Page 54 of Baby By my Best Friend's Daddy

I blinked at Brad and stepped back, breaking our dance.

“Why did you come with me tonight?” I asked. We stood in the middle of the dancefloor, now, the couples moving awkwardly around us. “You didn’t come here to be nice, to be a good friend. You came here to lecture me.”

“I’m not trying to lecture you,” Brad said. “I’m trying to make you understand why this is a bad idea.”

I was suddenly furious. “Who are you to tell me what to do?” I tried to reel in my anger so I didn’t make a scene. “I’m going to sit down now.”

I turned around and left the dancefloor. Brad followed me to our table.

“Beck,” he said, catching up with me. “Be realistic. This thing with my dad is never going to work. At some point, you’re going to realize it’s not what you want and then you’ll leave him and he’ll be devastated. He’s the kind of guy who wants to dream big, and you feeding into that is letting him envision a life that’s not going to work.”

“How dare you!” I cried out. “You have no right to talk to me about what I might and might not do in the future, and you have no right to dictate who I’m supposed to love. You were the one who told me to start dating.”

“I didn’t mean him!”

“It doesn’t matter what you meant! It matters how I feel.”

“You’re not one of us, Beck.” Brad clapped, and it felt like a physical punch. “He built himself up, and you’re just going to drag him down with an age gap scandal, a middle-class nurse who tried to live it up for a while. When you’re done, and he’s all chewed up, you’ll walk away, and it won’t change your life, but he’ll stay behind in the wake of your destruction, and I won’t let you do it.”

I gasped, shocked at Brad’s venom. I’d never seen this side of him.

“What happened to me being your plus one, so I’m one of them, too? What happened to you not giving a shit about who I am and where I come from? I’ve been a better friend to you than any of the people in your circles, and you want to tell me I don’t belong?”

“Friendship is one thing, dating is something else.”

I shook my head. Blood rushed in my ears, and I felt sick. My stomach turned, and I wanted to throw up.

“I can’t believe I’ve never seen it before,” I said.

“What?”

“That you’re a Class-A dick.” I glared at him.

“I guess that’s my cue to go,” Brad said.

“You’re just leaving me here?”

“I’m sure you can find your own way home. Why don’t you call my dad? Bet he’d be willing to give you aride.”

I gasped, shocked.

Brad turned on his heel and marched away, leaving me alone in the middle of the room. It felt like all eyes were on me. When I glanced around, a few people looked at me. How much of the fight had they heard?

I forced a smile and tried to swallow the lump in my throat. I tried to breathe through the panic that made my chest feel tight, but it only got worse.

Finally, I couldn’t take it anymore. When everyone was called to their tables so the speeches could begin, I slipped outside into the cool night air and hailed a cab.

16

LANDON

Iwaitedoutsideherapartment for Rebecca. She wasn’t home—I’d forgotten about the damn fundraising thing with Brad, and now that I knew she was out with him, that only pissed me off more.

When would they be back? I had no clue, but I would wait here until she came back. I needed to talk to her.

When a cab pulled up, she climbed out and looked a vision in a red dress that traced her every curve.

She paid the driver and turned, stopping in her tracks when she saw me.

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