Chapter One
CROW
One Week Later
“ A nyone seen Crow?” At the sound of King’s voice, I wondered if I had time to sneak out the back door.
“I think he’s back in the office.” Whiskey ratting me out was my answer. I didn’t.
So instead, I kept adding to the back piece I’d been designing and ignored the footsteps coming up the hallway. I shouldn’t have been surprised that the first thing King would do when he got to work was to come and look for me. It had been the same routine every day that week.
Everyone was waiting for me to lose my shit and go off the deep end.
“Knock, knock,” King said needlessly, rapping his knuckles on the door to announce himself before taking the seat across from me.
I set down the pencil I’d been working with and waited, knowing it was coming.
“Heard from, Paisley?” And there it was.
The same question he asked me every day since Paisley stormed out like the hounds of hell were on her heels. In her defense, she probably felt like they were. She’d been keeping a secret for months and the cat was out of the bag.
“No.” It was the truth. She’d been avoiding us all — him included and that wouldn’t change until Paisley decided she was ready to talk.
King knew just as well as I did that P’s hand couldn’t be forced. She was as stubborn as the day was long — had been her whole life.
“You need to track her ass down, Crow. Make her hear you out.” I scoffed and shook my head.
“She’s not ready to talk about it yet.” He knew how his sister operated; I didn’t know why he expected this to be any different.
It wasn’t like I wasn’t driving myself crazy every minute of every day since she dropped the bomb that she was carrying my child. My head was still reeling. I’d never envisioned myself having kids and for good reason. I was a bad bet, and Paisley knew it, considering she’d kept her pregnancy a secret for so long.
“You’re just as fucking stubborn as she is,” he growled, shoving out of the chair and stomping away.
“Fuck.” I rubbed at the back of my head, feeling another headache coming on. King was right. I did need to sort things out with P, but I wasn’t sure what to say to her since she wasn’t the only one who’d been sitting on a secret.
“Yo, bossman!” I jolted in my chain.
“Damnit, Layla. Make some fucking noise, will ya?” I growled, as my heart damn near beat out of my chest. Jesus, she was fucking stealthy.
“Sorry, bossman. Didn’t mean to scare you.” She grinned.
“You didn’t scare me.” I narrowed my eyes.
I watched, amazed, as the little shit went all doe-eyed and nodded her head. “Sure.” I didn’t miss the patronizing tone to her voice either.
“What do you want, Layla?” I scrubbed my hands over my face.
“Are you okay?”
“I’m fine. I wish everyone would stop asking me that.”
“You don’t look fine.” The girl had balls; I’d give her that.
“Well, I am,” I lied, watching as she moved to the file cabinet and thumbed through it, making entirely too much noise. Just when I was ready to bark at her to get the hell out, she pulled out a stack of transfer paper. After making a production of shoving the filing cabinet door closed with her hip, Layla skirts around the chair across from me and dropped down into it. “I can see that you’ve got shit on your mind, bossman. I’m a really good listener, lay it on me.” I lifted a brow. Was she fucking kidding?
“Go on,” she waved her hand for me to get on with it.
“Fuck it. What do I have to lose?” Blowing out a breath, I steepled my hands in front of me and gave her the rundown of what happened at King’s party. Her eyes almost popped out of her head when I got to the part about P’s daughter and how I was the father. It was the look she got when I told her Paisley took off and had been ghosting everyone since that annoyed me. I hated pity. Didn’t need that shit from anyone.
“I — uh — congrats?” she sputtered.
“Thanks, but save that for Paisley.” There was no way I’d saddle a kid with having me for a father.
“What do you mean?” She frowned.
“I’m not father material, Layla. Paisley and her kid deserve better than me.” I shrugged. Saying the words out loud hurt, but it didn’t make them any less true. P deserved the best of the best, so did the kid, and that wasn’t me.
“Oh, I see. She’s one of them stupid bitches.” The hair on my neck instantly stood on end.
“The fuck did you just say?” I leaned forward, sure that I hadn’t heard her right.
“Paisley. She’s one of those women who’s not real bright.” Scooting my chair back, I stood, ready to toss her out on her ass. We’d been good to Layla. Gave her a job and a place to crash. Whatever the fuck she was playing at, I wasn’t having it. Her disrespect of P was something I wouldn’t tolerate.
“Watch it, Layla. You don’t fucking know Paisley. She ain’t stupid!”
“What do you mean? You clearly think Paisley couldn’t possibly be smart enough to make up her own mind about what she wants. That’s why you’re being a martyr and doing it for her, yeah?”
I dropped back into my chair like a ton of bricks. “That’s not — I don’t think that P can’t make her own choices — I just — fuck!”
“Let me ask you this. Do you think Paisley will be a good mom?”
“The best.” I believed that with every fiber of my being.
“Do you think she’d do anything to put her daughter in danger?”
“The fuck? Of course not!”
“Then trust her to know what and who is good for her baby.”
I jolted again, for an entirely different reason this time.
“I can see the dots starting to connect.” She smirked, crossing her arms over her chest.
“Yeah,” I grumbled. And they were, which only scared me even more. I didn’t know the first thing about babies.
“Well…” Satisfied with flipping my world on its head, Layla clapped her hands together like she’d just tackled world peace without breaking a sweat and hopped to her feet. “My work here is done.”
And mine was just beginning.