Two
Linc
With my chosen figurado clamped between my teeth, I glared out over the front lawn of the house from my office window. That fucking blue car had long since driven away, yet the tension that had come with it hadn’t. Instead, it coiled tighter inside me, like a rattlesnake just before it struck. I should have kept her here. Demanded more information. If she wasn’t after money, did it mean that the marriage was real? Sure, I’d been messed up that night. But had I been that out of it?
The opium I’d had in the hookah pipe just before walking into one of the many clubs inside the casino that the family owned had been a poor decision, but I’d needed to release some stress. It had sent me to a place where I didn’t give a fuck about anything. The peace I had been searching for came so easily. Then, I saw her, and she took my breath away—literally—just like when I woke up in my suite with her beside me, naked in bed. The woman was possibly the most beautiful female I’d ever laid eyes on, and I’d fucked a lot of gorgeous women.
I let the cigar smoke linger in my mouth as I swirled it, enjoying the flavors. This specific cigar had become my comfort crutch. When I needed to take off the edge, this was what I reached for. Probably more often than I should.
Letting the smoke go with an exhale, I replayed all that I could remember from that night. Most of it was clear. So damn crystal clear in my mind that I’d used that face to get myself off more than a few dozen times over the years. She was still the most stunning creature I’d ever seen when she orgasmed. Thinking about the way she’d looked when she got off had my cock hardening in my jeans. Long blonde curls, the color of the finest champagne, sliding over her shoulders like warm caramel had been a sight that took the top spot on the mental highlight reel for best fucks of my life.
The fascination she’d held for me was the main reason I ran like hell the next morning. Because for the first time in my life, I had wanted to stay. I had wanted to fuck her more. Put her on my face and drown myself in that sweet, tight cunt.
Taking the cigar from my teeth, I glared at it for failing me. The stress wasn’t ebbing away. Only the storm of emotions that ranged from frustration to disbelief, to doubt, to full-blown fury.
Not because the number one memory from my spank bank had walked back into my life. And not because of the way her eyes had seemed to knock me on my ass. Hell, even the marriage certificate—if it was real—could be handled easily enough. It was the little girl I was struggling with. I hadn’t pressed because I was afraid of the truth. The what-if. She looked nothing like Levi had as a child, but then she was her mother’s mini me. There was just something…a gut feeling. A draw to her. As if my instincts were screaming at me that I should know her.
I had left her the morning-after pill. She would have fucking taken it. Right? I’d even put a bottle of water beside it. She wouldn’t have wanted to be knocked up with some one-night-stand’s kid. She hadn’t been on a manhunt that night. I’d hit on her. In fact, if I remembered correctly, she had been rejecting men or sending them running—until me.
But what if I had walked right into a trap? What if she’d been wanting a kid and the right sperm donor hadn’t come along yet? She hadn’t smoked opium, and I honestly didn’t know if she had been that drunk. The whole thing could have been premeditated.
Fuck.
If the little girl was mine, would she have brought her here? It’d been five years, and she was engaged. She wasn’t after me for anything. So, why would she have shoved the kid in my face if she had something to hide? That didn’t make sense. The timing added up though. Women had done worse things. This one wasn’t after my money, but she might have wanted my sperm.
The door opened behind me, but I didn’t turn back to see who it was. I already knew. Only Luther would open my office door without knocking—that, and he was the only other person here. We shared the six-thousand-square-foot home. He kept to the west wing, and I stayed to the east. Neither of us planned on having another family. We’d both failed at the first attempt. He hadn’t even married the mother of his child. She’d refused, and he hadn’t loved her enough to demand it.
“You think the kid is yours?” Luther asked, the humor gone from his voice.
He had enjoyed the marriage shit, but the instant the little girl had stepped out of the car, things had taken a turn. The threat that she could be mine wasn’t funny.
Hell, I had fucked up, being a father to my son. Staying with his mother for his benefit all those years had done him more harm than good. All he saw was the toxic relationship Maggie and I had. Whatever love I’d thought I had for her was long gone by the time he was old enough to truly remember things. She’d held him over my head, and because he loved her, I’d allowed it. I shouldn’t have.
“Fucking hope not,” I replied.
Once I had the background information on her, along with the marriage certificate, then I’d know if a paternity test was needed.
“You sure know how to pick ’em,” he drawled.
Scowling, I turned around to look at him. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
He lifted the shoulder not leaning against the doorframe. “No need to get pissy. I was just pointing out, when you decide to fuck one raw, you pick stunners. Hell, you took Maggie right from under Garrett’s nose back in the day. He’d had his eye on her, and you managed to charm her within minutes. But this one?” He let out a whistle. “Damn, man. If she fucks as good as she looks, then this might not be a bad thing. When she stepped out of her car outside the gate, I was struck speechless.”
I shot him a disgusted look. I didn’t need the fact that she was so goddamn beautiful shoved down my throat. I was aware. It was the reason I had run like hell five years ago. Beautiful women made me stupid at times, and she was a level above beautiful.
“Garrett was already engaged to wife number one. Maggie was never going to be his sidepiece,” I replied.
“What’s her name?” Luther asked me.
I shrugged as if I didn’t care, although until I had read the marriage certificate, I hadn’t known it. All I had called her that night was Dollface. I hadn’t wanted her to know my name, so I never asked for hers.
“Which one?” I asked because I hadn’t gotten the kid’s name. I was hoping it wasn’t Vivi Lu, or whatever she’d called her. The poor kid would be bullied over a name like that.
He chuckled. “God, you’re an ass. You have the fucking marriage certificate. Did you not read her name on there?”
“Branwen, I think it said. I don’t know how she pronounces it. I never asked her name. We fucked. It was one drunken night in Vegas. Knowing her name wasn’t important.”
He shook his head, still grinning at me. “Not so sure about that. I’ve seen you drink a fifth of Jack many times in our past, and never did you think that taking some cunt to a wedding chapel was a good idea.”
“It wasn’t a fucking chapel! It was some pretend Elvis shit. And I wasn’t just drunk. I’d smoked some opium before I saw her.”
He threw back his head and laughed. I was done with this conversation. He could go now.
“That makes much more sense,” he said when he stopped his annoying cackling.
My phone started to ring, and my eyes dropped to where it lay on the desk. I stared at the number. I hadn’t wanted to get Levi involved in this, just in case there was no need for him to ever know about it. So, I’d called Wilder Jones. He was the family’s computer genius and could find more information than Levi could anyway.
Wilder’s name on my screen had me lowering my cigar to the tray. I could hear the phantom rattler waiting there, taunting me with its bite. My gut was something I trusted. Right now, I wished it were a liar.