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No, I thought to myself. My brother had told me all about their rivalry, and I knew his dislike for Carson was stronger than any other personal conviction he had. He would help me if only to piss Carson off. I would just have to assure him that once he helped me, I would disappear from his life forever.
Instead of asking me what this help entailed, Nick reached into a drawer by his side, pulled out a card, and handed it to me.
“This is for a hospital a few minutes away from here. There’s a lab there. Drop a DNA sample from the alleged child off there and have them run it against mine. They have it on file.”
My brain rushed from annoyance at the alleged child line to the surprise that they had his DNA on file.
He must have seen the question on my face because he smiled. “You’d be surprised how often this happened.”
I blushed. I could imagine. Since he was such a hotshot, women must be pretending to have his child all the time. And he thought I was one of them.
And I couldn’t blame him because I would think the same thing too. But I took the card and nodded, getting up and heading for the door. As my hand rested on the handle, he called out, “Lisa.”
I turned around.
He was watching me with a fathomless gaze. “What’s her name?”
“Violet,” I told him.
He nodded, and I didn’t notice if his expression shifted at the reveal or not.
“Pretty name,” he said.
I nodded and left, wondering if I’d just made the biggest mistake of my life.
SIX
NICK
She wasn’t lying,
I knew it even before she handed me the document that showed the 99.9% percent DNA match. I knew it from the confidence of her walk when she came into my office again. However, she wasn’t smug about it. She seemed uncomfortable admitting that I had a child with her.
My daughter.
I had a daughter.
Shit.
I didn’t know exactly how to feel about that. I stared at the document, trying to collect my feelings before I glanced up again. Lisa was staring back at me, but it wasn’t satisfaction in her eyes. It was resignation. She didn’t want this any more than I did. And if she didn’t need my help, she would have happily taken this secret to her grave, and I would never have known about my daughter’s existence.
Unreasonable anger spiraled through me. “Why the fuck did you keep this from me?” I snarled, and she reared back like she was slapped.
“I already told you why,” she retorted, not backing down. “I didn’t want my daughter to be hurt by an uncaring father.”
I saw the reason in her rationale but couldn’t quite get myself to accept it. A storm of emotions spiraled through me, making me restless. I got up to start pacing, trying to put my thoughts in order, any order.
Things hardly rattled me anymore, but this was so wholly unexpected that it required a complete recalibration of my plans.
I was never one of the guys who thought I would be a father someday. Children had never even crossed my mind except knowing for a fact that I didn’t want kids at the moment. Certainly not back when I was a stupid teenager, and not now. Having children back then would have probably meant giving up my football career to take care of the child and the mother. And having children now meant…well, I didn’t know exactly what it meant, but it was not at all according to the plan.
“Where is she?” I asked. “Violet.”
The name had been ricocheting in my mind ever since she’d broken the news about my daughter. Even then, I suspected she was telling the truth. It was just a hard truth to accept.
“She’s at daycare,” she murmured. I started trying to place the age of the child. I slept with Lisa nearly six years ago, which meant Violet would probably be around five.
I looked toward the window, surveying the downtown skyrises and the rest of the city. Somewhere out there, my daughter was in daycare, having no idea that I was her father.
