lauren or even breathe in her direction, you hear me? Because if you do, I’m going to rearrange your fucking face so bad your own mother wouldn’t recognize you. Understand?”
I shoved Houston into the arms of his buddies, and they dragged him off before I thought better of letting him go with only one punch. He’d need surgery to fix that nose if he didn’t want to look like a boxer who went one too many rounds in the ring.
I shook my hand, flexing. Dante handed me the cloth used to wipe down the clubs, and I cleaned off the blood from my knuckles. “Feel better?” he asked drily.
“Yeah, a little.”
Dante sighed. “You know he’s going to sue for assault.”
“Let him.” I didn’t care. Hell, I didn’t care about much. “That fucker abandoned Lauren and Grady. He hasn’t paid a single penny toward Grady’s support and Lauren has shouldered the responsibility all on her own.”
“Since when did you become the champion of single mothers?” Dante’s brow rose with sardonic amusement, but I didn’t dignify the question with an answer. He knew it had everything to do with Lauren, not the fact that she was a single mom. Dante shook his head with mild annoyance. “Either go fix this situation or let it go. You can’t go popping people in the face every time someone pushes your buttons about Lauren.”
“Haven’t you been listening? She won’t take my calls, emails or texts. She returns every gift, throws away the flowers. What the hell am I supposed to do? Toss her over my shoulder and drag her to my place?”
Dante exhaled with irritation as if I were being deliberately stupid before saying, “If you want to win her back you have to figure out why she’s this upset in the first place. Is it truly because you manipulated her out of a shitty job and paid her an exorbitant fee for a fake project? Something tells me she could get over that. What’s really the problem? Dig a little deeper. The answer is staring you in the face.”
I scowled at Dante, irritated and frustrated that my brother seemed to know the answer but was making me work for it.
But Dante was right. I didn’t think the real issue was the job. Sure, she was pissed as hell, but she’d get over that eventually. An image of Grady’s stricken expression, tears tracking down his face, blazed across my brain, and I knew there was only one thing that Lauren would never forgive—someone hurting her son.
And I’d hurt Grady by not being honest. I should’ve come clean with Lauren about the project and my hand in her lost position. I would’ve eaten all the crow she demanded, but I know I could’ve won her back. Grady never would’ve had to know, and right now, I know Lauren would’ve been wearing my ring.
Grady would’ve become my son.
My son.
The words hit me hard. The weight of such responsibility should’ve crushed me, but it felt amazing. I wanted to be Grady’s father.
I wanted to be Lauren’s husband.
More than anything.
And I meant all the way—not just because I wanted to marry his mama.
I wanted Grady to be a Donato.
I met my brother’s gaze. “I need to talk to a lawyer.”
Dante smiled, testing out his driver with a slow swing as he said, “Hope it works out for you, little brother,” and I left the range.
I was sending all the wrong gifts, completely missing the one thing Lauren and Grady wanted.
A family.
Well, hot damn, that was what they were going to get.
CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
Lauren
I WAS JUST settling in for the night. Grady was tucked against my side, the television on, but I wasn’t actually watching anything in particular while Grady played a game on his phone.
I knew getting over a broken heart took time, but why did every minute seem more agonizing than the last? Nico had somehow burrowed his way into my heart in record time, and I was both irritated and flabbergasted at how I could love him so deeply when we still barely knew each other.
I never did find out his favorite color.
Or his middle name.
Or what his pet peeves were.
I knew his secret tickle spots and how to make him laugh. I knew that he snored lightly when he was in a deep sleep. I knew that he loved to cook and took pride in his culinary talents.
But all of that was surface stuff.
I hadn’t known how cruelly he could twist the knife in my back or how easily he could ruin lives without forethought.
According to Ronnie, I was being ridiculous.
“Honestly, his methods were unorthodox, but he did you a favor getting you out of Luxe. You were in a rut, girlfriend” had been Ronnie’s take on the whole sordid mess. Even if I could forgive Nico for manipulating a situation for his own gain, I couldn’t forget how crushed Grady had been when everything fell to crap.
Maybe if Nico had been honest...maybe it wouldn’t have mattered. Wasting energy on wondering was stupid and an exercise in emotional agony.
I had to move on, not only for my sake but for Grady’s.
I withheld a sad sigh, not wanting to worry my little guy. Since moving out of Nico’s, he’d been withdrawn and his eyes had lost that sweet spark that’d always melted my heart.
I knew he was brokenhearted, too, and that killed me.
Mom guilt, in all its varying shapes and sizes, was enough
to cripple a rhino. I’d give anything to take it all back so my son didn’t end up hurt.
I startled at the knock on the door. It was too late for visitors. Suddenly, all the complaints and concerns Nico had expressed about my apartment came flooding to me in a panic. I didn’t have anything in the way of a weapon unless you could count my sharp wit. “Grady, go to your room,” I told Grady, helping him up. I waited until he was safely in his bedroom before going to the door, grabbing a heavy candelabra to use as a bat if need be. “Who is it?”
A pause long enough to stop my heart and create visions of my own death at the hands of a psycho followed until I heard, “It’s me, Nico.”
And then my heart rate sped up like I’d just smoked crack. “What do you want?” I asked, my voice catching and betraying my hurt and hope in the same breath. “Go away.”
“May I come in? I have something for you.”
“There’s nothing you have that I want.”
“Please.”
It was the humble plea that broke me. Nico wasn’t blustering or trying to be charming. He was simply asking in the most sincere way possible if he could come in for a moment.
I shouldn’t let him in.
I should tell him to get the hell out.
But I didn’t—I couldn’t.
The truth was, I missed him.
I slowly unlocked the door and stepped away so he could come in. My breath caught. He looked as if he hadn’t slept in weeks. His cheeks were puffy and...was that a little belly?
Had he been mainlining jelly doughnuts this whole time? Somehow the fact that our separation had affected him so viscerally made me tremble all the harder because there was no faking his pain.
I closed the door, locking it, but I cast a nervous glance toward Grady’s bedroom, afraid of Grady’s reaction to Nico’s showing up. I was grateful when Grady remained in his bedroom but I knew he wouldn’t stay there for long, so I needed Nico to get to the point.
