Easton

“Hi,” she said.

There was no smile on her lips. Her gaze went straight back to him.

“You’re married.” He pointed at the wedding band.

“Yes, for nearly five years now. Liam, my husband, he wanted me to invite you over for dinner.”

Easton frowned. “Let me get this straight, your husband wants to have dinner with me? Does he know Easton’s mine?”

“Of course he does. We’ve been together five years, not eleven.” She closed her eyes, and he watched her take a deep breath. “We just want you to come over, have dinner, talk. You can maybe meet Easton. I don’t know. It’s just a chance here to catch up. Talk.”

“We’re talking right now.”

“I’d feel more comfortable with Liam present.”

“I’m not going to hurt you.”

“I didn’t say you would. This is already hard, okay? For me, you have no right to Easton. No right to be in his life.”

“I didn’t get the chance to have a say in that.”

“You did. You’re just forgetting everything else that came with that, Easton. I don’t want to fight or argue about this. I did what I thought I was right.”

“Does your husband always get what he wants?” Easton asked. He didn’t even know who the man was, but already, he hated him. The mystery husband got to keep Scarlett, to have her every single night and every single chance he got.

“Do not even go there,” she said. “Liam is a good man. A good father. Believe me, this is a gift from him. He doesn’t have to comply with anything. Here are our details. Call that number on what you decide.” She handed him a card, and within the next second, she was gone.

He glanced down at the name, not seeing it.

This wasn’t how he saw today going.

“Fuck!”

Without waiting for any encouragement from his friends, he rushed out of his office and followed Scarlett to the elevator. It hadn’t arrived yet.

He stopped beside her. “I’m sorry.”

“You don’t need to apologize.”

“I do. I didn’t want this to happen between us. For us to argue when we’ve not seen each other in a really long time.”

She sighed and turned toward him. “I don’t want to argue either. I didn’t expect to ever see you again, and I’m really sorry about all of this.”

“No, please, don’t be sorry. I want to get to know Easton.”

“Junior.”

“Junior?”

“Liam thinks it will be easier if we call you Senior and my Easton Junior.”

“You named him after me?”

“Yes, I don’t see why I shouldn’t? I didn’t want to end things the way they did. It just happened. I’m not ashamed of Easton being yours.”

“Does he want to know about me?” Easton asked.

The elevator opened, and he saw her nibbling her lip. “I’ve got to go.”

“I understand.”

“Easton doesn’t ask a whole lot of questions. I think he’s always accepted life as it is. I’m not trying to be mean here.”

“It’s fine. It’s fine. He has Liam.”

“Will you come to dinner?” she asked.

“Do you want me to?”

“Don’t ask me that. Make your own choices here.”

“I’ll think about it.”

“That’s all I ask.” She stepped into the elevator.

“How was it having him?” Easton asked, putting his hand on the elevator door to stop her leaving.

“Having a son?”

“Yes.”

“It was the scariest, happiest, overwhelming experience of my life.”

He let the elevator doors go. He’d missed all of the early years of Easton’s life. Junior. He liked that.

Whoever this Liam guy was, he sounded like a solid guy.

Axton, Karson, and Romeo were still waiting for him when he arrived back in his office.

“We have got a company to run, you know?” Easton asked.

“Of course we do, and I accept that, but come on, you’ve got to tell us something here,” Romeo said.

“Are you going to go?” Axton asked, picking up the card, and then giving a whistle. “I wouldn’t be too worried about your boy. He’s in really good hands.”

“What?”

“Liam Knight. He’s a wealthy man. Came out of nowhere with a corporation to rival plenty. He rarely does business with anyone. Rarely seen, and when he is, he always has control of who publishes his image. I even heard a story of him paying over a million dollars to someone so he could have his image back, or something. That could all be rumor though. The guy, for some odd reason, is obsessed with his privacy. This is … wow, your girl really found a good one.” Axton held the card up.

“Scarlett wasn’t a gold-digger,” Easton said, grabbing the details from Axton.

“She may have been. A kid and in need of opportunities,” Axton said.

“You didn’t know her, okay? I did. I knew her, and she wasn’t like that.” He had to defend her so they would understand she wasn’t the kind of woman to go chasing after a guy with money.

She didn’t come looking for him, and she’d only known Liam five years … or could it have been longer?