Page 35 of Accidental Vegas Vows

He slipped past me before I could work up the nerve.

“Auntie Grace, look! Stairs!”

She chuckled as she stepped in behind him. “Exciting!”

He raced up them, and already my mind started to race, thinking about everything I’d left out upstairs that he could get into. Everything he could question. Everything that absolutely should have been put away before a child rummaged around.

“What the fuck do you mean none of his stuff has arrived?” she hissed.

I turned back to her as I closed the front door. “You weren’t supposed to bring him until next Saturday. Everything I bought is arriving this week. I have nothing, Grace.”

“You didn’t think to purchase things the moment you found out about him?” She crossed her arms over her chest, her name tag squishing against her breast.

“I didn’t know what to fucking buy,” I spat. “It’s not like you supplied me with a list.”

“Google exists, Damien.”

“Right, sorry, next time I’ll just search up what to buy to prepare for a five-year-old son you’ve never met coming to live with you for the rest of his adolescence. I’m sure there are loads of articles about that specific scenario.” I reached for the bottle of whiskey I’d left on the couch and the unlit pack of cigars beside it, instinct kicking in and telling me to clean up the things that were definitely not kid-friendly.

“Jesus, you couldn’t even clean up?”

She trailed behind me as I brought the alcohol and cigars into the kitchen. “I didn’t know he was coming today.”

“So you just live like this?—”

“Why did you change the days, Grace?” I snapped, spinning on my heel to face her. She was significantly shorter than me, her round face and dark brown eyes reminding me far too much of her sister. If only she’d gotten the curly hair gene. “You knew damn well that I wouldn’t be ready. Two weeks isn’t a lot of time to prep, and cutting it short by an entire week… Did you want him to arrive like this? With me unready and a house that doesn’t feel welcoming to him?”

“I need to work this week.” She shrugged as if it was the most nonchalant thing she could say.

“So do I! I run a fucking company?—”

“Why are you yelling at my auntie?”

My blood ran cold as I turned to the second stairway that deposited into the kitchen. Noah stood there, toy car still in hand and a blanket from my upstairs guest room in the other, his big eyes watering. I barely knew the kid, had barely had a second to even comprehend what was happening, but my chest blossomed so Goddamn painfully for him that it nearly had my knees buckling. “I’m sorry.”

Grace glanced back at him. “It’s okay, bud. We’re just having a discussion. Why don’t you go play with your car in the living room?”

“Where’s that?”

I cleared my throat. “That big room by the front door,” I said.

Noah nodded once and took off.

“Let me make one thing clear, Damien,” Grace said, her voice dropping in volume as she turned back to me. “I’m not happy about this. Any of it. I don’t understand why my sister left him to you and not me. Bet your bottom dollar that I’ll be filing for custody the instant I can get the paperwork done.”

Well. There it was.

She had done this on purpose. She’d flustered me, manipulated the situation, and got herself a solid case.

“You… you haven’t even given me a chance with him,” I sputtered, disbelief wracking my brain as I tried to wrap my mind around what was happening here. “You can’t just base my abilities as a father around ten fucking minutes at six in the morning, unprepared and out of my depth.”

“No, I can’t. But you’re one of the richest men in this country and you couldn’t even prep for a kid in a week. You have no experience with children. You’ve never met him. I’m a pediatrician, Damien, and I’ve been in his life since the moment he was born.” She turned away from me, angry footsteps heading toward the living room and, I imagined, the door.

“How am I supposed to get the upper leg here when I didn’t even know he existed?” I followed her, keeping my words as quiet as I could with Noah listening in from his spot on the couch. He vroomed the toy car across the cushions.

Grace stopped before Noah, pressing a kiss into the top of his curly hair. “I’ve got to go, Noah. I’ll come check on you soon, okay? You can call me whenever you want, just ask Dam—your dad.”

“Stay,” he pouted, his eyes glossing over again as if they were endless puddles. “I don’t want you to go.” Oh my God, he doesn’t understand. She can’t just leave him like this.

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