Page 245 of The Bluffing Game

“You like to argue, don’t you?”

“No, I don’t.” She smiles and leans back against the headboard. “Anyway, I didn’t mean to distract you. I was going to put on The King of Queens, and I wasn’t sure if you were still working.”

“I’m okay. How are you feeling?” I ask her, knowing Brett had spoken with her.

I still haven’t spoken to him, and I feel bad that he was the one to deliver the news without me there.

“I feel like I don’t recognize my life. One”—she taps her finger—“I am living with you and staying in your bedroom. And that’s because, two, a guy I went on a couple of dates with is a sociopath. Three, I have zero prospects of billionaires to date. Four, the man I slept with recently is a liar.”

I press my lips together, but don’t say anything.

“And five, his son wants to call me Mommy, and I don’t even know how to respond to that because he’s so cute and life is so complicated and …” She sighs. “Now I sound like a crazy person.”

“What would you do if I said you didn’t sound like a crazy person? What would you do if I told you that?”

My phone beeps, and I glance down at it.

“It’s Brett.”

“You can take it. I’m not going anywhere. I mean, you won’t let me.”

“True,” I say. “I’ll be right back.”

I head out of the bedroom and answer the phone. “What’s up?”

“Hey. Are you alone?”

“Yes. Why? What’s going on?”

“Fuck it, Dalton. There’s an issue.”

“What?” I can feel my heart racing. “Is it Sage? Is she in trouble? Is it Parker?”

“No, it’s got nothing to do with Parker. It’s to do with Sage’s dad.”

“Oh, I know. That’s horrible. What a jackass that he⁠—”

“It’s not Mikey.”

“Who the hell is Mikey?”

“Mikey’s the third guy, the name that was given to Sage’s mom, the one I thought might be her dad initially, but it’s not him.”

“Oh, what do you mean? So then, why did you tell her he didn’t want to speak to her? Why did you⁠—”

“It’s Jimmy, Dalton.”

“What do you mean, it’s Jimmy? Jimmy who?”

“It’s Jimmy the Fish.”

“Jimmy the Fish. No way. What on earth? What are you saying? It can’t be. He doesn’t have kids, does he?” I pause. “Fuck. I know he used to go to New York with my dad all the time, and I knew he used to sleep around, but, fuck, Brett, what the fuck?”

“I couldn’t tell her. I spoke to Jimmy a couple of days ago. I urged him to tell Sage the truth. He’s known for a while that she’s his. I guess she looks a little bit like her mom did when she was younger. And when you and I talked about looking for the dad, I guess he overheard a lot of the conversations, and he put two and two together. He used Mikey’s name on a lot of those trips in case women came looking for him.”

“What the—” I curse under my breath. “So, why won’t he tell her? He freaking saw her crying the other day.”

“He’s scared, Dalton. There’s a lot going on. He did a lot of bad shit—way more than you. A lot of different mob bosses would love to take him down. And if they knew he had a daughter, they would use that against him. You know this.”