After the longest, most annoying day in recent history, I loosen my tie and peel off my jacket, attempting to roll some of the aggression out of my shoulders.

This is not how I envisioned this night ending.

I expected this bizarre day to end pleasantly, with Laurel’s warm body tucked against me, her long chocolate waves draped over my bicep. I expected her warm blue eyes looking up at me, her soft, fuckable lips littering my chest with kisses before we fell asleep.

I did not expect for her to do something so fucking desperate. On one hand, I consider that she must be truly distraught to resort to this sort of bullshit. I don’t know Laurel well, but she has always struck me as being quite sincere. Calculation is perhaps the least attractive quality a woman can possess, but I never noticed any in her before. Laurel never struck me as the sort of woman who would try to trap a man like this. I acknowledge she’s young, and young people do stupid things, but trying to foist an accidental pregnancy off on me?

It pisses me off too much to maintain any sympathy.

If I’m being completely honest, I don’t love the mental image of her out trying to recreate those nights with me using some punk-ass kid as a stand-in, either, but that only irritates me more. Laurel was just a hook-up, so that shouldn’t bother me. I’m probably overly annoyed about it because now I’m home alone and aggravated, while the nice warm body I expected to keep me company has left the fucking premises. Sure, I could go back out—or make a simple phone call—and have a replacement here within the hour, but I don’t feel like it.

I wanted Laurel, dammit. She arrived on my doorstep at just the right moment; spending a little time with her rekindled my interest, and I was looking forward to spending tonight with her.

Now I’m spending tonight alone and pissed off.

I pour myself another drink and take it upstairs to my room with me. After undressing, I finish my drink, check my cell phone, and head to the bathroom. Maybe a shower will wash away the film of disappointment I feel coated in.

Pregnant. The damned girl is pregnant.

I am disappointed in that, so I guess everything I said to her was bullshit. I know I’m not the father, but the idea of some other asshole knocking her up still annoys me. Laurel is a bright girl; I gleaned that from spending those few days with her. Yes, in the bedroom she enjoyed letting me take the reins, but I can’t imagine her letting some kid fuck her bareback. She has more sense than that.

I guess it may not be her fault. Some assholes remove the condom mid-fuck when the woman isn’t even paying attention, so something like that could have happened to her.

If the damned girl had just been honest with me, she could have explained how this happened, but she had to come at me with a lie. And for what—money? Did she think I wouldn’t be thorough enough to verify paternity? We weren’t together, for Christ’s sake, we had a holiday hook-up. Naturally I wouldn’t trust her claims that I’m the father—especially since we used protection, and I’m far from a novice when it comes to proper condom usage.

By the time my shower is over, some of the anger has drained out of me and all that’s left is wave after wave of disappointment. Even looking at my empty bed as I emerge from the bathroom is disappointing. I can visualize Laurel kneeling before me as I stand here in front of it, looking up at me with her trusting blue eyes. Hell, I can even imagine afterward, lying in bed with her, hearing her out as she explains to me how she managed to get herself in this situation—the true story, not the scheming bullshit version.

Sighing, I take a step forward and grab my phone off the bedside table. Laurel’s plane takes off in 20 minutes, so she should be through security now. I’m starting to regret acting so rashly, but I tell myself it’s only because I’m going to bed alone. I could have punished her lying little ass in much more fun ways. Humiliating her in front of Sin and then sending her off to the airport is perhaps the least fun thing I could have possibly done.

Only, I can’t trust her now. She’s ruined her own appeal. If I wanted to fuck a deceitful little cunt, I could have brought Cassandra upstairs.

Opening a text to Sin, I type out a message asking if Laurel made her flight, but before I can send it, I delete the damned thing. It’s too transparent. Sin is capable or he wouldn’t be in my employ. Of course she made her fucking flight. I’m also clearly checking in, making it obvious I’m thinking about her. I’ll be damned if I fish. If I’m going to text him, I’ll just ask the goddamn question.

“Was she upset?”

A moment passes, then my phone brightens and I read the text he sent back, “Yep.”

I take a seat on the edge of my bed, raking a hand through my hair. Of course she was upset. I was fucking mean.

His curt response triggers the need to defend myself, so I send back, “She chose to lie. I didn’t make her do it.”

It only takes him a moment to respond. “Maybe she isn’t lying. You had sex with her, didn’t you? Maybe no one told you this yet, but sex is how you make babies.”

