by Nicole Dykes
He shakes his head. “Nope. I only ever want you, Pipes.”
I roll my eyes and shove him playfully. “Liar.”
He flashes that sexy grin and feigns hurt as he clutches a hand over his heart. “Me? A liar?”
I laugh, “Get out of here. I need to go inside.”
He wraps his arms around my waist and pulls me tighter to him, brushing his lips over mine. “Everything, Piper. Soon, when we graduate, we’re going to do everything.”
I feel my heart racing as I look into those eyes that have always made me trust the boy who most everyone else would deem untrustworthy. I nod my head and whisper as I press my lips against his, “Everything.”
I feel him smile against my mouth, and then he presses a final chaste kiss to my lips and releases me.
I leave him there and go inside, locking the door behind me and breathing in deeply.
Someday.
For whatever reason, I trust those dark brown eyes more than my own instincts, which are telling me that disaster is coming.
I can’t stop thinking about her.
Goddamn it. Why can’t I stop thinking about her?
It’s been years. Years since she was even remotely mine. I’ve been doing okay since then, even knowing we were living in the same town. But now, I can’t stop my thoughts from drifting to her—okay, obsessing about her. Seeing her in my older brother’s building short-circuited my brain.
Of course, she’s still gorgeous. Nothing has changed. Her dark hair is still long. Her brown eyes are much lighter than mine. Her lips are full and red. And even in the permanent scowl she wears around me, they’re pure perfection.
“What are you doing?”
“Oh, you know me. Volunteering at a soup kitchen, cleaning up trash off the sidewalk, and helping old ladies cross the street.”
I can hear Ash rolling his eyes at me even over the phone, and then he chuckles, “Yeah right, fucker. We both know if you were doing any of that, it would be court-ordered. And I don’t think you’ve been arrested recently.”
“Ha ha.” I sigh and look up at the apartment building where I’m parked. This can’t be the right address. The place isn’t rundown or anything, but it’s far from luxurious.
“What are you really doing?”
I gaze through my window at the apartment. Number seven. “Trying to decide if the high probability of getting stabbed is worth the risk of being where I am.”
He groans now, “Where the fuck are you?”
“I may have acquired Piper’s address the other day when I went to visit Cole at the office.”
A sigh. “Sawyer . . . I really don’t want to bail you out of jail tonight. It’s a school night.”
I grin. “I just . . .” I drop my eyes from the building and huff, “She’s still carrying so much hatred for me. And I get it, but I don’t want her to.”
“So you want to, what, apologize?”
I look back at the building. “Maybe.”
“Well, good luck, man.”
“Thanks.”
“Dinner. Tomorrow at our place.”
“Yeah, I’ll be there.” I hang up and slide my phone into my pocket as I climb out of my car, looking at the apartment again.
This can’t be where she lives. She’s a fucking Ward, for Christ’s sake. Maybe the HR guy was fucking with me and gave me the wrong address. He wasn’t pleased when I asked for the information but couldn’t do much about it, considering I’m a Ross and he’d seen me with Cole right before I took a detour to the HR office.
Still, it was a risk. He could have called Cole, and my brother would have no doubt been pissed. Maybe he did after I left, but I haven’t heard from either of my brothers, and it doesn’t matter because I’m here now.
I walk up to the door and knock because there isn’t even a doorbell. Moments later, I hear Piper’s familiar voice saying, “It’s probably the pizza. Go set the table.”
What the fuck? Does she have a date?
A cold shiver runs through me, thinking about the fact that Piper could have anyone in there—including my brother. But then she pulls the door open, and I know I’m in this now. No going back.
I don’t miss her look of horror before a stark glare forms on her pretty face. “What the hell are you doing at my apartment?”
“You really live here?”
She scowls at me. “Leave.”
“I just want to talk to you. I don’t care where you live . . .”
“Mommy!” What? “Mommy, is the pizza here?”
Piper looks terrified as she looks down at the little girl tucked to her side. A little girl with long dark brown hair and dark brown eyes, not light like Piper’s. Dark.
“Please go to your room. I’ll be right in.”
“But Mommy . . .” The little girl whines, looking up at Piper.
“No.” Piper is blunt but not harsh as she drags her hand over the little girl’s hair. “Please go. I’ll be in soon.”
The little girl looks curiously at me and then takes off as Piper pushes me away from the door and follows me out, closing the door.
“Leave.”
I’m frozen in place, unable to move or speak, and I can’t remember a time that’s ever happened to me. My gaze locks on Piper. “Did she call you ‘Mommy’?”
This can’t be happening. Piper looks furious, but there’s something else lingering in those light brown eyes of hers. Fear. “Leave.”
“How old is she, Piper?”
I know the answer. I don’t know how to explain it, but I feel it in my gut. “Sawyer, I don’t know how the hell you found out where we live, but you have no right to be here.”
We.
Piper and her daughter.
Our daughter.
“How old?”
Her throat is pulled tight with emotion as she shakes her head. “Just leave. Please.”
“No.” I step closer to her, re-taking the space I’d put between us and swallowing it as my shoes touch hers. “Tell me.”
