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I tensed. “You what?”
“We’re not doing it,” she quickly assured me. “I saw the words topless dancer and—”
“What do you mean, ‘topless dancer’?”
“I’m trying to explain, but you keep interrupting,” she huffed, then sniffled again. “The email was from who I thought was the event planner Barrick was using for your party. It upset me, and I got mad. Mia and I texted back and forth, and then I realized I didn’t want to go to Vegas, even if it was as payback for you breaking your promise that the bachelor party wasn’t going to be wild.”
“I would never break a promise to you,” I gritted out.
“I know that!” she cried, getting upset again. “It just took me a few minutes to calm down. Mia opened Barrick’s emails. She saw the one from the event planner and said it wasn’t the company he was using for the party. She sent everything to Aunt Emmie and…and—”
“And?” I urged when she broke off, her chin trembling.
She took off her glasses, tossing them carelessly on my desk, and looked up at me with sad eyes. “Your mom set it up.”
I sucked in a deep breath, feeling the blow even though I’d cut both my parents out of my life. I would expect something like that from my father. He was a disgusting asshole who wouldn’t think twice about trying to ruin my life for his own gain. But my mother?
Not that I should have been completely surprised. She’d tried everything but actually showing up and locking herself to my side to keep me from marrying Nevaeh. These kinds of antics were beneath her. Something so unsavory as a stripper—or whatever the fuck she’d had planned—wasn’t something I expected her to come up with on her own.
“Darcy,” I growled my ex’s name, only to feel Nevaeh flinch.
“What about her?”
Lifting her from my lap, I placed her on the desk in front of me before standing. Leaning down, I pressed a kiss to the center of her forehead. “Ordering a topless dancer isn’t something I would expect my mother to know how to do, Kitten. She’s too much of a…a…”
“A snotty bitch?” Nevaeh supplied when I struggled for the right description.
I gave her a grim smile. “Exactly. But Darcy, on the other hand?” I shrugged. “Mother thinks that by me being with you, I’m turning my back on Darcy and her baby. She still assumes the kid is mine. Since I did nothing with the information my tail on Darcy collected, and Lyla has yet to use that dossier, no one knows what we know. Darcy and my father both think their dirty secrets are hidden.”
“True,” she muttered, nibbling on her bottom lip. “So you’re saying she’s collaborating with Darcy to come between us?”
“That’s my theory, yes.”
“Which means Darcy is the one playing games, not your mother.” She contemplated that for a moment before hopping down off my desk. “I thought it was just Belinda. But if Darcy is pulling her strings, then it’s she who will have to pay. That bitch should have gotten what was coming to her when she showed up at our house back in Virginia.”
As she walked around my desk, I frowned. “Where are you going?”
“I have three sisters, Brax. Playing these kinds of games is something I’m not only used to, but very good at.” She turned at the door and blew me a kiss. “Don’t wait up for me.”
“Kitten, wait!” I called after her, but she was already skipping out of the house before I even got to the living room. “Nevaeh!” I called after her as I watched her happily make her way down the street to her parents’ house. “Fuck.”
I didn’t know if I should follow her or let her have her fun. What I did know was that whatever she dished out to Darcy—and anyone else who tried to ruin what we had—would be well deserved. After making sure she went inside her parents’ house, I stepped back into our own home and shut the door.
Walking into my office, I grabbed my phone and tried to call Lyla. Even though it was on the later side for the East Coast, I knew she would be awake.
“Sup, cuz,” she greeted.
“Ly,” I grumbled into the phone. “Why haven’t you used any of that information on my dad and Darcy?”
“Ugh, really? I was trying to forget about those images. Now they’re back in my head.”
“Lyla,” I gritted out.
“You seemed to be in a bad place when we talked about those pictures and other…things,” she explained. “Then a few days later, you were in a considerably better mental state. I didn’t want to fuck with that.”
“Thank you for considering my mental health,” I told her softly. I loved my cousin like a sister. She and Barrick were all the family I really had. Judge, as well, but he was so busy with everything, he barely had time for anyone else. It was Barrick and Lyla who’d always had my back, no matter what.
“What’s going on?” Lyla asked. “I just got a text from Nevaeh to call her.”
