Page 164 of Offside Devil

I want to tell Daniel about the phone call and the man looking for Mira, but I don’t know enough about it myself. I trust Daniel, but if Mira is in danger, I’m not going to be the person who puts her even more at risk.

I shrug. “That’s the question. I don’t know. All I know is she told me and Taylor very different versions of her childhood.”

“I can ask Taylor about what she knows?” Daniel offers. “Maybe this is a misunderstanding and she can fill in some gaps.”

I don’t know about that. The gap between having an abusive father and not knowing your dad at all is pretty damn wide.

I wave him off. “Don’t bring Taylor into it. I’ll talk to Mira myself.”

Before Daniel can argue, the women round the corner and Mira drops into her chair looking a bit more chipper than when she left.

Daniel presses his nose to Taylor’s neck and inhales. “You smell amazing. Did you put perfume on or something?”

“What happens in the ladies’ room stays in the ladies’ room,” Taylor chastises. “We are not at liberty to divulge our secrets—right, Mira?”

Mira looks sidelong at me and zips her smirking red lips closed. “I’ll carry them with me to the grave.”

66

ZANE

The last time I talked to Paige, she was eight months pregnant.

I’ve done the math in my head a million times since I found Aiden on my doorstep. Each time, hoping I’m off somewhere. That I carried a number wrong or calculated the wrong year.

But no—Paige was eight months pregnant, and I told her I wanted nothing to do with her.

To be fair, I didn’t know she was pregnant.

To be even fairer, I meant it: I wanted absolutely nothing to do with her.

“Come on, Z,” she purred over the phone. “Let’s meet for a quick lunch. Or dinner. If it goes well, maybe dessert.”

My skin crawled. It had been seven months since I’d seen her, and she was finally out of my system. Whatever hold she had on me was gone. All I could see now was the damage she’d left in her wake.

“I’m done with you, Paige. We aren’t meeting up.”

“I was kidding.” She sighed dramatically. “God, you can’t take a joke anymore.”

Only because Paige wasn’t joking. If we met up, she’d try to get back with me, even if just for the night. She couldn’t help herself—she was an approval junkie as much as an actual junkie.

“Please,” she begged. “There’s something I need to tell you. It’s big. It changes things for the two of us, and you deserve to know.”

How many times had I fallen for that?

It’s important, Z.

Zane, I need you.

You can’t leave me like this!

It’s not. She doesn’t. And I can.

“If you call me again, I’ll file a restraining order,” I growled. “I lost enough of myself being with you, Paige. I’m finally on the right track, and I’m not going to let you fuck it up.”

“It’s not like I tied you down and shot you up! I didn’t force you to do a damn thing! You did it because you wanted to. You were with me because you wanted to be with me.”

“And now, I don’t,” I said evenly. “I never want to see or hear from you again. Have a nice life.”

---