“I found out the same day Ainsley left her reality show, and it all just sort of crashed together at the right time. I needed help with this six-month-old I’d just found out about, and she needed a local place to lay low, and she said she could help me.” I shrug as if it all makes perfect sense. While it might to us, I realize it won’t to my sister.
“You have a kid?” Ivy asks me. She turns to Ainsley. “And you—you—you arehelpingmy brother with this kid?”
Ainsley nods. “I’m the nanny.”
“And the wife,” I say, and somehow that strikes us both as fucking hilarious because we both burst into laughter.
“The baby’s nanny,” she clarifies through her laughter, and she sets a hand on the wall as she doubles over with laughter. She jerks her thumb at me. “His wife.”
“I’m her husband,” I say between my own laughter, and Ivy just looks at us like we’ve both lost our minds.
“I knew that part. The kid part, though…why’d you leave it out?”
I draw in a breath as I try to pull it together. Once the laughter has calmed, I slip the key into my door and explain the situation as we walk in. “I just got the DNA test results back the other morning. I didn’t want to tell anyone until I had definitive proof he was mine. We’d already arranged to have him stay with my coach tonight while we attended a charity ball.” I leave out the part about getting Ainsley drunk. It seems dangerous to add that in at this point. Ivy doesn’t need to know that I was just kissing her friend on the elevator, either.
“So this six-month-old kid…” Ivy says, trailing off. “Boy? Girl? Does it have a name?”
“A boy named Jack,” I say.
“And does he have a mother?” she asks.
“Are you serious with that question?” I ask.
She purses her lips and rolls her eyes at me. “It was my nice way of asking where the mother is.”
“No longer around,” I say, dodging her real question. “She dropped him with me and signed over full custody.”
“Jeez, Dex. And you’ve kept all this a secret?”
“Not intentionally. I was working on figuring things out. But now Ains and I have a system down, and she’s been a real lifesaver.”
Ivy looks between her best friend and me, and I get the feeling if I don’t get the fuck out of here quickly, she’ll be on to both of us.
And that’s why I decide to call it a night.
I show Ivy to her guest room first, and Ainsley follows her in so they can catch up.
It’s definitely not the sort of night I was planning on having, but I head to my bed alone.
I wake up alone, too. Jerking off in the shower doesn’t help. I’m hot for my little sister’s best friend, and a good fuck is about the only thing that’s going to give me any relief at all. But as I think through the women I could call on to give me just that, I realize something important.
I don’t want any of them. I just want her.
And that’s a problem.
I blow out a breath as I fight it off. Five days now. Five more days until the start of my next season, and my little sister is here cockblocking me for four of those days.
On Sunday night, though…all bets are off.
CHAPTER 23: Ainsley Bradley
Drunker than I Realized
It’s admittedly very fun having Ivy here, but I was expecting to wake up beside Dex this morning.
It was also admittedly nice having the morning off and sleeping in. I take a quick shower and find Dex in the kitchen.
“Where’s the birthday girl?” I ask.
