Page 47 of Oathbreaker

Doing it.

Of course, we had an argument before I left, him rightly guessing that I was going to tell the boys he was the father and pissed that I was trying to do it without him.

I shouldn’t have gone home to change after work.

I just…well, part of me wanted out of my heels.

The rest?—

The rest needed to see him.

And that urge—and wrestling with the guilt of it and what it means for West and me along with the effort it took to convince him that I needed to do this alone—means I’m running late.

And I hate running late.

Hate that I have to have this conversation.

Hate—

A lot.

And none of that is going to do anything but make me more stressed out, more late.

“Enough,” I whisper and force myself to turn the corner and walk into the club. It’s quiet because the crowd doesn’t really pick up until after dinner time, and I can’t decide if that’s good or bad.

Good because there will be less people to witness my brothers freaking out, planning a murder…and then potentially going out to conduct said murder.

Bad because I won’t have too many people to intervene if the talk of murder turns my way.

They won’t leave Frankie an orphan, right?

“Briar!”

Shaking myself at Dash’s impatient voice, I hurry over to our table. The table that none of the guys are actually sitting down at.

Probably because it has a bronze plaque that says Reserved for Colt affixed to its top.

Yikes.

“What’s up?” I ask my brother when I’m within speaking (instead of bellowing distance).

“Aspen’s no-showed,” he says with a scowl. “And the fucking bourbon rep no-showed too.”

Right.

Our subterfuge.

I didn’t really think about what would happen after the meeting that drew them all here, didn’t actually happen.

Or that—given the annoyed expressions on the three men’s faces—how that would impact the starting tone of our conversation.

“Do you know where she is?” Atlas asks, still in a suit, and clearly not having going home to change.

Yikes again.

Apparently, Lily didn’t give him a mind-blowing orgasm to soften the edges of his grumpy.

“Um, yes,” I admit, earning three annoyed expressions again.