Page 42 of Vegas Baby!

“What the fuck are you doing back here?”

Rage spiraled through me. I had managed to avoid Andrew Lawson the rest of the convention, but I wasn’t so lucky now. “Speak for yourself.”

“Where is she? She hasn’t answered any of my messages.”

“Ava’s not your business anymore.”

“She’s carrying my child,” he hissed. “She’s always going to be my fucking business.”

“No, she’s not. Now get out of my face.”

Lawson growled, slamming his palms down on my desk. “Where. Is. She?”

“If she wants you to know where she is, she’ll tell you herself. Leave her alone.”

“You really had to fuck everything up, didn’t you? Couldn’t just shut your goddamn mouth.”

“You’d better not be trying to twist this around and makeyouraffairmyfault.”

“Everything was fine before you stuck your fucking nose into things.”

Was this guy for real?

“That’s a pretty delusional version of fine. Cheating on your wife with a woman who has no idea you’re married? Bringing another kid into the world when you’ve already proven that you don’t give a shit about providing the ones you have a happy home?”

Lawson seethed, staring at me as if by look alone he could make me burst into flames. “You don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“It doesn’t take a genius to connect those dots.”

“Are you going to tell my wife?”

“Youshould be telling her. I don’t know her.”

He looked relieved at that, which only told me he definitely wasn’t going to tell her. “I’ll admit, Ava has a tempting little cunt, but that doesn’t mean you can show up and steal her.”

I moved without thinking, pain shooting up my arm as my fist connected to his face. His bellow drew attention from everyone nearby, including the CEO, who had chosen that absolutely perfect timing to come see me.

“Williams, what the fuck?”

I shook out my hand, my boss walking past me to Lawson.

“Lawson, what’s going on?”

“Just this goddamn nepo baby upstart assaulting me.”

I growled, the edges of my vision flaring red. The only advantage I had ever gotten in this job was when my father had gotten me an internship when I was nineteen. No one seemed to give a shit that our boss had fired his own son for incompetence and didn’t give a damn about nepotism if you couldn’t do your job. They saw that connection and assumed that was the only reason I had climbed as high as I did. “That’s not what’s happening.”

“Well, one of you had better hurry the hell up and explain,” my boss snapped, “or I’m calling security.”

“I uncovered Lawson’s affair and he’s pissed I won’t let him harass the woman he lied to.”

They didn’t need to know who Ava was to me. The fact that Lawson would do this to anyone was a permanent black mark on his record for me.

“Christ.” My boss sighed. “I don’t need to remind you that we have morality clauses in our employment contracts.”

Lawson paled.

“I don’t care what you do in your personal life, but you’d better not be breaking any laws. Keep yourself under control or I’ll have no choice but to exercise that clause.”

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