No Commitment (Capital Kingsmen #1) - Lisa Suzanne Page 0,61

four of us are seated at the kitchen table where we drink and smoke and talk shit and get business done, Tommy starts the meeting the same way he has started every band meeting since the beginning of time.

“Any of you fuckers have anything you need to get out of the way?” His eyes move immediately to me.

It’s his way of clearing the air, of allowing us to get anything we need to off our chests so all our attention can focus on business, and it’s my chance to jump in with my news.

“Last night I slept with a married woman and this morning I learned she has a kid.”

“Whoa,” Dustin says. Brett mutters something similar. I can’t tell if their surprise is from the kid or from the fact that I slept with her when she’s married. Brett wouldn’t care about something like that, but Dustin, the guy who’s about to propose and has a baby on the way...he might have something to say.

Tommy already knew about the kid, and he seems unsurprised that we slept together last night.

“There’s more,” I say. “The kid’s mine.”

Wide eyes on Dustin and Brett turn toward me.

“She kept it from you?” Dustin says.

“Apparently.” I need to talk to her. I need to figure out what my rights are.

There’s only one thing I know for sure. Now that I know about this kid, I will be a part of her life. I don’t know what that’s going to look like, and I won’t take her away from her mother, but I won’t let her grow up thinking some other man is her father.

“How...what...wait. What?” Brett says, pretty much summing up exactly how I’m feeling.

“I don’t know much, but I guess it happened that night I first ran into her in Milwaukee,” I say, giving the few details I do know. “She found out a few weeks before our tour was about to wrap and wanted to wait to tell me in person. Then I agreed to go on that reality show, and she made the executive decision not to tell me. She blocked me and then I got out of the house and got on a plane to get to you fuckers and here we are two years later.”

“Do a paternity test, dude,” Tommy says. “Make the fuck sure that kid is yours.”

I glance at him. Never once did the thought ever occur to me that Dani might be lying, but if she had the ability to keep this news from me for two years, I can’t be sure what else she’s capable of.

“The kid is mine,” I say. “We have the same eyes. When I held her...I don’t know. I just knew. And besides, the age checks out. There’s no way she’s not mine.”

“Why didn’t she tell you?” Brett asks.

I shrug. “She said something about being scared and not wanting to do it alone, but, fuck, she wouldn’t have been alone. She cut me out before I had the chance to prove myself.”

“Did she even have the chance to tell you?” Dustin asks, clearly defending her.

“She fucking blocked me, dude,” I say. “Yeah, she had the chance. She decided not to take it.”

He taps a finger against the side of his water bottle, something he does when he wants to make a point but is figuring out how to say it diplomatically. And then he spills it. “Look at the facts. If she was scared she’d have to do it alone, she wasn’t wrong. You were on the reality show for thirty days, and then you went international for two years. She would have been alone.”

“She could’ve come to Europe. Or I could’ve backed out of the reality show. There were choices to be made if I would’ve had the facts.” I don’t know if any of that is true. At the time, I felt like I didn’t have a choice. I still feel that way. But I would’ve fought a hell of a lot harder if I would’ve known she was pregnant.

“Still, her body, her choice,” Dustin says. “She had no obligation to tell you.”

My brows dip. “Are you fucking kidding me? Maybe legally she didn’t, but what about just telling the plain old truth? What about that?”

“I gotta be honest, man,” Tommy says. “It’s shitty, but I kinda get why she did it. Do you really want to raise a kid in the spotlight? What’s best for that kid? A simple life in southeastern Wisconsin with two parents there to raise