Page 107 of Rule Breakers Fall Hardest

“Don’t hold your hand up to quiet my wife,” I snap at him before he can speak. “This is her home, and she was asking a polite question.”

Rosie presses her lips together, shooting me a soft, sad look.

Chagrined, he turns to Rosie. “I’m sorry. That was rude. No refreshments are necessary.” He clears his throat and narrows his eyes on me. “Now, what the hell is this?”

Across the room, Roman flops onto the couch, scooping up the remote.

I hold Sammy tighter against me and garner all the courage I can before I speak. “Dad, I’d like you to meet Sammy. This is my son.”

My dad looks up at the ceiling, then presses his fingers to his temples. “Unbelievable.” He turns to Rosie. “As angry as your dad is now, it’s nothing compared to how he’ll feel when he finds out you’ve been keeping this a secret.” He points back at the baby. “Now it makes sense why you two were so insistent on not coming home for Christmas.”

“Leave Rosie out of this,” I bite out through clenched teeth. “She hasn’t done anything wrong.”

“I beg to?—”

“The baby isn’t hers, Dad.”

A vein in his forehead pulses. “What? Who’s the mother?”

“I’ve got a lot to fill you in on.” My chest aches at the thought of all the details I’ll have to give him and how disappointed he’ll be in me. “We should probably take this slow.”

“I don’t have time for slow,” he grits out, sitting on the edge of the couch. “I might be dead by the time you finish.”

“Don’t joke about that,” I beg, my stomach bottoming out. The whole Thanksgiving fiasco still weighs heavily on me.

“Stop stalling.”

Rosie steps in close and holds her arms out to take Sammy. “You talk with your dad,” she says as I carefully hand him over. “I’ll take him upstairs. He probably needs a diaper change and a nap.”

“Thanks.” I pull her in close by her wrist and press a kiss to her temple.

Her breath catches, and she shoots a surprised look my way. If she thinks I’ve forgotten about what we were doing when I got that call last night, then she’s sorely mistaken.

I’m going to make Rosie Hendricks mine in every sense of the word.

“Start talking, kid,” my dad says, once again making me feel like a child.

I lean against the wall and cross my arms over my chest. It’s a classic defensive pose, but I can’t bring myself to care.

“Sammy’s mom was my professor last year.”

Before my dad has a chance to voice his disappointment, Roman bursts into uncontrollable laughter. “You would hook up with a professor. You always like to break the rules, big bro.” He cackles some more. “Was she at least a hot young professor?”

“Thirty-six,” I mutter, looking down at my feet. “And yeah, she was hot.”

Not nearly as beautiful as Rosie, though. As if anyone could top her.

“She never told me she was pregnant, though. She was on campus at the beginning of the year showing off her baby, and I just knew he was mine.” I shrug. “She denied it, so I got a lawyer involved and?—”

“Please tell me you reached out to Nina Voss,” my dad interjects.

I chuckle. “Yeah. Nina’s been incredible. We established paternity and have been working toward a custody agreement, but…” I take a deep breath. This part is hard, since I’m still processing it all myself and figuring out how this will affect Sammy as he grows up. “Danielle and her husband were killed last night. Sammy was in the car with them when it crashed, but somehow, he came out of it without a single injury. For now, I have temporary guardianship, and we’re hopeful that they don’t have family members who will fight me for permanent custody. Nina says I have a good case since I’m the biological father and we’ve already turned in the evidence to confirm it, and because I was already trying to get shared custody.”

“The baby mama is dead?”

“Roman!” Dad scolds.

My baby brother rears back. “What? This whole thing is crazy.”

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