Play Fake (The Bradley Legacy #2)

CHAPTER 1 Dex Bradley

The Things I Live For

I stare out the window of my training room as my shoes slap against the treadmill.

This room has a killer view of Las Vegas Boulevard, which is why I stuck the treadmill in it.

I can see from the Strat all the way down to Mandalay Bay from three miles northwest of the famed Strip.

I can see the stadium where I play football to the south and the practice facility out the other side of my penthouse.

These are the things I live for.

What’s waiting with my doorman?

Not something I live for.

“I have a Tawny Jade here to see you, sir,” Milton tells me over the phone.

I knew I should’ve trusted my instincts and not answered when I was in the middle of a workout.

Tawny is a woman I messed around with for a few months awhile back. I haven’t spoken to her since I broke things off. She was more invested than I was, so I ended it.

“What does she want?” I ask Milton.

“She’d like to speak with you.”

“Give me a few minutes and I’ll come down.” I don’t particularly want to quit in the middle of my workout, but I also don’t particularly want to invite her up here, so I take the lesser of two evils. I slow my pace to a walk so I can catch my breath, and then I stop the machine.

I towel off and throw a shirt on as I think about today’s date.

Today is July first.

When the first of July hits, that’s usually the signal that I only have another few weeks to do whatever the fuck I want. In less than four weeks, training camp will start and a new season will kick off.

So that means I have less than four weeks to live it up before I have to be on my best behavior again.

I’m supposed to be on my best behavior in the offseason as well, but there are a lot of things in life we’re supposed to do that I just…don’t.

I prefer to do what I want. I do what feels good, what feels right in the moment. What feels fun. What gives me a thrill.

Though to be honest, that feeling of the thrill has been dead for a while now. I haven’t felt a genuine thrill since…

I think back, trying to search my memory for when.

I guess since last season when I hit my career-high sack count.

Every time I run toward the quarterback from the outside, I get a thrill.

My job as a defensive end is to keep the play on the inside and not let it get to the outside, but those moments when I get to rush the passer are golden.

Off the field, though?

Maybe a high-stakes bet in one of the underground gambling rings I attend. Maybe that time I took part in a drag race on the Strip even though my team expressly prohibited it. I had a need for speed, and it was fulfilled in a safe, legal way.

The Aces fined me anyway.

What do I care? It’s just money, and I got the thrill I was chasing.

It used to be women that gave me a thrill. A night here with a gorgeous blonde with legs that go on for miles, a night there with a brunette with perfect tits. I still have those nights when I want them, but the actual thrill of them wore off long ago.

It’s not that I’m searching for something more permanent.

It’s more that the excitement wore off. I have a certain reputation around this town, and it’s not exactly hard to score whatever woman catches my eye first. I think it boils down to the fact that the thrill was in the chase, and I no longer have to chase.

It’s gotten boring, to be honest.

I spot Tawny from behind as she waits near Milton. She has the same long, brunette ponytail I can remember yanking on and the same shapely ass I recall pounding into from behind.

“Mr. Bradley is here to see you,” Milton says when he sees me, interrupting whatever she was saying.

When she turns around, my eyes immediately move to the baby carrier she’s holding that was blocked from my view when she was facing Milton.

“You have a kid?” I grunt.

“It’s yours,” she says. She presses her lips into a thin line.

Jesus Christ.

I need to sit.

When I broke things off with her, I told her it was because I wasn’t interested in commitment.

This is sort of what I meant by that.

“So, what do you want? A check?” It’s possible I’m not the most diplomatic when it comes to these things, but I can’t imagine why she’d wait this long to show up and tell me about the kid. The kid must be a few months old. A year, maybe. I don’t exactly do baby age math.

“I want you to step up and take responsibility.” She purses her lips at me.

“No can do,” I say.

Milton eyes me sharply. He’s sort of like a father to me. At least in the respect that he takes care of me to some degree. He knows who to keep out and who to let in.

Usually.

I guess he let Tawny in.

He makes sure I get up to my place safely when I come roaring in drunk. He’s a pretty good dude, really, but he’s not my father, and he can shove his sharp look. I’m not here for him to judge me.

“What do you mean, no can do?” she asks.

“I mean, you chose to carry the kid and have it, and you didn’t contact me. So you suddenly want money? Or what? I don’t even have proof it’s mine.”

She sighs as if she predicted that’s what I’d say. “Look, I don’t have anywhere to turn. I don’t have family who can take him in. I can’t give a child the kind of life it deserves. You have resources that I don’t. I’ve done my very best for the last six months, but I can’t do it anymore.”

“You think I can? You had plenty of time to take care of the problem.” My voice is hard and firm, and I regret the words as soon as they’re out of my mouth.

“I wasn’t going to have an abortion, Dex.

” She rolls her eyes and stares me down.

“Fine. I’ll go the adoption route, then.

