Page 84 of Stone Rules

I look at Charlie and raise my eyebrows.

“Best friends,” she says, as if that explains everything.

“When will the guys be here?” I ask Piper.

She checks her watch. “They should be here soon. Mason said they were on their way over.”

Good. I’m eager to get this stuff out of here and take her home with me so we can start our life together. So we can christen every damn room of the penthouse.

Charlie is worried about us living together and working together. Maybe it’ll be too much togetherness, she said. I think she’s wrong. My grandparents did it. My parents do it. We can handle it. She thinks we will run out of things to talk about and get bored with each other. I think we could be marooned on a desert island and that still wouldn’t happen. We’ve spent hours together every day for months now. And even then, I could swear most nights when we part, one of us calls the other because we simply had more to say.

No, this is going to be great. I can feel it.

There is a knock on the door.

“It’s open!” Charlie shouts.

Another knock follows.

Charlie gets up and opens the door. “You guys don’t need to kno—”

“Charlie Tate?” the stranger at the door asks.

“Yes,” she says.

He hands her an envelope. “You’ve been served,” he says, before turning to walk away.

“Served?” She looks at what he deposited in her hand. She closes the door and walks over to the couch. “I wonder if this is more estate stuff or something.”

She opens the envelope and pulls out the papers, but then she drops them on the floor when her hand comes up to cover her scream. “Oh, God, no!”

Piper and I immediately join her on the couch. “What is it?” Piper asks.

Charlie grabs her belly protectively and my heart lunges into the pit of my stomach. I pick up the papers, hoping I’m not going to see what I think I’m going to see. Only when I do see it, it’s even worse than what I was imagining.

“That mother fucker,” I say, not even bothering to read it all before I pull out my phone and make a call. “John, this is Ethan. I’m sorry to bother you on a Sunday, but I’ve got a real problem here.” I walk into the bedroom and shut the door so Charlie doesn’t have to hear me. “The short of it is, there is a very small chance that my fiancée is pregnant with another man’s child. I’m not going to get into specifics, but the asshole just served her papers demanding a paternity test. It says he’ll be suing for full custody if he’s the father. There is a bunch of other legal crap I haven’t read through yet. Can you help me?”

“Of course, Ethan. Jesus, I can’t imagine what you guys must be going through. If you can snap pictures of the pages and email them to me, I’ll take a quick look and call you back with my initial thoughts. Tomorrow I can get some of my people on it to help us fill in any blanks.”

“Thanks, John. I owe you one.”

“No, you don’t. Your office has helped me out on several occasions. This is just payback. I’ll call you back as soon as I’ve read through everything.”

I take careful pictures of the six-page document and send them to John. Then I head back into the living room to find two teary-eyed women being consoled by Mason and Griffin.

From the looks on their faces, they already know the gist of it. “I was just on the phone with my attorney. I sent him a copy of the documents. He will call me back within the hour.” I get on my knees in front of Charlie. “This is not happening. Do you understand me? I don’t care what that asshole says, he is not getting custody of this baby.”

The entire time I was on the phone with John, I was wondering why a jerk like Thompson would even bother. But I remember what Melissa told me and it all makes sense. “He’s after money, that’s all. He’s a scam artist, Charlie. I saw it in his eyes last week at the park when he found out who your mother was and when his friend made a comment about how rich you must be. That’s all he wants. Either he’s looking for a payoff or he’s going after the baby so he can get child support. Either way, he’s looking at this as a meal ticket.”

“You saw this guy in the park?” Griffin asks.

“Yeah. Last Monday,” I say. “He was playing football and the ball almost hit Charlie. It was so random I can’t even believe it. Over eight fucking million people in the city and we have to run intohim.”

“You guys have enough to deal with, Ethan,” Mason says. “Why don’t you pack up whatever clothes Charlie needs and head to your place. We can take care of this.”

I look around at all the furniture and then I look at Charlie. I know she needs me more than the guys do. “Yeah. Thanks.”

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