Page 33 of Bossy Trouble

“So,” he said. “You have a daughter.”

“Yes.” I raised my chin, expecting the accusations to start flying immediately.Why did you hide her from me? When did you have her in the first place?Whydid you have her?

“Why didn’t you tell me?”

“I didn’t see any reason to.” He’d made it very clear that he wanted no kids and even warned me during one of our hookups that if I ever tried to trap him, it would not work. Plus, Donovan as a father would be a disaster. He would be a cruel bully, the same way his father was with him. Garrett had told me some of the stories that Donovan relayed about his childhood, and it seemed brutal. His father never showed him any affection growing up and only saw Donovan as a ticket out of his debt and poverty. And what was worse was that Donovan didn’t even seem to have a problem with his childhood. He thought it was normal.

What if he wanted to raise Avery the same way?

I knew he wouldn’t want Avery either way, but he might want to take her away from me, just out of spite, to make me pay for an assumed slight.

No.I would fight him. Whatever it took, I wouldn’t let him have her.

Donovan might think I lost my fire, but when it came to Avery, I had fire in reserve.

Donovan’s eyes narrowed as if he didn’t quite like my last statement. I stiffened, waiting for the fight. He didn’t say anything for the longest time. And then, he nodded slightly as if digesting that piece of information.

“Who’s the father?”

The question knocked me for a loop. “I beg your pardon?”

He crossed his arms, leaning back against the wall with a vaguely annoyed look on his face. “I’m just curious. Which bastard knocked you up and then left you to take care of it all by yourself?”

Was he being serious?

I tried to read his expression for any trace of sarcasm, but there was none. Not even his trademark mocking smirk. He seemed to have asked the question with the genuine intent of getting an answer. He wanted to know who Avery’s father was.

Which meant he didn’t think it was him.

There wasn’t even a trace of suspicion in his gaze. It was like he hadn’t even considered the possibility that itcouldbe him.

But how? It should have been obvious. He was the only man I was sleeping with at the time of Avery’s conception. One of those times, we didn’t use a condom because we’d both been too drunk and horny to care. And then boom. Baby.

Not to mention Avery was the spitting image of him.

Or was she?

I recalled my daughter now while watching Donovan. Maybe that had changed. Sure, she bore his hair and eye color, but as she grew up, she wasn’t quite as tall as the doctors said she would be. In fact, she looked a little small for her age and could easily have been mistaken for a few years younger. In addition to that, her face shape and nose favored me.

So maybe it did make sense that Donovan didn’t know who she was.

Relief poured through me, and I felt the urge to burst out in hysterical laughter.

He still didn’t know, which meant that I still had the chance to set this right.

I needed to lie as if my life depended on it.

“You don’t know him,” I said, hoping he would drop it at that.

But of course, he was Donovan, so he didn’t.

“You have no clue who I do or don’t know,” Donovan said. “Give me a name. I might have heard of him.”

Yeah right. More likely, you’ll get your goons to hunt him down like a hound dog.“There’s no name, alright? He’s nobody. Just some asshole who broke my heart and left me.”

“You were in love with him?”

I glanced up at Donovan. I needed to convince him of the truth of my story since he was very good at knowing when I was lying, so I needed to tell him a story that was as close to the truth as possible.

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