Worth More Than Money (Worth It 3)

Even after I had wrecked Anton’s pride and joy by being a selfish, horny te

enager, Anton hadn’t kicked me out. Instead, he used it as an opportunity to teach me about respecting myself and others, as well as their property. But in his eyes, I saw that disappointment. And the fact that his car had gone unrepaired for so long showed me how much the wreck had truly hurt his heart. Or possibly scared him. I wasn’t sure. And now, I wouldn’t have the chance to ask.

All I could do was fix it up and hope that, somewhere, Anton was smiling down on my efforts.

A thread of guilt crept into my mind and I pushed it away. I turned the car off and slid from the seat, shutting the door behind me. Sure, I wrecked a car. Most teenagers did at some point in time. But that was nothing compared to getting knocked up in order to trap a man. I wasn’t casting Michelle off to the side after wrecking her. She was the one running around behind my damn back! For all I knew, that child was Andy’s!

Three other times.

I’d been through this three other times with women. One of which almost succeeded in her endeavors.

I’d never felt anything for those women. Not a shred of emotion. One of them was a decent one-night stand, the other I met at a party and made out with for a little bit, and the third was a girl I courted for two weeks before I caught her blowing her damn boss in her shitty apartment. I’d never felt anything for those women. Not before, not during, and especially not after what they put me through.

But Michelle had been something else entirely.

Another day or two with her and I would’ve been professing my undying love or some bullshit like that. She had me wrapped around her little finger, and she knew it. She knew I was face-deep in her body. She knew I was addicted to her. Then she goes and tries to drop some stupid bomb that she’s in love with me? When I don’t react to her pregnancy the way she wanted me to?

What a great actress. Really. She could get an Oscar nomination for what she pulled.

I started looking around the garage for things I could fix the outside of the car with. But the more I looked, the angrier I became. Shit. I’d have to take the damn thing into town to get supplies. Or at least take pictures of it to show around. I didn’t want to interact with these people. I wanted to get out of there as fast as I could. But even though I’d dodged a bullet with ‘little miss innocent’ Michelle and I hated Stillsville more than ever, the fact remained that I still had a job to do. I could call my lawyer in the morning with advice on how to proceed, but in the meantime I had to keep my head in the game.

Sell Anton’s house. Fix the car. Get home.

I took pictures of the car and took them into town. I was very careful with the people I approached. I grabbed the tools I would need and the supplies required to fix the paint. I bought things to smooth out the scratches and scrapes and some solution to help with the rust underneath the carriage of the car. I even priced out the tires that sat on the damn thing so I could order them from the next town over.

Working through the night on that thing, I kept it up until it wasn’t simply purring like a kitten, but also glistening like it had just come off the factory train.

At least I had the power to fix one screwed-up aspect of my life.

I wiped the sweat from my brow as the sun rose to beckon the next day in. Friday morning, and Michelle was nowhere in sight. That didn’t sit right with me, but the thought of her did remind me of a phone call I had to make.

So I wiped off my hands, closed up the garage, and dug out my phone.

“Good morning, Mr. MacDonald.”

“Hey there, Brett. Got another issue for you,” I said.

“I know that tone of voice.”

“I’m sure you do.”

“You really need to stop traveling down this road with women.”

“Trust me, I know that as well. So let me give you the rundown of the situation. I have been sleeping with this woman. And I got a little caught up.”

“No protection, got it,” he said.

“She told me she was on birth control and kept asserting that even after she told me she was pregnant.”

“Has she been to the doctor?”

“According to her, no. Also, according to her, the town doctor was the one that called her on it and said to come see him. Said she couldn’t be more than a couple of months along. But we all know how that goes. Nothing’s solidified—”

“Until it’s on paper, yes,” Brett said. “Do you want my advice?”

“The first thing I want is to legally demand a paternity test.”

“Has she come at your money like the last one?” he asked.