“I’m going to be an uncle instead,” I add.
The silence stretches between us all, and it takes them a while to compute what I’ve said.
“Are you saying your brother is the father?” Jasper asks the dreaded question first.
“I caught them in bed together when I came home last night,” I explain.
“Fuck!” Daniel curses.
“No wonder you smell like a brewery,” Jasper adds, nodding as if it all makes sense.
“That’s why your knuckles are fucked, and you have a black eye?” Alex questions while his eyes look over me with concern.
“Yeah, I lost my mind there for a moment,” I tell them honestly.
“Don’t blame you,” Jasper says in agreement.
“I don’t understand why Miranda would do that,” Daniel states.
“I don’t understand either.” I sigh as I scrub my face trying to remove the images of them together in bed from my mind.
“You need a shower, some food, and then we’ll talk some more. But we’ve got you, okay?” Alex tells me.
I nod, and he holds out a hand to help me off the floor. I’m a little shaky on my feet, but he steadies me and then pushes me toward the bathroom. Jumping into the shower, I let the warm water run over my body, easing my bruised muscles. I hope George feels as shitty as I do this morning. It’s unbelievable what he has done to me again. Angrily, I thump my fist against the tiles of my shower. My shoulders sag while the weight of the life I thought I was headed toward crumbles in on me. As I slump to the shower floor, I let the water run cold.
“I did not sign up to see your dick today,” Jasper grumbles as he helps me from the shower floor. Alex is also there with a towel and hands it to me. After wrapping it around my waist, I head to the guest room, slump into the armchair, and stare at my best friends. We’ve been through thick and thin, the four of us.
Alex—his fiancée had an affair with his enemy and used him to steal company secrets.
Jasper—he refuses to let a woman get close to him since his first love rejected his proposal and married his best friend.
Daniel—he’s nowhere near ready to settle, if ever, after he witnessed his father blackmail his mother his entire life. It wasn’t until she was on her death bed that his mother was able to tell Daniel about his half-brother. His dad had an affair with his secretary and then shipped her away out of sight. Daniel’s father made him choose between his inheritance or finding his brother. He chose to find his brother because, for him, it was a no-brainer, and he ended up being the world-famous artist, Louis Marchant. Plus, the guy is French and enjoys women a little too much.
“Why the fuck did they do this to me?” I ponder more to myself, but it’s come out as a question.
They all stand around shrugging their shoulders or giving me their best lost-for-words looks.
“Of all the people he could have fucked … why her? Whymy girl?”
“George hasalwaysbeen competitive,” Alex suggests, knowing my family dynamics. I’ve known Alex for most of my life, except when his family moved to America for a short time.
“And a self-serving fuckhead,” Jasper adds.
Yep, he’s never been a fan of George. I’ve known Jasper since infancy, and our parents are still friends after all these years.
“What’s happened has nothing to do with you,” Daniel replies, hoping it will make me feel better. It doesn’t. Daniel is the newest member of our friendship group. Jasper and I met him at university where Dan and I found out we were dating the same girl—we gave her the flick and became instant friends.
“It feels like it does with George,” I say on a sigh, exhausted by everything.
The sound of keys rattling in the door has us all pausing.
Who the fuck is that?
My heart beats furiously in my chest as panic begins to travel through my veins when I hear Miranda call out my name.
“Get dressed and hear her out,” Alex tells me.
“We’ll run block,” Jasper adds as my boys head downstairs.