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TERRIBLE NEW IDEAS

“He’s hiding something,” Hubrie said.

Duke sighed. “That may be so, but doesn’t everyone have secrets?”

His butler shot him a narrow-eyed smile. “Like the time you were drinking Hell water in secret and I surprised you so much, you snorted it out your nose?”

Duke rubbed his face. “Please don’t tell anyone about that.”

He’d had his fill of snorting and spraying liquids everywhere, thank you very much.

“I think his secret has something to do with his baby,” Hubrie whispered.

Duke couldn’t help his spark of curiosity. Of course he wanted to know—that was human nature. But everyone deserved their privacy. Especially someone like Nat, who’d had his trust destroyed by his ex.

Even now, the memory of that conversation made his gut clench with anger.

“I trust him,” Duke said. “He is honest in his interactions with his daughter. You can compare notes later when he’s in the house with Teddy and Mallie, but I don’t expect things to change.”

They watched Nat from the other side of the office. He was bouncing Wanda in his lap, tapping on his work phone with his three-fingered hand. Wanda grabbed at the phone; Nat carefully moved it out of her reach.

Hubrie gave Duke an indulgent smile. “You’re much more relaxed now that you’ve had your sweaty workout.”

“Shut up.”

“I told you that you’d like his extra job scope. What I want to see is how he’ll entertain the Double Trouble tonight.”

“They’re not that much trouble,” Duke protested.

“Says you, now that you’re wrapped around their little fingers.” Hubrie rolled his eyes. “If I didn’t stop you, you’d be fostering another six kids just because you can afford to.”

Hubrie was right, but no one said Duke had to admit it.

“If he’s good with them, I could foster more,” Duke said.

Hubrie shook his head disappointedly. “I thought you would rather knock him up, instead of dealing with fostering and adoptions.”

Duke froze.

It hadn’t even crossed his mind, because he was already looking to adopt Teddy and Mallie officially. But if he could put a baby in Nat, too...

“He’s my employee,” Duke said, offended.

“And you’re already thinking about how often you should breed him,” Hubrie said slyly. “I know you, Hell Master. You want little feet in every room of the mansion.”

“He’s my employee, ” Duke hissed.

“You’ll just have me draw up a pregnancy package for him.” Hubrie shrugged. “Including clauses to make sure he’s well and truly pregnant by repeated breeding.”

Duke couldn’t even argue with that.

In fact, it was starting to sound better by the minute.

“He didn’t sign this contract expecting to get pregnant,” Duke grumbled.

“Yeah, but he likes babies. We’ll see how he does tonight with the kids, and you can tell me your thoughts tomorrow.”

“Fine. Now go away.”

Hubrie watched Duke from the corner of his eye. “I’ll tell him your embarrassing childhood stories while you’re busy with work.”

Duke bared his teeth. “No, you won’t.”

The butler grinned. “Hold my beer.”