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He frowns, then bites his lip. “You remember that chick I took to the fashion show ten months ago?”
I nod. “Debbie?”
“Yeah, she popped up at my penthouse and left a note and a baby. Apparently, she doesn’t want to be a mother anymore. I feel so guilty because she didn’t let me know she was pregnant. I would have been there for Zyra.”
I’m so shocked to hear what he said.
I know how it feels to be surprised and not know what to do. Hearing the words that you’re a parent can be a bit of a shock, especially when you don’t have the patience or the time to be one. Memories flood my mind of Harper.
“How are you going to go from being a single man to having a child?”
“I still can’t wrap my mind around it. Life is so hard, and I’m not adjusting to the change well. Getting up every three hours to feed and change her is a pain in the ass.” He shakes his head. “Half of the time when she cries, I don’t know the reason why she’s crying. It’s too fucking exhausting, and I never get any sleep.”
“Yeah, it is hard being a single parent, and don’t forget time-consuming, you never have any real time to yourself. Did you do a DNA test?” I ask.
He nods. “She’s mine. I had it done myself.”
I shrug. “Maybe having a kid will warm your cold heart.” I smirk.
He rolls his eyes. “Shut up. I don’t know what to do with her. She’s only a month old, and my sister is helping me out until I hire a nanny.” He gets up from the seat. “You want to come over and meet her?”
I shake my head. “I can’t. I’m having my first official date with my fake girlfriend tonight.”
“Good luck with that, and have fun,” he says before rising from the chair and leaving my office.
Fun is the last thing I will have on this date.
I work throughout the day, in and out of meetings, trying to fix the numbers on a spreadsheet. My driver, Chance, picks up my dry cleaning. I should have waited and fired Diana at the end of the day, because I hate tedious work. I glance at my watch to find that it’s lunchtime, so I order food from the closest deli shop. As I stand up and dust off my suit jacket, there’s a knock at my office door. I gaze at my stepmother, Katie, who walks in like she owns the place. She wears an elegant cream blouse with a navy pencil skirt. Her ginger hair falls over her shoulders. She’s painting a picture to the world that she is perfect along with the rest of her life, but she does coke every chance she gets and is hooked on prescription meds, meanwhile allowing my father to fuck his secretary. Her heels click against the floor as she stomps toward me. I glance down at her with my hands on my hips, eyeing her balled-up fists glued to her sides.
The lines around her eyes and lips deepen.
“I heard from Lacey that you’re engaged,” she sneers.
There is no surprise that she would come up here unannounced. She wants to control me like she controls my father, but I would rather set myself on fire than do what she says, which is why she was happy that my father had me shipped off to boarding school when I was a kid.
She hasn’t been here more than a few minutes and already I’m ready for her ass to leave.
I dig my nails into my palms and shove them in my pants pockets.
“So? What’s your point?”
I always suspected she was sleeping with my father before my mom passed away because it wasn’t until my mother was fresh in the grave that they eloped in secret. She popped up out of the blue explaining to me that she married him and was going to be my new mother. She will never be my mother. Tommy thought he could wipe the memory of my mother away from me. He never wanted to mention her after she died.
“I would offer my congratulations, but we all know you’re only doing this to get James’s business. I don’t understand why you need it when you’re already a billionaire. Tommy needs the money more than you do.”
“Do you think I give a fuck? Why don’t you go back to the job you were doing before you married my father—you know, being an escort? You still look young enough.” I’ve had enough of her shit. She hates whenever I bring up her past.
I don’t care.
Eat shit and die.
Anger burns in her retinas as she rests her hands on her hips.
“That’s exactly why your father shipped you off to boarding school. You’re like a cancer in this family. Killing everything around you, like you di—”
“You finish that last sentence and you’ll regret it.”
I take a step forward, she takes one back.