I don’t bother arguing. I know I didn’t impregnate her. Knowing I like my life child-free, birth control is one thing I do not fuck around with. I use only condoms I provide myself for added insurance. No holes poked in condoms, no birth control that doesn’t work because of a prescription—no possible accidents. There have been a couple times over the course of my adult life I’ve had one snap. I’ve experienced the constant anxiety that followed for weeks after, waiting for a call that thankfully never came.

There were no mishaps with Laurel. I never even had to change condoms mid-fuck, so there’s not even a remote chance I might have touched her with cum on my finger. There is literally no chance she’s telling the truth, and that fucking sucks.

I don’t know why it sucks. I certainly don’t want to have kids. I just also don’t want Laurel to be a liar. I don’t want my image of her tarnished, the sweet, curious eager-to-learn girl Mateo sent me to play with. Laurel was a good memory, and now I have to put her in a different box. An uglier box. It makes me feel more jaded to think of someone so young and sincere pulling a dirty fucking trick like this one.

As much as I want to shove her out of my head and never think about her again, my mind keeps getting stuck on the details. If it’s not the mental image of a less capable little asshole rooting around between her legs, it’s the knowledge that she must really not want to tell her sister if she came to me. Laurel was a stranger to me until we spent those few days together, but by the time it was all over, she knew exactly who and what I was. She has to know I’m not the sort of man you trifle with, and still she came here. What could breed that level of desperation? Vince is loaded now that his father is dead. They’ll never struggle for money again, so if Laurel was hard up for cash, she should be able to get it from them. Is it really so bad that rather than safely asking her sister or brother-in-law to help her, she came to me?

Mia surfaces in my mind—an old, unpleasant detail of her life, one I inadvertently stumbled across in Chicago. She’d been raped and a pregnancy resulted from the ordeal. Something like that couldn’t have happened to Laurel, could it? Something like that could make her desperate enough to lie. She doesn’t seem damaged, though. Then again, neither had Mia.

Well, that’s not true. Mia is crazy, but the endearing kind, not the sad, miserable kind of damaged. Laurel hasn’t weathered years with the most fucked-up of the Morelli men, so she would probably respond to an assault like a normal person.

A darker doubt surfaces. She won’t tell her sister, and she does currently live with Carly and Vince. The baby couldn’t be his, could it? That would damn sure explain why she would be so desperate to keep it from Carly. Since he’s my cousin, that may have given Laurel confidence to attempt foisting it on me. While she knows I wouldn’t be a match, I would still share DNA markers with a child of Vince’s. Morelli genes tend to run strong, so there would probably even be a passable resemblance.

It probably isn’t that. I would have noticed Vince paying more-than-appropriate attention to his sister-in-law if anything had been going on between them—or if he wanted anything to be going on between them—and I didn’t. Unless something started right after they left Vegas, Vince probably isn’t the father. Knowing the dark alleys of Vince’s past, I can’t stomach thinking about that. If he did impregnate Laurel, I am going to kill the little asshole.

Before I get lost too far down the rabbit hole of my family’s depravity, I try to stop inventing excuses for Laurel. Hell, I could have heard her excuse if I’d given her more of a chance to explain herself. Once we established I wouldn’t fall for that kind of shit, I could have punished her little ass and relieved the ache in my balls; then once we were both sated and relaxed, my pretty little liar could have told the truth.

Three more minutes until her plane takes off. It’s too late to bring her back. It’s a bad idea anyway, but I’m curious so I text Sin one more time, telling him, “Get me her number.”

“Her phone number?” he texts back.

“Yes. I’m annoyed that she lied and I want to know the truth.”

He takes a full two minutes before he texts back, “Why does it matter?”

“Just get me the phone number.”

“Fine,” he texts back. “I’m going to bed. I’ll get it to you in the morning.”

I bristle impatiently, wanting it right now, but there’s no harm in waiting until morning. Her plane is taking off as I plug my phone into the charger, so it’s not like she could text me back right now anyway. The flight back home will be long, and Sin said she was upset, so I’m sure she’ll go straight to bed when she lands.

Tomorrow Sin can get me her number. Tomorrow I can text her and drag the real story out of her. Then, once I know, I can feel a little better about it. I can recover at least enough pleasantness to remember her fondly.

I should probably be glad I’ll never see her again.

I don’t know why I’m not.