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“No, thank you.” She placed the car seat on the coffee table in the living room where I’d been earlier with Mack Jr., then looked around.
When she pulled out the pen and a notebook, I had to stop her. “Look, Posey, I’m sure whatever has happened, it’s all been a misunderstanding. Put the pen and pad away and let’s talk.”
She smirked. “A misunderstanding? Sure. Okay.” She capped her pen and pushed the pad of paper back into the folder she carried. “Did you know, Hope Veracruz?” Posey sat when I offered her a chair.
Hope... I knew her first name, but didn’t stick around long enough to learn her last name. Besides, she and Pedro took off before Cobi and St. James could find them. What did she have to do with this...Oh fuck. I stared at the little girl, even at whatever the baby’s age was, I should have seen it. “Are you fucking telling me this is Hope’s baby?”
She bristled at my curse before she cleared her throat. “This baby, Mr. Banks, is your daughter. Destiny Banks.”
The fuck she was. Hope and I never messed around. Sure, the offers were there and trust me, I’d been tempted, but I never fucked Hope. Ever. Besides, she’d only been sleeping with Pedro. Wait... I needed to slow down here and think this through. There was a reason Posey was here. I had to figure it out and not give anything away. If Hope put me on the birth certificate, she had a reason to.Fuck.Still, she wasn’t pregnant while she was at Lux, was she? Damn it, they spent almost every day together. I tried my damnedest to get her out of that situation and into a better life. Had her past finally caught up to her? But that didn’t explain why she put me down as the father of her baby.
Was Posey so blind to see we looked nothing alike? Come to think of it, Destiny didn’t look like Pedro either. What the fuck was going on? Why was this woman here with the kid besides the fact Hope put me as the baby daddy? None of it made a lick of sense. “Could you repeat that, Miss Roberts?” I hadn’t seen a ring on the woman’s finger. Even if there was one there, I’d find the fucker and remove him from her life. She was mine. She just didn’t know it yet.
Posey gave an exasperated sigh before rolling her eyes. It was obvious I’d offended her somehow. “If you would have answered your phone one of the several times, I’d been trying to call you, this situation would’ve been resolved had you answered. Perhaps you should call your wife or girlfriend so she can be a part of this.”
The fuck? I tilted my head, trying to understand why she was so angry at me. If I missed a call or two, it was because Mack Jr. was sleeping, and I didn’t want anyone to disturb him. Plus, everyone used text instead of calling. “As you can see, I didn’t want to disturb little dude’s nap. So texting would have been a better option.”
Fire light those sexy blue eyes of her. I wanted to fuck the indignation out of her. Maybe then she’d stop beating around the bush about why she was here. “Be that as it may, should we wait for your significant other? They should be here to hear what I have to say.”
“Lady, you have a lot of fucking balls coming into my house, treating me like shit, only to present a kid who has my name on her birth certificate. You want to take your bitchiness down a notch or two?”
The stubborn set of her chin, along with the way she ran her tongue over her teeth as she crossed her arms, put me on edge. She hated me and she didn’t even know me. Had I fucked her before? No, I would have recognized her. There was no way I’d have let her walk away from me, so what gives? What had I done to her to anger her to the point she looked like she wanted to throttle me?
“You’ve seen the news, correct?” She lifted her chin to the kitchen, where the morning reports played out.
“Honestly,” I stated, crossing my arms, “it’s background noise. What does that have to do with why you’re sitting in my living room?”
She exhaled again and opened the folder she’d had in her arms. “Yesterday there was a single car accident on I-24. Hope was in the vehicle. I’m sure you saw the high-speed pursuit?” She glanced up at me, and for the second time since meeting Posey, the air rushed out of me. “Yeah, that’s what I thought.”
“Wait. Are you saying Hope was in that mangled car?”Fuck. Fuck! I failed. I told Hope this was what would happen. She didn’t listen. She was in love with Pedro, and that motherfucker got her killed. Killed the bastard too, hopefully.Would serve him right.
“Yes,” Posey answered.
“How is she not all banged up too? How did this kid survive?” But Hope died. I didn’t add that last part as I stared at the little girl.What the fuck, man? What. The. Fuck?The baby girl’s big brown eyes stared into my soul. She reminded me so much of Hope. Didn’t make a peep. Watched everything and everyone. Hope put my name on that birth certificate for a reason. She had to have. Which meant I was going to have to claim Destiny, even if she wasn’t mine.
Dammit.
“She wasn’t in the vehicle with Miss Veracruz or Mr. Garcia. We found her in a hotel close to where the vehicle crashed.”
The heaviness of her words landed on me like a ton of bricks. Hope left her behind. I couldn’t say whether that was because she was trying to protect her daughter or there were more nefarious ideas at work. Either way, the situation was messed up. “Oh.”
“Oh? That’s all you have to say about your daughter being found in a hotel room?” Again, exasperation filled her tone. “Don’t you care about your kid?”
“I didn’t know she was pregnant.” Probably wasn’t the best answer for Miss Posey Roberts, but it was the truth. If Destiny was six months old, Hope couldn’t have been more than a couple of months along when she and Pedro fled. Or worse, she was pregnant when I met her.
Posey huffed out a breath. “How old is the baby?” She glanced to the playpen where Mack Jr. laid, staring up at his infant gym Ireland bought for him.
“Six months.”
She shook her head. “You sure get around, Mr. Banks.”
The fuck.
“Lady, you’ve got a lot of nerve.” I stood then. “Mack Jr. isn’t mine. He’s my sister’s son.” She blanched, knocking some of the starchiness from her. “Yeah, see what happens when you assume shit. You end up looking like an asshole.”
Instead of apologizing, she dug in. “Well, excuse me for believing he belonged to you. It’s quite obvious you get around.”
That smug superiority lashed against my skin, and I wasn’t sure if fucking the obstinance out of her would work. She got under my skin. Made all kinds of assumptions about me and my life before she met me, then she believed I was some kind of walking sperm donor. Coming in every available hole before leaving the women behind to raise my kids.
