Page 53 of Daddy's Dirty Little Secret

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XANDER

Ihadn’t meant to fall asleep. The car was like a furnace by the time I came to—stifling hot, my shirt clinging to my back, the leather seat radiating warmth through my jeans. I pushed the door open partway and leaned against it, blinking against the sunlight that had shifted to a hazy late-afternoon angle. The windows were already down, but it hadn’t helped. The air inside was stale and dense, the kind of heat that clings to your skin even after you step out of it.

I sat up straighter and squinted down the street as a car turned the corner and headed toward the driveway. My pulse jumped before my brain caught up. It was Amelia’s car. My hand went to the door handle, breath already caught halfway in my chest. She’d finally come home. I didn’t care what she had to say—I just needed to see her step out of that car and know she was okay.

But it wasn’t her.

The driver’s side opened too hard, and Laurence stumbled out. He looked wrecked. He barely got the door closed before pacing in a frantic, disjointed loop near the curb. I was already out of the car and walking toward him when he saw me.

“Xander—God, okay. Okay. You’re here. That’s good.” His voice was too loud, too fast. “I’ve been driving since this morning. I just got back. They let me see her. I saw Amelia.”

I stopped short. “What do you mean you saw her?”

“She’s alive, but she’s not free. They’ve got her. Hayes has her. I went to Vegas. They brought me into this room—I don’t even know where—and I tried to offer them everything I had. Twenty thousand in cash. That’s all I could get. I got the car insurance money. Took from the warehouse job. Emptied the last of my savings.”

He kept pacing. He wasn’t making sense.

“They laughed at me,” he said. “Said it was a down payment on a funeral. I told them I’d get more, I told them I had someone?—”

“What are you talking about?” I snapped. “Where is she?”

“They’re holding her. And they know. They know, Xander. Hayes told me himself. They were in her apartment. They went through her things. He said…he said congratulations.”

I stared at him, not following.

He froze. “She’s pregnant. With your baby.”

I stepped forward. “What?”

“She’s pregnant,” he repeated, eyes wide. “And Hayes knows. He saw the appointment card. Her vitamins. Her mail. He said it like it was a game.”

“You’re not making any sense,” I said. “Why would she be with Hayes? Why are you the one coming out of her car?”

“She came to my house,” he said. “Found my emails. Started asking questions. And when I didn’t come home, they got to her first. She’s being used, Xander. As leverage. Because of me. Because I owe Hayes a hell of a lot more than twenty thousand dollars.”

“You’re rambling.”

“I know,” he said, voice cracking. “But she’s in danger. Real danger. And it’s not just her anymore.”

My fists clenched before I even realized they had. I stepped into his path and grabbed him by the shoulders. “You’re telling me you left town with her car, left her unprotected, and now you’re standing here rambling about cash and Vegas and leverage like I’m supposed to know what any of this means?”

“I didn’t mean for it to happen like this,” he said. “I didn’t think Hayes would go this far. I didn’t even know about the baby until?—”

I didn’t think. I just reacted.

The slap landed hard across his face, my hand stinging from the contact. He staggered a half step back, blinking at me, stunned.

“Get it together,” I said. “Right now.”

He brought a hand to his cheek but didn’t swing back. “I deserved that,” he muttered. “I do. But we don’t have time. They gave me forty-eight hours. Less now.”

“To do what?”

“Come up with half a million dollars,” he said. “Or she disappears.”

My mouth went dry. I couldn’t feel the heat anymore. Couldn’t hear anything outside the sound of my own breath and the blood pulsing behind my eyes.

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