Page 45 of Secret Seduction

“I don’t know if I should call the doctor …” Lorenzo begins, fear evident in his tone.

“He’s going to need stitches. I think we should bring him to the pediatric hospital. We’ll want to make sure they check him out thoroughly.”

Lorenzo nods in agreement.

With the nanny forgotten, he grabs Leo’s diaper bag, and we have one of the guards drive us to the children’s hospital. On the way, Leo falls asleep out of exhaustion and stays asleep until we’re in a private room, where the doctor says he’s going to have to numb him and then strap him down to glue his lip together.

“I can’t hold him?” I choke out, protectively tightening my hold on Leo.

“We don’t want to risk him moving,” the doctor explains. “He’ll be numb, so it won’t hurt, and since it’s not too bad, we can do derma glue instead of stitches.”

I nod in understanding, hating that I can’t hold him.

“He’ll be okay,” Lorenzo tells me, as if I were the parent who needed to be comforted.

Begrudgingly, I hand Leo over to the nurse, and he immediately startles awake. The moment he realizes some stranger is holding him, he starts to reach for me and cry. And because I’m emotional, tears prick my eyes, and I grab for him, unable to let him go.

“Can I just … can I hold him until you’re ready?”

The doctor nods and then goes about prepping the area while I speak softly to Leo to calm him down while Lorenzo leans over my shoulder to rub his back. Leo’s lip has a huge gash in it, but it’s thankfully stopped bleeding, and he’s no longer crying.

“Come here,” Lorenzo murmurs when he notices Leo’s getting heavy in my arms.

There’s only one chair in the small room, and since we both want to be close to Leo, Lorenzo sits in the chair and then has me sit on his lap so we can hold and comfort his son.

“I watched the video,” Lorenzo murmurs. “She was on her phone.”

“Anyone could’ve been on their phone,” I tell him. “How many times have you been on your phone while watching your son?”

Lorenzo huffs. “I don’t care. I don’t pay her to be on her phone.” He leans around me and kisses Leo’s head. “She’s fired.”

Once everything is prepped, the doctor puts a numbing cream on Leo’s mouth, and a few minutes later, he injects more numbing liquid into the area. Leo cries but quickly calms. Unfortunately, it’s short-lived because the nurse has to wrap him up so he can’t move. He looks so tiny in the contraption, and as he cries, his pleading eyes meeting mine and his father’s, my heart breaks. I didn’t want to become attached, but it’s too late because this little boy owns my heart.

“This is your fault,” I hiss under my breath to Lorenzo as the doctor fixes Leo up. “You’re so stubborn that you had to have all those stupid nannies come in instead of letting me watch him.”

I’m aware that what I’m saying is unfair. I was literally defending the woman a few minutes ago. And I meant it when I said that anyone could’ve been on their phone. But right now, my emotions are taking over, and I’m not thinking logically. All I see is the sweet little boy in pain, and it’s crushing me.

Rather than Lorenzo arguing, he simply nods and then shocks me when he says, “You’re right. And if you’re willing, I’d like for you to watch him.”

My gaze meets his. “Oh, so now you trust me with your son?”

“The issue wasn’t trusting you,” he murmurs so only I can hear. “It was letting you in. You already have my son wrapped around your finger. What happens when you leave? Where will that leave him?”

He’s talking solely about Leo, yet there’s an undertone in his words, implying that Leo isn’t the only one affected by me. And maybe it’s the adrenaline coursing through my body, but I’m done dancing around the truth.

“Him … or you?” I challenge.

His blue eyes lock with mine. “Both of us.”

I swallow thickly.

I wanted the truth, and I got it, but now I have no idea what to do with it.

So, I say the only thing I can think of. “I’ll watch him.”

Because there’s no way I’m letting another woman half-ass care for that little boy.

“Looks like we had the same idea,” Lorenzo says, holding up a bottle of Kingston Limited whiskey and then nodding toward the same bottle that I found in his liquor cabinet.