Nate(10)

“Let’s hope it doesn’t go there.”

Mason sighed. “Let’s hope.”

“So, then we’re going legal.” I stared at him.

He stared back.

Legal was Logan’s world.

And that meant inviting the bomb early, earlier than I was ready for.

As if reading my mind, Mason stood. “Let’s get the paternity test first, and then go from there.”

I nodded, but I was remembering the conversation downstairs.

How smooth she’d been.

No.

She’d been nervous.

Awkward.

She needed to take two shots before saying anything, then it came out almost as if she couldn’t stop herself. She blurted it out and slid the papers over immediately.

She’d been very un-smooth.

Not practiced.

Which gave me an opening.

She was nervous about either me or asking me to sign away my daughter.

Good. She should’ve been more terrified than she had been, but that also told me she knew it’d been wrong. She knew she was in the wrong.

Or I was hoping. Again.

“I’ll call the aunt.”

Mason was scanning the suite. “I had like three hours of sleep before you called. You got a guest bedroom in this fucking huge-ass suite?”

I covered a grin, nodding to the small hallway. “Take my bed. Sheets were changed, and I didn’t use it.”

“You sure?”

I grabbed my phone and gave him a long look. “Like I’m going to be sleeping anytime soon?” I gestured to the couch. “If I need a nap, I’ll grab the couch.”

His eyes fell to my phone. “You want me to wait?”

“Nah.” Even thinking about the conversation I needed to have with Quincey made everything inside me lock down.

“I’ve got it.”

He clapped a hand on the wall, picking up his bag. “Wake me when we gotta go.”

He headed to the room, the door shut, and I took a breath before moving back out to the patio.

Then I dialed the phone.





7





Quincey





I felt like the female lead in The Cutting Edge when the hockey guy was coming to her personal home.

I had a sudden and fierce empathy for that character because that was what was happening here. Nate called this morning. I’d been up all night, unable to sleep, and when I saw his name on the phone, I knew this was just the start of the war. And that was a deeply unsettling feeling.

Here…he was coming here, to our home, my home, my territory.

I was standing in front of the living room’s grand window. It looked out over our entire estate, and since we had a long driveway with a picturesque field of horses right next to it, we could see who was coming almost a mile away. Trees arched over the driveway on the other side as it led to a circle that looped in front of the main entrance.

If my other opponents were coming here, I’d have an edge of intimidation over them by seeing them first.

This place was impressive and intimidating to some.

The sprawling mansion had a pool behind it and three barns on the property. One was for the horses, and one was all mine as my personal dance studio. I was yearning to be there right now. I needed to dance off these nerves, pull walls of steel around me because I knew Nate Monson wasn’t going to give a flying fuck about this place. It wouldn’t scare him one bit. So my edge over my enemy was taken from me simply because of who he was.

Sensing a presence next to me, I said, “He was furious, Duke.”

He made no sound.

I glanced over.

He was looking out the windows with me, his hands in his pockets. “We’ll see.”

“He’s connected.”

“We’ll see.”

This didn’t feel right. None of this felt right.

“He’s bringing a doctor.” I sighed. “He was so mad.”

“You already said that.”

God. My dad was so cold. If only there’d been a break in his voice—any softness, any gentleness, anything—but there was none. This was his play. He said to throw the news at Nate, then sucker punch him with the custody papers. It was the words he used. I followed his suggestions almost to the letter. In the original plans, Duke wanted me to get him drunk first, but I hadn’t gone through with that part. I didn’t have it in me, but I considered it.

And I hated myself for it right away. If Monson had never put it together, a part of me would’ve looked at Nova years from now and known what we did was wrong.

“I’m saying it again because I really don’t have a good feeling about this.”

“We’ll see.”

I turned to him. “Are you kidding me? This was all your idea. Sucker punch. Those were your words.”

He glanced at me sideways. “I told you to liquor him up first.”

“If I liquored him up first, then he could come back at us with a lawsuit. You know that.”

I felt like my stomach was trying to chew itself out of me.

“We both know that the paternity test will come back positive. He is Nova’s father. Maybe we should work something out with him—” The words slipped out of my mouth before I realized what I was saying out loud.