The Millionaire Affair (Love in the Balance 3)

He was celebrating being a dumbass. So there.

Shane wandered back into the living room, keys in hand, little BK in her car seat, snoozing away. “What are you guys doing tonight?”

“Getting hammered,” Aiden said with a smile.

“Nice.” Shane raised an approving brow. “Any reason why?”

“Other than Landon getting his girlfriend pregnant? Nope.” Landon coiled his hand into a fist, but Aiden’s smile only widened. “They had to find out sooner or later, man.” He slapped Landon’s shoulder.

“Who’s your girlfriend?” Crickitt asked, brightening for the first time tonight.

“Kimber,” Sadie chimed in, stepping into the living room from the kitchen. “Angel’s friend who spent a summer with their family when they were kids. She had a crush on Landon.”

Crickitt melted. “Aww.”

Angel came into the living room, drying her hands on a dish towel. “I heard my name.”

“We were talking about Kimber,” Aiden filled in. “And how she and Landon have been knockin’ boots.”

Landon shot his brother a look. Really?

“I knew it!” Angel said, waving the dish towel at Landon. “I guess that drink went well.”

“And she’s pregnant, in case you didn’t overhear that part.” Aiden took a step away from Landon. Smart move. Landon was already coiled to throw a sucker punch in his direction.

Angel’s eyes grew wide. “Kimber is pregnant?”

“Yes.” Landon’s eyes sank close. Defeated. “Kimber is pregnant.”

“Well, where is she?” Angel looked left, then right, as if Kimber had been hiding in a nearby closet the entire party.

Landon tried to say something to the effect of, In Chicago. Avoiding me, but the words wouldn’t come. He shook his head instead.

“Oh,” Crickitt muttered after no one spoke. “Oh no.” She put a palm against Landon’s chest and gazed up at him with earnest concern. The warmth of her hand over his heart caused his cheeks to heat. The confusing emotions simmering under the surface this evening suddenly clawing to get out.

Crickitt, the human tuning fork, picked up on it. Sympathy filled her eyes. “Things will work out for the best,” she murmured, patting him. “Look at Aiden and Sadie. Look at Shane and me.” Tears shimmered in her eyes. “Keep the faith.”

She pulled her hand away and turned to Shane. “Do you want to stay here and have too many drinks with your cousins?”

Lucky bastard.

“I can drive him home,” Sadie offered. “I’m not drinking since we’re trying to get into the same situation you’ve gotten Kimber into,” she told Landon.

Aiden wasn’t doing half-bad in the wife department, either.

“No, I’m going to go home.” Shane tugged his wife against him. “Try and let Crickitt get some sleep for a change.”

Landon didn’t know if that was a baby joke or a sex joke—or if couples had sex after having babies, but Crickitt smiled up at her husband, pleased with his answer. Shane probably thought that by leaving, he’d be dodging the relationship-talk bullet, but he’d be wrong. Landon wasn’t going to talk about Kimber. The plan was to drink so he didn’t have to talk about—or think about—Kimber.

No way was he bringing her up.

* * *

“She doesn’t want a relationship. She wants an arrangement.”

Except instead of “arrangement” Landon had muttered a garbled version of “harranguement,” which most assuredly was not a word.

Aiden regarded him with a raised brow.

“This is why people butcher the English language,” Landon said, doing a decent job of butchering it now. He lifted his glass again. “It’s fun.” He took another drink. Relinquishing the glass, he sat back and focused on the dark outline of the fruit trees at the back of the moonlit yard.

They were quiet for a while, until Aiden spoke. “Hell of a pickle you’ve gotten yourself into.”

“It was supposed to be a fling,” Landon grumbled, keeping his eyes trained at a distance.

“A fling that turned into a baby.”

He slid a gaze over at his brother. Aiden leaned an arm on the edge of the patio table between them. Landon remained silent. Mainly because he was having a hard time speaking without slurring.

Aiden’s blond brows lifted into his too-long hair. “Did you literally draw up a contract with her? Like with signatures and a notary public stamp? Because that’s effing nuts.”