What the hell was this fucker up to?

The question stayed in my head when he asked again, “Is she a friend?”

I loved this kid. I loved Mo so much there weren’t words for how much. Which was funny considering how terrified and nervous I’d been before having her. I had worried my ass off that we wouldn’t bond or that I would resent her for kicking my life off track… and, fortunately, all it had taken was hearing her fucking cry, feeling and seeing her in my arms, to make me instantly fall in love. Just seeing her wrinkled pink face had confirmed there wasn’t anything I wouldn’t do for the helpless little body that had lived inside of me for nine months.

So I didn’t want to say her name. Because this fuckface didn’t know it in the first place. Because he was an asshole who was looking like he hadn’t missed his daughter’s birth and the first eight months of her life and felt no shame over it.

But I said it anyway, because this wasn’t about me. This was about her, and the fact that this shithead was here regardless of whether I wanted him to be or not. Because he was her father and there was no changing that.

“Mo.”

His eyes went back to the small back facing him, and I watched the curiosity grow across his serious face. “It’s a girl?”

If I’d had any more joy to lose, it would have been gone. How did this fucker not even know he had a daughter? Jesus Christ. I had mentioned that in my last email. He hadn’t even had the balls to read it and make sure she’d been born alive and fine? Was this a motherfucking joke?

I was going to kill him and throw his ass in a swamp. That was it. I’d lived a good life. Grandpa Gus and Peter could raise her just fine. They’d come visit me in jail. Luna would be a great mother figure for her.

And then he kept going with the stupid questions.

“Babysitting, eh? I thought you didn’t like wee ones?”

Babysitting?

Oh. Oh. He was going to get it for sure. For fucking sure.

I couldn’t help it. I couldn’t stop myself. If he wanted to play stupid, okay.

I looked at him, smiled sarcastically and said, “It’s not babysitting if she’s mine.”

His normal expression had been there one second… and the very next it was gone.

Jonah’s face instantly fell. The color in it doing the same, and I knew I didn’t imagine him giving the slowest blink ever. Or that it took him a moment before he literally choked, “Yours?”

The sarcasm was stronger in me than usual today. “You want me to be specific? She’s ours.”

I was an idiot. How could I have been so wrong and stupid to have wasted months of my life getting to know him? How the hell had he been able to fool me so bad? I had honestly thought he was a good guy. A really good guy. A wonderful one. Wonderful, and I didn’t throw that word around lightly.

But here he was—

He stopped breathing, his skin color going damn near almost white. I almost missed his croaked, “Pardon me?”

I blinked at him, ignoring the tone of his voice and the way he was blinking himself from across the table. I leaned forward and planted a kiss on her forehead in an apology for making this dipshit her dad. I’d make it up to her somehow. “She’s ours, dumbass. Who else would she be?”

I remember hearing someone say once that time had, at one point, stopped for them, but it didn’t seem like one of those things that was real. Like… your life flashing before your eyes when you think you’re close to death. Once, when I had been younger, my godfather had snatched me out of the way of a moving car, and I hadn’t thought of anything until I’d been on my back, wondering what the hell had just happened.

But as I sat there, I watched it happen. I watched Jonah suck in a breath through his almost perfect nose. I watched his head jerk…

Witnessed his mouth fall open.

And I saw that tall, solid body wobble in place for a second before his hands shot out to the back of the chair in front of him. Those long, strong fingers wrapped over the top, becoming the only thing holding him up. If I thought his face had been pale thirty seconds ago, whatever color had been left, leeched out too.

And none of it, none of it, made any sense.

What he said next had my head jerking back.

“You’re saying she’s my daughter?”

Chapter 6

“Jonah, it’s Lenny. Look, you really need to call me back. I’m not fucking with you. Seriously.”

“Why didn’t you tell me?”

He was lucky I had Mo in my arms when that stupid question came out of his mouth, because if I’d had my hands free, I would have been sliding over the desk like I was on Dukes of Hazard to choke the shit out of him.

I was pretty sure a lawyer somewhere would have let me plead Jonah’s murder as a crime of passion. But unfortunately, I was never going to find out because of the kid sitting in my lap. Her simple existence was saving me from a life in prison and saving her dad—not that she knew he was her dad—from being murdered.

I could feel my face getting hot as I stared at him like I had never stared at anyone, not even someone I was competing against that I had beef with. His same stupid question rang in my ears all over again.

Why didn’t you tell me?

Why the fuck didn’t I tell him? Was he shitting me? Was he delusional?

Yeah, my nostrils were flaring, my face was hot, and my eyelid suddenly felt like it was on the verge of exploding off my face as I took in the man clutching at a chair for dear life. Even his mouth hung open like all the life had been sucked out of him. I was pretty sure I wasn’t imagining the fact that he looked on the verge of fainting either.

I kept my mouth shut though, at least while I had this booger on my lap. I didn’t want her getting all flustered because she could sense me getting that way. She was sensitive, and if she’d sensed me even starting to get upset, whether it was sadness or anger, she’d immediately pick up on it and get fussy.

So, with all the strength I had inside of myself, I kept my voice nice and even, tried to will my eyelid to get its shit together and my face to quit being hot and my nostrils to go back to normal. I managed to put a smile on my face, even though part of me was making stabbing motions inside, and asked, almost sounding sweet, “Why didn’t I tell you?”

God, the sarcasm was dripping off every word out of my mouth.

I bounced Mo on my thigh, earning a big toothless grin. We were pretty sure she was about to start teething soon, a little late but the pediatrician said not to worry, and from everything I’d heard, I wasn’t exactly looking forward to it, but that wasn’t for me to focus on right then. I had bigger things to stress over. Specifically six foot five inches and two hundred and fifty pounds of fuckface to focus on.

I kept my voice light…ish even though I gave him a bitchy bright smile. “What do you consider me calling you and calling you, and calling you some more? Me not trying to talk to you?”

He didn’t answer, and whether that was because he borderline fainted or because he knew I was right, I had no fucking idea. Mostly because I didn’t give him the chance to talk because I kept going.

“You never answered, Jonah. And I left you… oh, I don’t know… a dozen messages too. I did that until you stopped checking your voice mail and let it get full and stay full.”