She shakes her head and glances back over her shoulder. I gently grasp her chin between my thumb and finger with just enough pressure to make her look at me.
“How old, Piper?”
She jerks her chin out of my hold but doesn’t look away. “She’s six.”
Six. Almost definitely conceived around the last times we had sex. “Six?”
She nods and then crosses her arms over her stomach. “You need to go. She needs dinner and to get to bed. It’s a school night.”
“You really think I’m going to just walk away?”
“You’re really good at that, Sawyer,” she counters, but it doesn’t sting. I know she’s right.
Still, there’s no way in hell I’m leaving. “She’s my kid.”
She drops her arms now and pokes her finger into my chest, hard and unyielding. “No.”
“No?” I raise my eyebrow. “You were fucking someone else in high school?”
Her glare momentarily makes me frightened for my balls, but I don’t back away. I need answers. “Maybe.” She shrugs, trying to play it cool but clearly lying.
I take another step closer, dragging my finger over her cheek and down her neck. “No, you weren’t.”
She swats my hand away from her. “It doesn’t matter. She’s not yours.”
Her chin is held high as I study her. “If you weren’t fucking anyone else, she is.”
She shakes her head defiantly. “No, Sawyer. She’s mine. I gave birth to her alone. I raised her alone. I was the one up with her every two hours feeding her when she was a newborn. I was the one who cradled her when she was sick. It was me.”
Unmitigated fury runs through me as I place a heavy hand over my heart. “Because you didn’t fucking tell me about her! I had no idea any of that was even happening.” I point at her, angry and in shock. “How the fuck could you do that to me?”
“You’re kidding, right?” Now her fury matches mine as she steps back toward the door. “You didn’t
want to be a boyfriend, let alone a father. And there’s no way in hell I’m going to apologize for protecting my kid.”
“Our kid,” I growl.
“My. Kid.” She pushes the door open and turns to look at me over her shoulder. “Leave. You got your wish when we were eighteen. I hate you, Sawyer. I’ll always hate you. Now, stay away from me.”
With that, she goes inside, and I hear the lock click after she closes the door.
I barely make it back to my car before I collapse into the driver’s seat. She was pregnant. She had our kid and never fucking told me.
I’m a father.
This is not happening.
How is this happening?
Over six years of keeping this secret, and now he knows. Without a doubt, Sawyer knows that Audrey is his biological child.
There was no one else.
There wasn’t room for anyone else. I let Sawyer Ross come into my life and take up every last bit of space in it. And now, he knows.
I saw the look of determination on his face.
He isn’t going to leave this alone.
“Mommy, who was that man?”
I look at Audrey, fear clawing at me. I don’t want to lie to her, but I don’t want her to know who Sawyer is to her either. She asked about her dad for a while after she realized that was a thing. But then she stopped after I told her she had a mommy who loved her enough for both a mommy and a daddy.
Yeah, I know it’s a shitty explanation. But is “Sorry, your daddy was fucking your aunt at the same time as me, and I’m a total idiot” a better explanation?
The balls on him.
I swear to God, I nearly ripped them from his body. How could he be angry with me? I gave him exactly what he wanted.
Nothing.
He didn’t love me. He didn’t give a damn about me.
“He’s an old friend of Mommy’s, sweetie.” The word “friend” feels decidedly gross coming out of my mouth, but she doesn’t need to be stained by Sawyer Ross.
It’s bad enough she’s his female doppelganger.
“Oh. He seemed nice.”
Again, I have to swallow the bile. Sawyer is anything but nice. “Yeah. Hopefully the pizza will be here soon. Can you go pick up your room for me before it gets here?”
She thinks about arguing for a moment. I can see it on her little face. But thankfully, she nods her head. “Okay, Mommy.”
She takes off down the narrow hall of our apartment, and I flop down on the couch, my body and soul completely numb.
I thought he loved me. It was stupid, and I was naïve as hell and maybe craving the love my parents never gave me, but I believed him. Not that he ever said the words, but I swear he said them with his touch. With all the times we’d made love and lay together after, I was sure he loved me.
But really, he was just a teenage boy, full of lies and deceit, doing and saying whatever he had to, to get laid.
And it worked.
That’s all it was.
Sex.
Sex he probably bragged to all his idiot friends about afterward. While I gushed to my own friends about how I’d found the sweetest boy. Even when they’d tell me Sawyer was a player, I’d shake my head and tell them they didn’t know him like I did.
God, I was such a fool.
Eighteen years old
God, she smells good.
Jesus Christ, did I really just smell her hair?
What the hell is going on with me?
Piper is in my arms, lying in my bed. We’re both still naked, and I’m in a state of euphoria I think she’s feeling too as her finger traces over my lower abs. I don’t know how I got her in my bed. With a smile on her face. Relaxed.
Piper Ward doesn’t relax, but she does with me.
Somehow. I can’t remember a time when I didn’t want her. But the night I finally went for it and kissed her, that ignited a new level of obsession I’ve never felt before. I thought she’d shove me away. But she didn’t. She kissed me back, and I haven’t wanted to do anything else since.
