Page 28 of Wicked Little Secret

He stayed quiet, letting Nick process things.

“Is my half-brother?” His voice rose. “Are you telling me that I held your ex-girlfriend’s hand while she gave birth to my sibling? What the fuck, Dad? Were you going to tell any of us?”

Maverick stopped in his tracks and formed a ‘T’ with his hands. “Time out. First of all, I understand you’re upset, but watch your tone. I’m still your father. Secondly, she wasn’t my girlfriend, per se. But I did like her a lot.” He decided not to go into further detail about what had transpired between them. “And lastly, I had no idea she was pregnant until you sent that picture.”

“That’s why you came here right away.”

“Yeah.”

From the moment he’d seen her again, he was pulled to her. Just like he’d been the night they met, when she’d blown through the door at Flannigan’s like a hurricane and turned his world upside down.

Then he held his infant son against his chest and thought about how much he’d missed out on with Nick and Nash. That wasn’t happening this time. She might have thought she was getting a sperm donor that night, but she had another thing coming now. There was no way he was walking away. Not without a fight.

“Do you think she hired me because I’m your son?”

“I doubt she even knew.” Again, he didn’t want to air their dirty laundry—that they’d left the bar together an hour after meeting and got naked in a hotel room without even knowing each other’s last names. “She seemed pretty surprised to see me.”

“That’s true. And she never asked anything about you whenever I talked to her. I think if she were trying to get to you, she’d have found a way to bring you up at least once.”

“That’s not her style. If she wanted to talk to me, she would have come to me directly, not played some silly game and made my twenty-one-year-old son an intermediary.”

“Yeah, you’re right.” He chuckled. “Although I guess I still was the intermediary.”

“I guess so.”

They’d started walking again when Nick asked quietly, “So why didn’t she come to you?”

“I think she tried, but wires got crossed and we didn’t connect again. I think she took it as a sign that I wouldn’t be supportive.”

Nick snorted. “She doesn’t know you very well, huh?”

“Not yet.” But she was going to.

“So, what are you going to do, Dad?”

“I think…” He paused. What he was going to say was going to sound crazy, but he knew in his gut it was what he wanted. “I’m going to marry her.”

Nick came to an abrupt halt and turned to him. “What? You can’t be serious.”

Maverick stopped, too. “Dead serious.”

“She didn’t even tell you she was pregnant, Dad. What makes you think she’d even say yes?”

Doing his best Marlon Brando impression, Maverick replied, “I’m going to make her an offer she can’t refuse.”

****

Olivia

“Don’t wake her!” A hushed female voice pulled Olivia from her twilight sleep.

“I’m not going to! I just want to see my nephew!”

That voice she recognized as her twin’s.

That meant the other voice had to be his girlfriend Hope.

“And that’s going to wake her, dumbass!”

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