Page 78 of The Decoy

“Let’s get one thing straight, Dad,” Ellis interrupts smoothly, stepping right up alongside me, her voice dripping with ice. “Neither Brody nor I need a dime from Dylan. His hockey schedule makes him entirely useless as a parent anyway. Brody isn’t stepping in out of convenience or obligation. He’s here because he belongs here. Belongs with me.”

I look Charles dead in the eyes without hesitation.

“I’m here because I love her,” I say simply.

The sheer honesty of the statement hangs in the heavy air in the study.

“I love Ellis,” I continue, my voice steady, carrying the weight of an absolute truth. “And when you love a woman, you don’t pick and choose which parts of her life are convenient for you to carry, you take all of her, take her past, her present, her fears and her dreams. You stand in front of her when the wind blows, and you build a wall around her, so no one can hurt her.”

I pause, taking a slow breath, letting my gaze drift for a second toward the floor before locking back onto Charles.

“My dad walked out on my mom when I was seven years old,” I say quietly. “He packed a bag in the middle of the night. Left a note on the kitchen counter and vanished. He left, and my mother worked sixty hours a week at a diner just to keep the lights on and feed my sister and me. I grew up watching a good, strong woman bleed herself dry because the man who was supposed to stand by her decided it was too hard.”

I look Charles right in his face. My jaw sat like concrete.

“So when I found out Ellis was pregnant,” I say. “It wasn’t a burden. It wasn’t a responsibility to weigh on a balance sheet. It was an absolute unshakable instinct. We were friends first, and I respected her. I cared about her, and there was zero chance on this earth I was going to let her walk through this alone, and somewhere along the way, falling in love with her was the easiest thing I’ve ever done in my entire life.”

Ellis’s breath hitches softly beside me. I turned my head slightly, looking down at her tears shimmering in her eyes, not tears of weakness or fear, but raw emotion that shines like stars. She raises her hand, resting her palm flat against my chest right over my heart.

“Brody,” she whispers, her voice thick with love.

I turn back to Charles. His face has gone completely motionless, and the harshness that had filled his eyes five minutes ago is gone, replaced by a quiet, stunned stillness. He’s got no rebuttal for a man who operates on honesty.

“I love your daughter, Charles,” I say firmly. “I intend to protect her. I intend to raise our son, and as soon as she’ll have me, I intend to marry her.”

For three seconds, nobody moves or says a word.

Then a sudden sharp, delighted clap echoes through the drawing room.

Molly is beaming, clapping her hands together with unbridled joy, tears running down her cheek, and then she steps between Charles and us.

“Oh thank goodness,” Molly cries out, breaking the heavy tension in the room like a light switch. “I knew I wasn’t wrong. I told you, Charles, I told you he was coming here to ask for our blessing.”

Molly rushes over, wraps her arms around my waist, and squeezes me before turning to pull Ellis into a hug. “Oh my sweet girl, finally a man with actual muscles and a heart.”

Ellis laughs, shaking her head as she buries her face in her mother’s shoulder. “Mom, please.”

“What?” Molly says, stepping back and wiping her cheeks with a handkerchief, looking up at me with a wicked grin. “I’m just observing, darling! A man who can bend a steel rod in half is bound to make an efficient father.”

“Molly, for God’s sake,” Charles sighs, rubbing the bridge of his nose as the last of his intimidating posture completely crumples under his wife’s uninhibited enthusiasm.

“Oh hush, Charles,” Molly snaps, playfully turning to glare at her husband with a playful expression. “You sat there playing the big bad wolf, and Brody just handed you your own head on a platter. Accept defeat with some dignity, dear.”

Charles looks down at his glass of scotch, taking a long, slow sip before placing it back on his desk. He leans back in his chair, staring at me for a long, quiet moment. The anger is entirely gone, replaced by the resignation of a father who realizes he’s no longer the most important man in his daughter’s life.

“Fine,” Charles says quietly, devoid of malice. “I will not file a public paternity suit. I will not leak Dylan Boone’s name to the press.”

Ellis lets out a quiet, relieved breath, her hand tightening on mine.

“However,” Charles continues, raising a sharp, stern finger as he asserts his final boundary. “I will not leave this family unprotected, Brody. If Boone is going to walk away from this child, he’s going to do it legally. I’ll have our attorneys draft a comprehensive, ironclad surrender of paternal rights combined with a non-disclosure agreement that carries liquidated damages high enough to bankrupt his entire estate if he ever speaks a word about Ellis, the baby, or you. He signs it quietly, he walks away permanently, and he surrenders every legal claim to that boy forever.”

I look at Ellis. She gives me a single nod.

“Now that I can agree with,” I tell Charles. “Have the papers drawn up, and if he gives us any trouble about signing them, I will personally handle it.”

Charles looks at me for another second, then slowly stands from his chair. He steps a foot away from me. He’s a tall man, but I tower over him by three inches and seventy pounds of muscle. Our eyes lock, and I know he’s searching for any sign of doubt, any flicker of hesitation.

He won’t find any.