I just wanted to kiss her. Hold her. Make her laugh.
And now, I’m fucking smelling her hair after making love to her.
Making love?
Seriously? What the holy fuck is happening?
I don’t make love. I fuck. I don’t take life seriously. It’s my own sort of “fuck you” to my father and stepmother who are always trying to make me be serious. So I party. I screw around. I fuck random girls.
I do not make love to my best friend and then hold her in my arms afterward, dreading the time when she has to leave.
But that’s exactly what I’m doing now. And I hate myself for it because it’s not fair to Piper. I’m exactly who my father says I am.
I’m a fuckup who doesn’t take anything seriously.
I’ll get bored, and I’ll hurt her. My best friend. The girl I’ve been insanely obsessed with for years.
Or worse, I’ll drag her down with me.
Right now, Piper is golden. The teachers love her. Her parents brag about her all the fucking time. But if they find her with me?
A Ross or not, they’ll be livid. They’ll want her with a driven upstanding young man. I can actually hear her parents saying that in my head. Hell, I can hear my own parents saying that.
“What are you thinking about?”
Goddamn it, I hate that she senses I’m thinking. “That was fucking awesome.”
It was, but I despise that I have to make light of it. I can’t let her think I’m suddenly serious. I don’t want her to fall for me. I can’t do this.
She smiles and then rolls her body so she’s straddling my lap, leaning forward and brushing her lips over mine.
Fuck.
Her golden eyes are filled with something that sends a shiver through me.
I know what it is.
Don’t, Piper.
“It was amazing.” She smiles and kisses me softly, her eyes closing as she whispers, “I love you, Sawyer.”
God. Damn. It.
My heart races in my chest, and my palms are sweating as I wipe them on my sheets. I can’t say it back.
I won’t do that to her.
I should tell her that she doesn’t love me. That it’s puppy love. Or an illusion. Instead, I do something just as stupid as saying the words. I close my eyes and pull her into a deep kiss that she instantly returns.
I cling to her bare hips as I kiss her, saying things with that kiss I can’t and shouldn’t voice.
And I know I have to do something desperate to end this.
I kiss her softly as her hands rest on my chest over my heart that’s surely completely black at this point. It’s going to be hard to let her go.
But that’s exactly what has to happen.
A foot nudges me awake, and I hear, “How fucked up are you right now?”
I glare at Asher as I look up from the lounge chair in my backyard. I’m sure what he sees looks bad with an empty whiskey bottle and a half-smoked joint next to me.
Okay, maybe it is a little bad. Fuck, my head hurts.
But it’s not like the bottle was full when I started drinking last night.
Still, Ash is looking a little blurry as I pry my eyes open, cursing the sun.
“I’m fine.”
“Right.” Asher takes the seat next to me. “Your message was weird.”
I turn to look at him. “What message?”
He chuckles and leans back in his chair. “You left me a message, asking whether I know a good lawyer. And saying that Piper lives in a shithole.”
Christ, I don’t remember that.
“What time is it?”
“Six. I have to get to school soon.”
I look at him, dressed in his preppy uniform for the private school where he teaches. “Ah, that’s the reason for the douche outfit.”
“What’s up, Sawyer?”
I don’t dare move because I don’t remember the last time I was this hungover. “Piper has a kid.”
I hear him shift in his chair but don’t turn my head to look at him. “With who?”
“Me.”
Now the sound is much louder as he sits all the way up and turns toward me. “Holy shit! How?”
I groan and force my head to turn. “When two people are hot for each other, their bodies respond—”
“Shut the fuck up,” he cuts me off, and I’m actually grateful because I’m close to puking.
“When did this happen?”
I turn my head back so it’s lying flat against the chair and close my eyes. “Apparently in high school.”
“No fucking way. You didn’t know?”
“No.” I swallow, fighting the urge to puke. “I had no idea. She didn’t tell me.”
“Holy shit.”
“That’s how I feel.”
“What are you going to do?”
I don’t say anything because I have no fucking idea, other than I’m going to be a father to that kid whether Piper wants me to or not. I had no interest in being a father, so I can’t really explain it, but now that I know she exists . . . Yeah, I want to be her dad.
“I don’t know, but I’m going to do something.”
“That’s ominous.”
“Fuck you.” I manage a smile.
He stands, and I feel his hand on my shoulder. “Don’t do anything stupid, okay? I have to get to work, but promise me.”
“What stupid thing could I do?”
I look up at him and see him staring at me like that was an idiotic question. “Just don’t, okay? She . . .” He slides his hand over his chin. “Fuck, Sawyer, for a woman to keep something like that a secret, . . . she had to be scared. And hurt.”
I hate how blunt he is sometimes.
“I know I hurt her. That doesn’t mean she gets to hide my fucking kid from me for six goddamn years.”
He doesn’t argue with me, but he also doesn’t agree with me, which pisses me off. He can’t possibly think Piper’s betrayal was warranted, can he?
“I have to go. But please just sleep this off, and I’ll talk to you later.”
“Yeah,” I grumble.
“It’s going to be okay,” he tries to assure me before he leaves, but I know it won’t be.