Page 76 of Her Billionaire Bargain (Kensington Square)

I took a bolstering breath and said in an undertone, “I kind of slept with Shelby.”

She sighed. “I am terribly shocked.”

“I know, okay? In my defense, she asked me out, not the other way around. I tried to keep the date platonic.”

She snorted out a laugh as I plugged my opposite ear so I could hear her over the melee in the bar. “You’ve never kept anything platonic. And women definitely do not want to keep it platonic with you, either. Dexterous, you’re sweet and adventurous in a non-annoying way and rich and you look like a walking orgasm. No woman wants a platonic night with you, sorry to say. If they ask you out, they want what you have to give.”

“You didn’t,” I reminded her.

“I never asked you out. I knew what I’d get, and I value your friendship too much to play fast and loose with it.”

“You do?”

There was a shuffling noise and my mom’s voice came on the line. “She does. And she damn well should. Now who is this woman who only wants you for sex?”

I braced my chin in my hand. “Why are you listening to our conversation?”

“How else am I going to know anything? God knows you won’t tell me.”

“You expect me to tell my mother who I’m having sex with at my age?”

Pres leaned around Bishop, his brows lifting higher by the second. “Who are you talking to?”

“Our mother,” I mouthed.

He held out a hand for my phone. Grateful for the reprieve, I handed it to him.

“Hi, Mom. No, he’s fine. Just falling for someone for the first time, and he didn’t even want to drink so you know it’s serious.”

I dropped my head in my hands and considered changing my fledgling no-alcohol stance with the quickness.

“He’s not sick. No, I’m sure. Hang on.” Preston pressed my phone to his shoulder. “Are you feverish?” he questioned.

I groaned. Loudly. “No.”

“He’s not sick, Mom. Oh, come on, it isn’t a crisis. It was bound to happen someday. He spent so much time on the open market, odds were eventually he’d find her. Or him. Whatever. Not judging. No, it’s not a him. She’s actually a single mom. Yeah. I know, right? Into the deep end with the first stroke.”

They continued discussing me as if I wasn’t sitting right there while Bishop patted my back sympathetically until his own phone went off and he forgot all about me.

I switched to pattinghisback as he barked questions at his caller and sucked down air. Preston turned his back on his best friend to continue talking about how I was so clueless with our mother. Nothing he hadn’t done a thousand times before, though he usually talked to my dad instead. But we were both avoiding him for the most part now.

Being a cheating horndog on your wonderful wife tended to cause such reactions from your adult sons, especially when they were both divorce lawyers.

Well, Preston used to be a divorce lawyer. Now he handled adoptions and custody agreements and things of that nature.

But once a zebra, always a zebra. Your stripes remained.

I was about to ask for my phone back from Preston when Bishop leaped off his stool.“Now?Like right now? Oh my God. I’m on the way. Actually, no, I’m not.” He hit my brother hard in the back of the neck. “Get off the damn phone, my wife’s in labor and you’re driving!”

Preston jumped about two feet in the air. My phone went flying behind the bar and Cal was nowhere in sight to retrieve it. I whistled to the closest bartender, a new guy who paid me little mind as he chatted with a pair of blonds and held up a hand to indicate for me to wait. Bishop hauled Pres off his stool and my brother instructed Bishop to take deep breaths, since his face was now bright red, and he seemed to need oxygen.

Then his words sank in. “April’s in labor?Now? She can’t be.”

“She is,” Bishop gasped, sitting on his stool again for approximately one moment before bending to put his head between his knees. At least that was what I assumed he was doing.

“Yeah, brother, what are you drinking?” the new bartender asked, loudly snapping his gum as he came to a stop before us.

“I’ll take a scotch on the rocks,” Bishop managed.

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