Vegas Baby(2)

I exhale and rise onto my knees, running my hand through my hair and tossing a regretful look at the hot and bothered Vegas beauty on full display beneath me. A minute later, I step into a pair of crumpled jeans from the floor before jerking the bedroom door open. I hope to God my erection dies down between here and the front door, because whoever has the balls to bang on my door this time of morning is in for a real treat if it doesn’t.

With my fist balled against my forehead, I pull the door wide and drag in the most exaggeratedly annoyed breath I can muster.

“Someone better be dead or dy—” My words evaporate into the dry desert air the second I see a pair of familiar crystalline eyes.

“Crew.” Her arms are folded across her chest, her head cocked to the side and her gaze landing on my bare chest. “Crew Forrester.”

Living in Vegas the last few years, I’ve had my fair share of shameless, self-indulgent one-night stands. Ninety-eight percent of the time I forget their faces by the next day, and ninety-nine percent of the time I forget their names, but this one . . .

This girl with the magnetic, see-through eyes and hair like polished obsidian. The kind of girl who made you work for a smile. The kind of girl who held her cards close and made you do whatever it took to sneak a peek. I almost thought we had something—not that I was in the market for anything.

I couldn’t forget her if I tried.

“Ava,” I say to the woman I pretend-married at a Denny’s on Freemont Street last year. We fucked all night in her hotel after I plucked her out of a friend’s bachelorette party. At six in the morning, I took her out for pancakes. We ordered two Grand Slams and a wedding straight off the menu.

It was the closest I’d ever come to remotely considering marrying someone.

The moment I kissed my faux bride, she offered a half-bitten smile and thanked me for everything. We exchanged numbers and even last names, and I never heard from or saw her again.

Until now.

“You could’ve called first,” I say. Our eyes meet and she bites her lower lip, though she’s not trying to be sexy.

Ava lifts a steady hand to her hair, tucking a strand behind her ear. “Can I come in?”

I glance behind me, exhale, and shake my head. “Now’s not a good time.”

Her soft features harden in an instant, her dark brows meeting in the middle. Ava pulls in two ragged breaths and turns to her side.#p#分页标题#e#

But she doesn’t leave.

She bends over, reaching for something out of sight and hoisting it up and into my arms. A fuzzy pink blanket covers what appears to be a baby car seat.

What. The. Fuck.

“Ava.”

A few calm blinks later, Ava pulls her shoulders high and shoves the car seat into my chest. The blanket slips off and lands at my feet.

“I can’t be a mother.” The ease at which those words escape her pretty lips amazes me. I’m guessing she practiced that line a thousand times on the drive from LA to Vegas. “She’s yours, Crew. And you can have her. I thought I could do it. I thought I could make it work. I can’t.”

Ava exhales and steps away, as if the universe has just freed her of her shackles.

My head spins, my heart hammering.

I have a poker tournament tonight.

There’s a naked dancer in my bed right now.

How the fuck do you change a diaper?

I glance at the dark haired baby in the car seat and she smiles. Her pink gums and sparkling blue eyes make me forget to breathe for a second.

“How old is she?” I ask, as if that’s the most important question in this moment. I need a second to process all of this, to gather pieces here and make sense of everything.

“If you’re questioning whether or not she’s yours,” she says, “I’d be happy to pay for a DNA test.”

“Four months,” I say, running the numbers in my head. I slept with Ava two Februaries ago.

“Yes.”

“When’s her birthday?”

“November eleventh.”

Ava leans down again, this time presenting me with what appears to be a small diaper bag. It’s leather. All black. Not covered in any kind of cutesy pattern or giving any hint of its true purpose, as if motherhood is a shameful burden.

“You’ll change your mind,” I say. “I’m sure your hormones are probably—”

“No.” Her arms fold. “Never. I don’t even love her. I know that’s a fucked up thing to say, Crew, but I don’t know how else to put this. I can’t keep her. I can’t be her mother. I look at her, and I feel nothing.”

Ava states her facts in a way that I wholeheartedly believe her. She’s a frigid ice queen, her heart as frozen as her empty, emotionless stare.