Page 60 of Silver Fox's Secret Baby

I don’t know what to do.

God, my poor friend. Poorus. I respond quickly with my own drama, hoping it might balance things out.

Malcolm wants Infinium.

He wants to destroy me. After he’s already destroyed so much.

I don’t know if I’ve ever met anyone more selfish in my life.

A few seconds later, Kent sends back a simple

…

My friend needs me. That much is clear.

Come by at noon for lunch. We’ll talk.

When Kent arrives at my office, he looks like an absolute wreck. It’s like he’s gone gray overnight. I don’t think I’ve ever seen him unshaven in my life. He looks at the roomful of lawyers and looks like he might shrink into his suit jacket and disappear.

“Hey,” I say, standing from my desk.

“Hey,” he replies, forcing his hands into his pockets.

I scan the room and then wave my hand. “Clear the room.”

The lawyers, all of whom have been working overtime since yesterday afternoon, skitter away like marbles in a ring until Kent and I are the only ones left in my office.

Thirty years. We’ve known each other for thirty years.Overthirty years if we want to be exact about it. Even though he looks a mess, I still see the eighteen-year-old guy playing pool in the frat house with a carefree smile. Little did he know then what we’d be up against today.

I go to my friend and wrap my arms around him. We hug tightly. We’re not the most touchy-feely people, but we are when it counts. And both of us need this more than anything.

“God, what am I going to do?” Kent wails into my chest.

“It’s okay,” I say, patting his back. “It’s…”

It all flashes through my mind at once. I’ve been a traitor. I’ve been callous and underhanded, pursuing his daughter, pretending I can’t hold myself back.

What the fuck kind of man can’t hold himself back? Can’t control himself? Harley might be the most beautiful woman on earth. She may be making me have feelings I haven’t had in years. And I might want her with every fiber of my being.

But it’s wrong. I can’t cross the line again.

If Kent ever found out, it would ruin him. I know it would. I could do my best to keep it under wraps, pray no one would ever catch on. But even the thought of that disgusts me. It makes me sound like Malcolm.

Although, unlike Malcolm, I’d never revel in Kent’s pain.

“Come on. Sit down,” I say, wrapping my arm around his shoulder and leading him to the sitting area in my office. “Let’s order some food and talk.”

Kent sniffles and collapses onto the couch. He rubs his face. “I don’t know, Grant. I don’t know.”

“Let me get you some water.” We might both be suffering, but he’s had to come face to face with his ex-wife, the mother of his children. The woman he thought he’d grow old with. I thought that too. They seemed to be made for each other from the moment they met. In fact, they were married with Dana on the way before graduation. I thought they were crazy, and yet it made complete sense.

Then, she destroyed so many years of happy memories with her selfishness. Only to show up a decade later to tear the wound open again.

I pour him a glass and hand it to him. Kent chugs it almost in its entirety. “God, do you have anything stronger?” he asks.

I chuckle. “I have them bringing something up with lunch.”

He sighs. “Perfect.”

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