Page 75 of The Decoy

I grab my phone off my desk and hit Brody’s number.

It rings twice.

“Hey, Princess,” Brody’s low baritone fills the speaker. He sounds slightly out of breath, and the background noise echoes with clatter from the Titans’ weight room. “Just finishing up a set. Give me one second to set this on the rack. Everything okay?”

“Uh…well, I need to talk to you somewhere where you can have some privacy, maybe?”

The line is quiet for two seconds, and the background noise fades.

“I’m in the hallway outside the weight room, but I can pop into one of the meeting rooms if you want me to,” he says, his voice dropping an octave. “What happened? Talk to me.”

“Well, my dad just left my office,” I say, walking over to the window. “Someone notified my father about the incident at the commercial shoot.”

A heavy silence stretches over the line. He just breathes.

“Okay,” he says quietly. “Go on.”

I continue pacing behind my desk. “He asked me point-blank if Dylan was the biological father, so I confirmed it. He kind of flipped out. He wants Dylan to take public ownership of the baby to avoid a potential problem in the future, and he also wants to break Dylan’s Overtime contract.”

“Wait. He wants to drag Dylan into our lives?” Brody asks in the same lethal tone he had with Dylan.

“Yes,” I say. “I handled the contract issue, I think. He agreed to let the current contract expire. But he’s still threatening to unleash his legal team on Dylan. He thinks he’s taking care of me and the baby. Bryan was with him, though, and he’s going up to my father’s office to try to tame the situation.”

On the other end of the line, I hear Brody exhale, releasing some of the tension from his voice.

“Ellis,” Brody says, without any panic. “Listen to me.”

“Yeah.”

“You did what you could for now,” he says. “You shut down the business aspect of this. But why don’t you let me talk to your dad about the legal piece?”

“Brody, he’s pretty upset right now,” I say, frustration bleeding through my calm. “He wants to insert himself where he has no business being.”

“I get it,” Brody cuts in. “Charles is trying to be a dad the only way he knows how. But he’s forgetting one very important detail.”

“What’s that?” I ask.

“He’s forgetting that you aren’t handling this by yourself anymore,” Brody says, with an authority that makes a smile touch my lips. “You’re mine. The baby is mine. And listen, I like your dad, but he doesn’t get to decide how my family is protected. I do.”

“What are you going to do?”

“I’m leaving,” Brody says. I can hear the click of his locker door shutting, followed by his heavy steps as he moves toward the exit. “Coach will understand when I tell him it’s a family situation. I’m coming to Manhattan, and I’m going to sit down with him, man to man, and I’m going to take care of it.”

I lean back against my desk, crossing my ankles. “I don’t know, Brody. My father can be stubborn, and he’s used to eating these lawyers alive. Are you sure you can handle him?”

He laughs, sending a shiver down my spine.

“Princess,” Brody says softly, “your dad spends his days playing with paper and threats. I spend mine getting pounded into the ground by three-hundred-pound men. I’m not worried. Not even a little bit.”

I close my eyes, a breathless laugh escaping me.

“I’ll handle your dad,” Brody continues, his voice dropping into a tender tone he reserves for me. “And then I’m coming home, I’m cooking dinner, I’m going to rub your feet, and we’ll put this day- hell, this week- behind us. Sound good?”

“Sounds good, but I’m going with you.” I take a seat in my desk chair.

Brody chuckles. “I’ll call you as soon as I’m on my way to him. I love you, Princess.”

“I love you too, Vaughn.”