Page 45 of The Billionaire & the Nanny: Part 4

But then, I see who it is.

I’ll never forget the fucker’s face. I saw it one time when he came to pick up Evie at her home while I was there having a drink with her. He glared at me like I didn’t belong, like I needed to get the fuck away from his woman, but she was never his woman. Real men don’t leave their women during times of need, don’t deny them or refuse to care for their infant sons. Real men step up to the plate.

“Where is he?” Raymond Silas shouts, his deep voice bouncing off the walls. He’s drunk and he drove here drunk, too. What a loser. But suddenly, I realize the very grave danger about to befall this room of people. Raymond Silas’s gaze zeroes in on me across the room. He points. “There he is. Where’s my son?”

If a tiny speck of dust fell from the gilded chandeliers to the parquet floors at this very moment, we would all hear it. Fifty or more pairs of eyes all fall on me. And somehow, I have to respond.

The blood pump inside my chest feels like it’s about to explode, and when Roper himself looks at me then back at Raymond then back at me, I know my life’s about to implode.

“What do you mean, Ray?” I ask, shoving my hands in my pockets. I stand there, waiting, as he breaks from of the men holding his arms and comes toward me.

“You know what I mean, Hardwin. Don’t be a dick. Where’s my son? Where’s Liam?”

I see. Raymond Silas thought that Liam would be here tonight, having caught wind of the big celebration through the grapevine, I’m sure. As an ad exec for another company, news travels fast, but no one is more surprised than I am when he glowers down at me in front of everyone and declares, “This guy’s not the father of that boy.”

“Hey, Silas, go the fuck home,” someone says.

“Let’s hear the man speak,” someone else declares.

“Hardwin, you best plead your case,” Roper stutters. His cigar smoke encircles my head. I want to vomit. I feel like I’m in Gone With The Wind, standing in an antebellum mansion with a bunch of aging men who all think they know what’s best for me.

“Ah, the opportunist finally arrives,” I say with an easy smile. “I was wondering how long before you showed up. Where’s your proof, Silas?”

“I’ll get your proof, Hardwin, just as soon as I see my son.”

“Liam will never be your son,” I tell him. “You’re just trying to wedge yourself into this family, but you had your chance, Silas. You ruined it.”

“Keep telling your lies that you swept in and rescued Evie after a broken heart I caused, Hardwin, but you and I both know the truth—I’m the father of that baby—and Evie told me to leave.”

Is that true? It can’t be. Evie swore Ray was the one who left her. Would she have really broken up with him then asked me to marry her? I know she had feelings for me that I couldn’t reciprocate, but she never would’ve trapped me that way.

Would she?

“This guy,” Raymond says, pointing to me, and teetering across the floor to Roper. “Is a fraud, sir. He never loved your daughter, only married her because she didn’t want me after I lost my position at Bernfeld Agency. She was all about the money—that bitch.”

I lunge at him. I don’t know what possesses me but nobody talks about Evie that way, even if he might be right about the way things went down between them. Grabbing him by the collar, I spit expletives in his face, as calmly as one can without offending the older generation in the room. “I don’t care who left whom…you don’t ever call Evie a bitch. Now, go.” I toss him until he falls on the floor, and he has to scramble to stand back up. “Get the fuck out of here.”

“You were never married, Hardwin. I’ve done my homework.” Then, to the entire crowd with his hand up in triumph. “They were never married!” Laughing like a loon, he wipes blood from his tongue. “A fraud, sir. I’m Liam’s father, and I’ll prove it. Sorry to ruin your evening.”

Finally, Raymond leaves, and I’m left without breath, without a leg to stand on, and completely blind-sided. How could that asshole do this to me? How could he come back after all this time and claim ownership over Liam? He’ll have to fucking kill me first before taking back my son.

That’s right—my son.

He could’ve come back sooner, he could’ve worked things out with Evie, he could’ve done any number of things. Instead, he claims paternity on the very night Roper’s to sign the company over to me?

Yeah, I call bullshit.

But there’s only one way to know for sure, and it’s sitting at home in my night stand. I haven’t had the courage to look through it since her death. All her last moments, her last conversations, her last messages just sitting there in a time capsule. Evie’s phone. I have to look through it and find out the truth. Did she push Raymond out of her life to get to me, like he claims? Or is Ray the opportunist I’ve always known him to be?

I leave the house without signing any papers, as multiple people come after me.

“Leave me alone,” I call, throwing my hand behind me. The waiting Lyft driver scrambles to attention and opens the door for me.

“Hardwin!” The old man’s voice calls after me, weaker than I’ve ever heard it. “Is it true, Kase?”

I might be a number of things, but I’m not a coward, so I turn around and face him. I’m also not a liar—only lied for Evie, because she desperately needed my help, and in her eyes, I saw my mother who’d also been abandoned by her family for having a child out of wedlock. I look Roper in the eye and tell him, “It’s true.”

He sputters, and I leave, his coughs fading behind me.

No wonder Evie couldn’t bear the thought of having a baby without the façade of marriage. Roper can barely handle the news. The baby might not be mine biologically, but I am Liam’s father. More than that piece of shit ever was, and I’ll fight tooth and nail to make sure it stays that way.

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