“The designer on the Rodgers’ Farms project?”

“That’s the one.”

“Our employee.”

“Technically she’s Luke Rodgers’ employee. But yeah. Same one.”

“The woman you’re constantly complaining about?”

“Yes.”

“The one you’re always growling at.”

“I growl at a lot of people.”

“Not as much as you growl at her.” A stunned pause. “Wow. Wow, it actually makes a sick kind of sense. She’s the only person, man or woman, I’ve ever seen go toe to toe with you so often, and so…passionately. Y’all were fucking the whole time, weren’t you? There’s that saying—the one Mom always uses—that love and hate are two sides of the same coin.” He scoffs. “Jesus, how did I not see it sooner?”

Another pull of bourbon. “Baby’s due in June. She’s keeping it.”

My throat suddenly feels tight.

I still can’t believe I’m going to be a daddy.

Me. The control freak. The broody asshole.

The marked man.

Ford puts a hand on my arm. He’s too smart to say shit like it’s going to be okay, because he knows better.

Still. The small gesture makes me feel slightly less like dying.

I’m the big brother. I look out for Ford, not the other way around. It’s really nice, though, having him here.

“You know I’m going to be a helicopter uncle now too. Just to bust your balls.”

I scoff. Tamp out my cigarette in the heavy glass ashtray I brought over the day I left Cameron. Ford gives my arm a squeeze before dropping his hand.

“So are you and Julia, like, together, or…I mean, how are y’all going to work this out?”

I lean my forearms against the railing and dig my thumbs into my eye sockets.

“I don’t know,” I say quietly. “Ford, I don’t know what to do.”

Ford lets out a breath. “Been a spell since I heard those words from you, Grey.”

“No shit. This is new territory for me. Care to offer any fatherly wisdom?”

“Well, for starters, what are you afraid of? Aside from the obvious holy-shit-I’m-going-to-be-responsible-for-a-human-being thing. Which, don’t get me wrong, is a big deal. But I know it’s not responsibility that makes Greyson Montgomery piss his pants.”

I sigh, feeling a familiar pinch in my neck and shoulders. For so long I’ve been scary good at pushing aside the guilt and the hurt leftover from my divorce so I can take care of Ford. Bryce. Our business.

Pure, gun-to-my-head survival mode.

It’s served me well. But now—

Now I’m not so sure what my next move should be.

“I’m scared of failing again,” I say. “Of fucking up. Royally. The way I did with Cameron.”

Fucking up any relationship I might have with Julia. Fucking up this fatherhood thing.

“Grey. You fell out of love with someone. It happens.”

“I didn’t just fall out of love. I destroyed someone’s life. Cameron was ready to have kids, for Christ’s sake. We had everything.”

“And you were miserable. You knew you didn’t love her enough, you knew she deserved someone who was crazy about her. So you did what you thought was right. And it was the right call—leaving. Even if it didn’t feel like it at the time. She was a nice girl. But she wasn’t good for you.”