Page 85 of Last Call For Love

“You will not use that kind of language in front of my fiancée,” I growled, stepping between him and Sierra.

“Fiancée?” Jonah laughed, glancing at Vera. “Vera told me as such but I just can’t believe it. What kind of game are you playing? Are you after her money?”

“I already know there is no money,” I spat. “I already know that her so-called trust fund was only meant to be a transaction between her family and yours, to fund your campaigns. Now, how would it look if news were to break about what you and the Golds were planning to do? That they were essentially selling their own daughter against her will to fund your—”

“That’s enough!” Vera shouted, but there was a tremor in her voice.

“It’s not enough, is it? I’m right. That’s exactly what you all were doing. Using Sierra to get what you wanted, which”—I paced in front of Jonah and Vera—“sounds like just a boost in your own popularity, to get into certain old money social circles you hadn’t been privy to yet, am I right? And you…” I pointed a finger at Jonah. “You just wanted a wife to stand beside you to help boost your numbers at the polls. That’s sick. Sick, and depraved, and says a whole hell of a lot about you as a person if you have tobuya wife.”

“Pete,” Sierra squeaked.

“And what do you have to say for yourself?” Vera snapped, trying to look around me to get a glimpse of her daughter. “Do you know how hard we’ve worked to make sure you’re safe?”

“Safe?” Sierra snapped, her eyes going wide. She grabbed me and damn near knocked me over in her haste to get in her mother’s face. “Safe? You think I’deverbe safe with you? Or with him? You’re perfectly happy to sell me to Jonah and his father to use as they see fit. I refuse. I willnotgo with you. I’d rather be dead.”

Jonah stepped forward with an outstretched hand like he was going to grab her. I lunged and yanked his arm back, shoving him into the wall.

“I going to make myself perfectly clear,” I hissed into his ear. “She ismine. I’m marrying her. I don’t give a fuck about money, Jonah Lawley. That’s the difference between you and me. I love her in a way you’ll never experience with anyone, and that’s fucking sad, isn’t it?”

He trembled briefly, which made me smile. I couldn’t help it.

“If you ever show your face in this town again, every little secret you have will be leaked.”

“You have nothing on me—”

“Do you want to… I don’t know, talk about your little offshore accounts? Where that money came from, and what it’s used for?”

He paled. “How do you—”

“Don’t think that just because I’m nothing but a small-town cowboy who owns a bar that I don’t have my ways of making sure fucks like you get what they deserve. Get out of my town.”

I shoved him hard, hard enough that one of pictures slid off the wall. Jonah looked like he was about to be sick, but Vera dug in her heels and shouted Sierra’s name.

“Enough of this. You’re coming with us right now.”

“I can’t.”

“Of course, you can. You ungrateful little bitch.”

“I’m pregnant,” she said softly, her hands sliding down to her belly to cup the barely-there swell. “Pete is the father.”

Jonah’s eyes went wide.

“What?” Vera hissed, looking between us. “That’s hilarious, Sierra. Good try—”

“Vera,” Jonah breathed, looking green around the gills. “I don’t want someone who got so carelessly knocked up—”

“Shut up, Jonah,” Vera snapped, then turned back to me.

But I was crossing the room. I pulled open a drawer in the kitchen and grabbed the envelope I’d put together for this moment if it ever came to pass. I turned around and tossed it to Vera, who barely caught it. She ripped it open and read over the results of the paternity test.

She looked at Sierra with so much hatred in her eyes that it honestly broke my heart.

She let the papers fall to ground, and then turned on her heel.

Jonah didn’t even look at Sierra as he followed Vera out of the house, slamming the door behind him.

A stormy silence settled over the apartment.

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