Total pages in book: 85
Estimated words: 81333 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 407(@200wpm)___ 325(@250wpm)___ 271(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 81333 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 407(@200wpm)___ 325(@250wpm)___ 271(@300wpm)
“Trust me when I say I don’t want to do this.” Her confidence wobbles. “I need to sit down.” She moves quickly across the balcony and slides into a chair next to a small glass table. “You probably should sit down too.”
My stomach bottoms out, dropping to my feet, as I drag myself to the chair opposite her. My skin is coated with a cold sweat, every nightmare I’ve ever contemplated rolling through me like it’s three in the morning and I’m lonely.
“What the hell is going on?” I drop into the seat, wiping the sweat off my palms.
“I’m pregnant, Branch.”
Falling back into the chair, I blow out a sigh of relief that it wasn’t some STD talk. I hate those. The last time that happened a girl tried to extort me for ten thousand dollars until I volunteered to show her my regular screening and that I’ve never had any sort of venereal disease. Ever.
“What did he say?” I ask.
“Who?”
“Callum.”
She slow-blinks. “Callum?”
“You haven’t told him yet?” I ask, watching her work through a battery of emotions. My own are a little whirled as I realize my lusting over this woman has probably just had to come to a screeching halt. She has bigger fish to fry than my cock . . . and that’s pretty fucking big.
“It’ll be all right,” I say, as encouraging as I can while setting aside the fact that this is not how I’d hoped this conversation was going to go. “He’ll come around. But do you want some advice?”
She slow-blinks again, this time with her mouth hanging open. I take that as a yes.
“Take charge right away. Don’t let him start calling the shots or thinking he gets to say shit about your life.”
“Branch . . .”
We sit across the table, the moon shining just enough to illuminate her pretty features and I resent the fact that Callum is the one that spent that kind of intimate time with her. Fucker didn’t even appreciate it.
A wash of fear trickles across her face. My heart clenches, the do-gooder that’s buried so far below the surface I don’t see it much chooses this moment to come forward.
“You need help telling Finn? He’s gonna be pissed, Layla.”
“I know,” she squeaks.
“No, I don’t think you do,” I laugh, just imagining my best friend’s response to this little piece of news. “He might drive to Columbus tonight and kick the shit out of him.”
“Branch . . .”
“I’ll make sure he gets bailed out.”
“Branch.” This time it’s a command, a warning to stop talking and listen. “I need to talk to you.”
“We’re talking, Sunshine.”
Her throat moves with a hard swallow. She leans back in her chair, combing a hand through the side of her hair. “Um, so . . .” She releases a breath. “The baby. Um . . . Branch, the baby isn’t Callum’s.”
“Then whose is it?” I watch her face and realize . . . I’m better off not knowing. With a need to get off of the balcony and into the comfort of a mass of drunk bodies, I start to stand. “You know what, I don’t want to know.”
“The baby is yours.” She blurts the words like it’s a burden under the weight of which she’s being crushed. That if she just chucks it into the world, gets the offending words out of her mouth, she can breathe.
I stop dead in my tracks.
Replaying the statement, it makes no more sense than it did the first time.
She looks at me like she’s watching a man learn his fate after being tried for the most heinous of crimes. It’s a mixture of fear at the reaction, but also an acute curiosity.
“What did you just say?” I ask.
“The baby is yours, Branch.”
“What the fuck are you talking about?” I scoff, my chair going sailing back and smashing against the glass. “The baby is mine? Your baby is mine? No way.”
“I’m pregnant and the only person I’ve slept with is you.”
I laugh because that’s all I can do short of exploding everything within reach.
This has to be some kind of sick joke or game or attempt to piss me off for not calling her. That’s happened before, but not to this extent. Still, it’s possible.
“Layla, really,” I say, taking a deep breath and trying to calm down. “If you’re pregnant—congratulations, but the baby cannot be mine.”
“I know it’s hard to believe—”
“Hard to believe? You know what’s hard to believe? That it’s you pulling this shit. I’ve had a lot of things pinned on me, but, believe it or not, never a kid. I never dreamed it would be you.”
The sky looks so dark, so foreboding as I look into it, wondering how the fuck I got here. How did I give this woman enough of a comfort level around me to claim she’s pregnant?