I wasn’t even going to tell you, but my friends made me.

They said it’s your blood and your right to know, so here I am.

This was clearly a mistake. A deadbeat like you would never take responsibility.

” She spins to leave, but her words seem to hit their mark.

It’s my blood. It’s my right to know.

My blood. My legacy. The very thing my own father talks so goddamn much about.

My eyes edge down to the carrier. It marks the first time I’ve looked at it, and I see a sleeping baby with a blue blanket tucked around him and a blue hat covering his head.

“Wait,” I say.

She turns back around.

“A deadbeat like me?” I say instead of the other shit she just mentioned. “You don’t know the first goddamn thing about me.”

A couple walks through the lobby, and they’re sort of staring at Tawny and me as I throw some loud words at her.

“Would you like to take this conversation somewhere more private?” Milton suggests, and we both ignore him as we face off.

“I know you’re too selfish to care for someone else,” she hisses.

“Aren’t you the one here looking to pawn a kid off on me?”

“Not because of selfishness. Because I don’t have any money, Dex. And there are things you don’t know. I can’t provide for this baby, so I’m trying to do the right thing.” She sounds genuine as she says the words.

We’re both facing off without words when Milton breaks the silence. “Sir, if I may.” Milton looks at me and somehow tries to be the voice of reason in this complicated situation. “Get the DNA test done. Have all the facts before you make your decision.”

“How do you know it’s mine?” I ask Tawny, letting Milton’s words settle between us. It wouldn’t be the first time someone tried to pin a kid on me, but the paternity results have always stated otherwise.

“Because it is,” she hisses. “I didn’t have sex with anybody else when I was with you.”

I hate to admit that I believe her, but I do. I can’t say the same. We weren’t in a committed relationship. We were friends with benefits that met at the sex club where she bartends. I assumed she was fucking around the same way I was.

I blow out a breath. “I’ll still need those DNA results, but if he’s mine, I don’t want him going up for adoption.

” That doesn’t mean I know what the fuck I’m going to do.

Maybe a family member will know. I have six fucking siblings.

Someone might have some semblance of what to do, not that any of them have kids. Or maybe my parents will help me out.

I scratch that idea from my mind as soon as it enters.

I’ll figure it out.

My phone rings, and my father is calling—speak of the devil. I send it to voicemail.

“Stop calling the baby it. It’s a boy,” she says quietly. “His name is Jack, after Jack Dalton, my favorite football player of all time.”

A boy named Jack.

Named after my boss. The owner of the Vegas Aces. Her favorite football player…decidedly not me.

I never wanted kids. I never wanted commitment. I never wanted responsibility.

I just wanted to play football and live a life for myself.

I have no idea what to do here, but as I stare down at baby Jack, the boy who might be mine, something seems to shift. “I’ll give you money,” I blurt.

Her eyes whip up to mine.

“If it’s mine. If the DNA results say he’s mine, I’ll give you money.”

She purses her lips and shakes her head. “I don’t want your money. I’m not your problem. This kid, however, is.” She holds up the carrier for emphasis. “There’s, uh, there’s something else.”

My brows crash together. “What?”

She clears her throat, and her eyes edge toward Milton. She lowers her voice. “I was caught carrying an unlicensed concealed weapon by an undercover cop.”

“So?” I ask. “If it’s your first offense, you should be able to plea that down to a fine. Is that why you’re here? I just said I’d give you money.”

She shakes her head. “It’s not my first offense. I need to surrender tomorrow for the next two years.”

I suck in a sharp breath.

“I’ll sign over custody rights to you. I’d love to see him again when I get out if you’re okay with that.

I won’t try to take him from you. I don’t know what else to do, Dex.

” She whispers the last part through tears.

I’m not convinced she wants to give him up, but she truly does seem to be in a situation where I’m the only logical choice.

My phone starts ringing again. It’s my father. Again.

It’s like he knows. He’s pushing me to make a decision here.

I feel like I’m being pulled in opposite directions. The selfish side of me wants to tell her to get out and never come back. I was better off not knowing.

The other side of me, the one raised by the man who keeps calling me, wants to step up and be a man.

I just don’t know if I have it in me.

I let my phone ring, the blare of it piercing as it echoes through the lobby.

Before I know what I’m doing, I speak words that come from some place other than my brain. “I’ll have my lawyer draft up a contract. Did you plan on leaving him here with me today?”

She nods as she swipes a tear from her cheek. “I have some stuff out in my car. Food, diapers, that sort of thing. And I have paperwork.”

“I can send someone out to help,” Milton says quietly from behind his desk.

“Thank you,” she murmurs as she stares down at the baby. I see the love she has for him, for this baby boy who is a stranger to me but who has my blood running through his veins—we think—and I feel a strange surge of gratitude that she took care of him to this point.

I guess I have no other choice but to take it from here.