Page 28 of Accidental Dad’s Best Friend (Unintentionally Yours #7)

Ethan

T he phone goes dead on the other end. Izzy is completely silent. If it weren’t for the sound of her jagged breathing, I would have thought she hung up on me. So I ask the question again.

“Why does Jaxon have my last name? And don’t you dare fucking say he doesn’t. I found his birth certificate.”

“Ethan I…I was going to tell you. But something happened. Someone was at my house, Ethan.”

“Don’t change the subject!” I bark out. I have been sitting in my office for an hour, ever since I found the photos on my desk.

It’s dimly lit, only my desk lamp on, and I may or may not have commandeered the bourbon bottle from Liam’s office too.

But I stop at one drink, realizing that no amount of alcohol is going to numb the aching in my heart.

I feel like I’ve been drawn and quartered and I’m still alive.

“How did you find his birth certificate?” She asks.

“You lived in a small town in the middle of nowhere, Isabelle. It wasn’t hard to do.”

“But why were you looking him up?!” She snaps back, her voice shaking.

“I wasn’t! There was a photo from the hospital on my desk. I saw his name. Jaxon Ethan Savage. Is it true?”

“I…” she trails off, her words drowning in sobs.

So I reword the question we both know I am asking. “Is. Jaxon. My. Son?”

Her answer is quiet. Meek. Absolute. “Yes.”

“And you’ve known all along? Or were there other men and you just slapped my name on there hoping the dollar signs would be in the fine print?”

“What? No! Jax is your son. I am positive. There was no one else. There couldn’t be anyone else.”

Fuck.

The way she says the last part implies so much more.

But I don’t like it running to my head. She lied.

She hid the fact she had a kid for five years.

And then, even when I found out, even when I met him and spent time with him and grew to care about him, she still kept it from me.

Blood boils to anger, flooding out any soft feelings of “maybe” in its wake.

“So what was your plan, Izzy? Were you going to keep it a secret forever? Just string me along and use my money to give him a good life until you found someone else? Pull the single mom card and live your best life?”

“You’re being insane!” She snaps back. Except I don’t think I am. I think I am being pretty damn reasonable right now.

“You hid my child from me.” I bolt each of the words down. Maybe if I drill them to the floor she’ll hear them.

“I was trying to protect him!”

“From his own father?”

“From everyone.”

My stomach sours even more. So not only did she not want me to know that I had a son, she saw me as a threat to Jaxon. It’s a direct stab to the chest. I swallow hard and grit my teeth.

“But Ethan, someone was at the house.”

“When?” I ask, pinching the bridge of my nose with two fingers. I have a pulsing headache. Everything is happening all at once and my skull feels like it’s splitting in half. Someone is fucking with us. And it’s calculated.

“Just a little bit ago. There was a pounding on the door and when I answered it, no one was there. It shows on the camera as a woman but I can’t see her face. And she left an envelope.”

“Let me guess.” I suck in an irritated breath. “Photos?”

“Yes.”

“New ones?”

“No. The one from the baseball game. But there’s writing on it. Telling me to stay away from you.”

Well that’s new.

Whoever this person is…this woman…is jealous?

I wrack my brain to think of anyone it might be.

Anyone I could have been around or lead on.

But I don’t date. Thanks to Izzy-Not-Isabelle I haven’t been able to think about anyone else for months.

Years. I haven’t so much as been on one casual date or even bought someone a drink.

The last thing I need is a woman with a fake laugh and a sweet tooth for six-figure-men thinking I’m interested.

It doesn’t make sense.

“What are we going to do?” Izzy breaks back into my thoughts.

“Well, first of all, there’s nothing we can do. The article is going to print.”

“And if my dad figures this out? If he finds out about Jaxon? Ethan, I don’t want him to know. I don’t want to have anything to do with him. He is not welcome in my son’s life.”

I want to correct her– our son’s life.

But I don’t. I stay on topic because this whole thing is already ripping off the rails.

“We sit tight. One explosion at a time, Isabel.”

“We should leave,” she states.

“What are you talking about?”

“If my dad sees these photos, he’s going to kill you.”

I scoff at that. “I’d love to see him try.”

“He’s going to lose his mind, Ethan! It’s bad enough we’ve been…together. But a son? You know him. He’s going to be furious. And you know how he is when he’s angry.”

“I also know myself and I am not going to let him ruin anyone’s lives, Izzy. Not anymore than he already has. You’re not going anywhere. We aren’t making any sudden moves. We let the article hit the stands and we lay low. We deal with that bomb first.”

There’s a pause on the line but I can hear her worried, jagged breath. “And then? What about us?”

I bite down on my lip and clear my throat quietly. “We will figure out what to do about you lying about Jaxon when everything else is over.”

It’s not the same as saying there is no us. But in a way, it kind of is.

We get off the phone and I stare out the window. The city is quiet, dark skies with a blue hue from the lights. It’s never truly dark when you live in the middle of it all. Like the city never goes to sleep. There’s always a buzz, always a light, always the hum of activity and busyness. Secrets.

I let myself think of Izzy pregnant. For a moment I remember the night that made her that way.

I do believe her that Jaxon is mine. I think if he belonged to anyone else, she would have had a harder time keeping them away.

Her and I were never supposed to be together in the first place.

In a way, we avoided each other. It was easy for her not to tell me and easy for me to never find out.

What’s not easy is imagining her raising him all these years by herself. If I had to guess, working retail and free-lance writing jobs didn’t pay the bills. Not well. How did she manage child care? Diapers? Clothes and toys, Christmas and doctors visits? How did she manage at all?

I feel a pang of guilt in my chest. But I do my best to shake it off.

She kept him from me .

If she had told me she was pregnant, I would have sent money.

If I had known she had a kid, my kid, they would have been in a nice apartment in a safe neighborhood and she wouldn’t have needed to ask for a thing.

And it would have all been a secret because you can’t just parade your best friend’s daughter on your arm.

Not if you want to keep that friend. Or in my case, not if I wanted my job.

Not if I wanted Izzy and my son to be safe.

My son.

Those words turn the knife another notch. And cranking it even further is the realization that she probably knew I would help her financially if I’d known. Except she didn’t want me to know. Izzy was afraid. Afraid of Liam. Afraid of what people would think.

Afraid of…me?

I find myself leaning against the wall. I feel like I’m bleeding out.

But I can’t show it. I can’t show even an inkling of weakness right now.

As angry and hurt and confused as I am right now, I can’t show it.

Because Izzy is right. Liam Sloane is a monster when he’s pissed.

And he’s about to be more livid than either of us have ever seen.