This sort of thing just doesn’t happen to people like me. I’m the Golden Child. The man with no speeding tickets and zero cavities at every dentist visit. I help old ladies cross the street. People call on me to help them out of financial trouble.

I’m good.
The best, even.

Squeezing my eyes shut, I lean back in my office chair.

What will my mother think?

Just imagining making that phone call sends panic through my veins.

I peek my eyes open and glance back down at the document—the very official document.

Cassidy.

My attorney, Calvin, faxed over this birth certificate on his way out of the office. He should be here soon to discuss it. But for the past twenty minutes, I’ve been staring at it. There’s has to be some mistake.

I’m not a father. Not the father of some almost four-year-old little boy. It’s impossible.

You had unprotected sex that one night—the night before you proposed—the night before she turned you down.

People don’t get pregnant after one time of unprotected sex. This cannot be happening.

A soft knock on my office door drags my attention from the birth certificate.

“Come in,” I command hoarsely. I hate the shakiness in my voice.

A thought suddenly takes root in my mind. She’ll want me back. If we have a kid together, she’ll have to want me back. We could be a family.

Hope threads itself through my heart as Calvin walks in. His downcast eyes immediately put my nerves on edge.

“I’ll take the paternity test. If the kid is mine, I want to do what’s right.” It’s the truth. I’ll do it for her.
For Cassidy.

Calvin sighs and slides another very official document across my desk.

Tears blur my vision.

No.

A death certificate.

Cassidy Francine Thomas.

Thirty-one years old.

Dead.

He begins rattling off information, but the roar in my head is too much. She can’t be dead. Cassidy was a normal, healthy woman. This doesn’t make sense.

“Did you hear me?” he demands loudly.

My tear-stained eyes find his in question.

“Social services will be by tomorrow morning. You’re the father on the birth certificate,” he says softly. “Tomorrow, they are bringing you your son.”

My son.

Cassidy is dead and I have a son.

Defiance

(Book 7 in the Breaking the Rules Series)

Coming Soon!

Ian

Fuck.

We’re busy as shit tonight and two of my lazy-ass bartenders called in. Everyone knows they’re screwing each other. Nobody cares except when they leave us hanging so they can fuck instead of work. Tomorrow, we’re having a serious sit down because I cannot be left hanging on a Friday night shorthanded again.

“Excuse me,” a squeak of a voice chirps at me from the other side of the bar. “Can we get three margaritas with lots of salt?”

I turn to see three women on the other side of the bar staring at me doe-eyed and with an eagerness to drink that only underage females have. Fucking Biff let them in without checking their ID’s apparently.

Am I going to have to fire everyfuckingbody?

They proudly wave their stamped hands at me and I groan as I reach for some glasses to make their drinks. If the cops were to bust in, I’d not only most likely go to jail and get a shit ton of fines but they’d probably want to deport my ass back to Ireland.

“Hey g-gorgeous,” a deep voice slurs.

I flick my gaze up to see some idiot in a suit that can barely stand on his own two feet eyeing up the young lady that ordered the margaritas. My eyes narrow as he dips close to her face and makes what I’m sure he thinks is a sexy grin at her.

“I’m taking you home tonight. I bet your pussy is tight,” he says as his hands find her hips.

I slam down the tequila bottle nearly hard enough for it to break and growl out a warning, “Let her go, asshole.”

The woman’s eyes widen in fear at his touch and she glances at me. Her face pleads for me to help her.

“I claimed her, prick. Go the fuck away,” he snarls as he hauls her against him.

When his hands slide over her ass, I lose my mind. Slapping my hands onto the bar, I hoist myself over it in one quick move. As soon as my feet make purchase on the wood floors on the other side, I yank him away from her.

“What the—” he starts but I rear my fist back and slam it into his nose.

Hysterical squealing rings out from the women but I ignore them as I pound this asshole several more times in his face before Biff is pulling me from him.

“Ian, stop!” he barks out, barely able to keep me from charging the fucker again.

Another man comes to the aid of the now bleeding motherfucker and he glares at me. “Do you know what you’ve just done?”

I grit my teeth and challenge this new idiot with a stare that promises if he keeps talking, he’ll be next.

Since I don’t humor him with an answer, he continues, “You just beat up the third district state representative of New York, Tom Hardstone.”

“He put his hands on the lady,” I snap in reply. I don’t give a fuck who he is. If he puts his hands on a woman, I’m going to intervene every fucking time.

The man holds his cell phone up and wiggles it at me. “I’m not only his best friend, but I’m also his attorney. You just fucked yourself, loser. I recorded you beating his ass,” he smirks, “You’re going down.”

This time, it takes both Biff and another bar patron to hold me back from beating this fucker’s ass too. Since I’m going down and all . . .

I may as well take them both out.

BOOK: Crushed (Breaking the Rules Series Book 5)

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