I let out a deep breath as relief washes over me. "Thank you."
Liam moves around me over to the couch. "And I can still watch your son, who you say is mine, while you finish up your day."
"Mr. Morgan, you don’t have to."
He clears his throat. "It’s fine. Really. I want to.” He sits down next to Matty and nudges his shoulder. "Hey, bub, me and you are going to hang out while Mommy works.”
Matty glances up from the screen with the biggest smile on his face. “Li-um.” Matty puts his hand on his shoulder and eases into his lap.
“See, no problem. Go. I’ll text you if there’s any problems.”
My head spins at the one-eighty Liam is doing.
"Don't you have work to do? I'm sure it's more important than mine."
"It's fine and we've already become fast friends. Right?" Liam ruffles Matty’s hair making him laugh and swat his hand away.
"All right," I say hesitantly. I guess my invitation to join is off the table now.
CHAPTER FIVE
LIAM
We need to talk. ASAP.
I type out the text to my brother. Landon is the last person I want to be talking to about this, but he could have answers for me. He was with me at the Comic Con all those years ago.
Landon: What's up?
Meet me at my place after 6.
Landon: Everything okay?
Everything is far from being okay.
It's fine. There's just something I need to talk to you about.
Landon: Alright. I'll be there.
I toss my phone down and my head collapses to my desk. It feels like a thousand pounds weighed down heavily by the thoughts I can't comprehend.
What the fuck is going on? Is this all for real?
Red claiming I’m the father of her child? A child I really can't argue over the fact does have a lot of similar features to myself.
Hell, I even pull up an old baby picture of me to try and talk myself out of all this, but all it does is help corroborate her story.
As Holly revealed her story about us and Matty, she also reopened a wound from the past, one I try hard to forget. One that hasn’t healed fully. Sara Joyce. Her name still leaves a bitter taste in my mouth. I fell for her trick—hook, line, and sinker. She told me she was pregnant about two months after we had slept together. Not being in the best frame of mind at the time because of my addictions—I believed her. I had just taken over for Morgan Securities. The money was new and it was the last thing I was thinking about when it came to Sara. I trusted her.
I had gotten excited about the child being mine. The idea of children never scared me and at the time, in my messed-up mind, I thought it would give me a reason to quit downing oxy like they were Tic Tacs. I was always looking for that reason and I thought a kid, a future with them, was good enough.
I helped her …paid for things. Set up a nursery at my house.
Then the day she delivered, I had been clean for two months. I was a hot mess still, but I was on my way to sobriety. I walked into the delivery room, eager to see my child when I came face to face with another potential father. I knew then I’d been had. She later tried to forge a DNA test, but the other guy she was stringing along put an end to that when he caught on. Hours later, I was popping oxy again to take away that pain I felt in my heart. It would only be six months later till I would go fully sober again.
I had put a lot of trust into her and after that, I knew I wouldn’t be able to trust another woman again.
Till now.
There are so many questions swirling around in my mind. For all I know, Holly could be trying to take me for a joy ride, but I still need my building designed and she's the one that can do it till the DNA results come back.
It's just what does she have to gain by lying to me? She'll lose a job and her credibility.
I bang my head against the desk and a soft giggle pulls me out of my drowning thoughts.
"Are you alright?" Sam asks, and I peek up at her.
"I'm processing."
“Processing?”
“I have been delivered some big news and I’m in the middle of processing it.”
“Hmm. Okay. Is it something you want to share with the class?”
I point over to Matty who is still busy playing with my tablet. I downloaded a couple educational games for him because I couldn’t take hearing any more of Elmo’s song after he refused to wear his headphones. He’s hooked on them, which is great because I’ve been in panic mode ever since his mom left.
“What is Holly's son doing in your office?”
“He’s the news I’m processing.”
Her mouth opens and closes, and she looks back over at Matty. “Okay? I’m a little lost here. Explain.”
“She says he’s my son.”
She clucks her tongue. "Well, I hate to admit to you Liam, when I first laid eyes on the kid earlier, I thought he was yours.”
Seriously?
I narrow my eyes. “You could’ve said something earlier.”
“Not something I wanted to mention without my morning coffee. But she was all fidgety and he’s practically this little you." She waves her finger at me. "I thought maybe you knew and weren't ready to tell me." She shrugs. "Like I said, I hadn't had coffee yet, sue me."
"Explains why you kept grilling me."
When Sam pulled me outside after first meeting Matty she kept asking me questions about Matty, from his age to, coincidentally, who the father was. I cut her off wanting to get to the business at hand and back to Holly as quickly as possible. If only I had known I would be answering her daddy question a couple hours later.
“What are you going to do?"
“The only thing I can do. I asked for a DNA test and we’ll go from there. But what are the chances he's mine?”
“You mean what are the chances you slept with a woman, one random night and one of your swimmers happened to get loose and make a baby?” She taps her finger on her chin. “I’d say the odds of that are pretty good.”
“Shut up.”
“You asked.”
“I meant rhetorically.”
“No, you didn’t.”
“Are you done yet?”
“Nope.”
“What do you want?”
“Those papers.” She points to the pile of papers sitting next to me on Ryan Davis’ company, dealing with the electronic records of an ex-employee, who is the main suspect of taking the man’s wife. There are over a hundred pages I need to go through, and I haven’t even glanced at them yet.
“They’re not ready. I got sidetracked.”
"Understandably so."
"Are you done now?"
She smirks. "Aww, Liam is a daddy."
"We don't know that yet."
"But you know there’s a possibility. Otherwise, she'd be on her ass and the kid wouldn't be drooling on your brand new five-hundred-dollar tablet."
"He's not drooling…"
"Okay, getting his sticky fingers all over it. I think you believe it."