Page 74 of Secret Baby for the Boss

“This isn’t about pride,” I defended.

“No, you’re right,” Bas said.

“It’s fear,” Chaz added. “And you have every right to be scared.”

“Just don’t let the past affect your future. Because if you do that, you’ll never be happy.”

I groaned. I hated it when my brothers made sense. Especially Bas. He used to be the idiot little brother who fucked around and never took anything seriously. For him to give me sage life advice now proved how much he’d grown. And how much I wasn’t superior to him, as I’d once believed.

I guess none of us were invincible. None of us was safe from heartbreak. And none of us were so good at shit that we couldn’t do with some advice once in a while.

“Thanks, guys,” I finally said.

Bas and Chaz both nodded and stood.

“We have to get back to our own offices,” Chaz said. “We just wanted to check in.”

“Hang in there, man,” Bas said. “It always gets worse before it gets better. But it does get better.”

I hoped he was right.

After they left, I sighed and stared at my shut laptop.

Following my heart wasn’t all that easy. I loved Emily. There—I’d said it. But what if things didn’t work out? What if I got hurt again? I didn’t have what it took to go through another divorce. Brooke had damn near sunk me and taken everything I had.

But Emily wasn’t like Brooke, was she? She’d never wanted anything from me, not really. She’d postponed my designs to take on another client when she’d found Mrs. Collier. If she’d wanted my money, would she have done that?

What if Chaz and Bas were right—I had measured Emily according to what Brooke had done?

That wasn’t fair. Not on any of us.

And that gave Brooke way too much power over my life.

The more I thought about it, the more I realized I was letting all of this happen. Chaz had told me once I was allowing people to use me, and I hadn’t got what he meant. I cared about my tenants and understood that life got hard.

But it wasn’t hard for everyone.

I stood, determined, and left my office.

When I buzzed Brooke’s intercom, I looked into the camera that would show her my face, and a moment later, the gates to her large property opened. I drove in and parked in front of the front door.

She opened the door herself, leaned seductively against the doorpost, and smiled.

“It’s good to see you, babe.”

“Let’s cut the crap, okay?” I asked.

Brooke frowned, her smile slipping away.

“What?”

“I’m cutting you off.”

She gasped. “What!?”

“You heard me. You’ve used enough of my money for far too long, and I’m done.”

“You can’t do that. We have a court agreement—”

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