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Swear to God, if this was happening to any-fucking-one-else, I’d find it hilarious. But it’s not. It’s me. My eyes flit to my desk where the damning paper sits, the words already burned into my brain. A baby with no marriage? Talk about shortsighted. However, if I want the Cottonwood Estate—the place where every good childhood memory I have lives—an heir is the price I’m required to pay.
“So, okay, one more time. The papers over there on my desk state that I have to knock someone—anyone—up before my next birthday but in no way require me to marry her?”
Colton’s lips tip up into a calculating grin. “Precisely.”
I hear what he’s saying, but my brain…my brain simply cannot process it. One of my dad’s brothers—whom I’ve never met, if that tells you anything—had a baby out of wedlock and refused to marry the girl, and he was disowned, disinherited, and said to have disgraced the Larson name. Which is a load of shit, given that my dad’s other brother used to beat his own son and verbally abuse his wife. Even so, my grandpa all but sawed his branch off of the family tree in an effort to erase the so-called dark mark he left on our legacy. And yet, here we are…with legal papers drawn all but telling me to have a bastard. The fuck…
“I need a drink.”
Colton’s gaze drops to the tumbler in my hand, eyeing it skeptically. “You had a drink. Two, in fact.”
The urge to roll my eyes at his blasé attitude is overwhelming, but I manage to stifle the urge. “Let me rephrase. I want to go out and drink. At a bar. Surrounded by scantily clad coeds with tight pussies and loose morals. You never know…” I grin sardonically. “I might even find my baby mama.”
Unlike me, Colton doesn’t fight it, and his eyes damn near roll back into his skull. “As your lawyer, I’ve gotta say, this is a horrible idea.”
I stand up and head toward the door. “And as my friend?”
He stands and follows, retrieving his keys from his pocket. “As your friend…let’s go get you wasted, motherfucker. I’ll even be your DD.”
We bump fists as he walks past me and out the door. “Hell yeah! My lawyer can go fuck himself.”
Two hours later, I’m three sheets to the wind and surrounded by an eclectic mix of women with sober-as-a-judge Colton at my side. There’s a Botoxed blonde grinding on my lap to the low bass-y beat thrumming through the speakers, a knockout redhead plastered to my side whispering dirty promises in my ear, and a tantalizing ebony-skinned temptress dancing in front of me, her luscious curves on full display for my hungry gaze. I could easily take one of these women home with me—hell, I could probably take all three.
But I won’t.
Maybe it’s the knowledge that I actually have to impregnate someone—something I’ve been actively avoiding since the onset of puberty—but even in this den of iniquity, with a cement mixer load of lust and alcohol swirling through the room, my libido seems to have taken the night off. Not to mention, Colton would shut that shit down faster than I could blink.
Or maybe it’s the fact that whoever I end up knocking up is someone I’ll have to deal with for the next…forever. That, in and of itself, is a stellar reason for a little discretion. Which means my dick won’t be getting wet for the foreseeable future—at least, not until I find a suitable baby mama.
Fuck. That thought’s depressing as hell. Not to mention, sobering. So much so that I dislodge the pretty blonde grinding on my lap. “Let’s roll,” I bark, and she smiles eagerly, licking her blood-red lips as she takes me in. “No, not you. Colton.”
Her face crumples, and a thread of guilt stitches its way into my heart. That is, until I see her set her sights on the next schmuck in an expensive suit, her two friends in tow.
“On it.” He pays our—my—tab and guides me out to his car. “I was starting to worry you were considering taking Barbie and her playmates back there home with you.”
I shrug; the movement disrupts my equilibrium, causing me to stumble. “Fuck. Nah. She was hot, but not have-my-baby-hot.” Colton guides me into the passenger seat of his BMW M8 Coupe. Drunk as a skunk, reality sets in. “Colt, man, what am I gonna do?”
He closes the door without a reply and rounds to the driver’s side, where he slides behind the wheel. “Tonight? There’s nothing you can do. Get some sleep. Tomorrow, we’ll hit the ground running.”
I nod, agreeing without really hearing him. My ears are ringing, and my vision swims as the events of today rain down on me—and I don’t mean a little sun shower. This is a fucking Category Five hurricane.
