One Foolish Night (Eternal Bachelors Club #4)

He’d lost his appetite the moment Tillamer had put his dirty paws on Holly. At that moment he’d seen red. And instead of pulling the jerk behind the pool house and tossing him off the property, where he wouldn’t have had a chance to expose Holly in front of all the guests, Paul had provoked a public fight.

His mother slammed her fist on the table, making the cutlery and plates rattle. “You’ve ruined our reputation! For God’s sake! How could you do this to us? The people! They’ll point at us because our son hired a hooker and brought her into our house!”

Paul jumped from his chair with such force that it toppled over behind him. “If you hadn’t insisted on forcing eligible women on me I wouldn’t have had to hire Holly! But no, you kept on insisting that I go out with some prissy rich girl of your choosing! It’s your own damn fault!”

His mother gasped.

“Don’t talk to your mother like that!” His father tossed his napkin onto the table.

Paul glared at his father. “Well, maybe if you had talked to her like that just once, then I wouldn’t have to!”

“Paul, I’m warning you!” His father jumped up.

“Brad is right. You can’t treat your mother like that!” Quentin suddenly interrupted.

Paul whipped his head in his direction. “Don’t get involved in this.”

“I am involved already! By bringing a hooker here, you’ve also ruined my reputation!” Quentin claimed. “Nobody is going to do any business with me now.”

Paul leaned over the table and addressed Quentin. “You selfish bastard! Why don’t you clean up your own house first, huh? You’re a self-centered prick who has no respect for my sister. Why she stays married to you is a mystery to me. If I were Olivia, I would have tossed you out on your ass years ago! You don’t deserve her!”

Quentin’s eyes widened and his jaw dropped. “My marriage is none of your fucking business!”

“Then my relationship with Holly is none of yours! So butt out!”

“Relationship?” Paul’s mother echoed, having jumped up too. “But you said you hired her. You mean you didn’t know she’s a hooker? She tricked you?”

Paul gritted his teeth. “Holly would never trick me!” Even as he professed it, he knew it wasn’t entirely true. Holly had kept the pregnancy from him and not told him whether he was the father. “She quit the escort business months ago. What she did in her past is her business, not yours.”

“They all heard what she is! She quit? Who cares that she quit? The scandal is going to crush us!” His mother pointed out toward the pool area as if the guests were still assembled there. Then she shot a pleading look to Paul’s father. “Do something, Brad!”

“What do you want me to do, Nora? Paul got us into this.” His father tossed an annoyed look in Paul’s direction. “You disappointed me, son! I never expected you to sink so low as to hire a hooker—”

“Damn it!” Paul snapped, rage boiling over now. “Would you all stop calling her a hooker! Holly is the woman who carries my child!”

The words were out before he could stop himself. And for some reason saying it strengthened his belief that it was true, that the child Holly was carrying was his. There could be no other reason for her earlier hesitation when he’d asked her how many weeks along she was in her pregnancy.

“She’s pregnant?” his mother croaked, and dropped back onto her chair. “Oh God, no!” She clasped her husband’s arm. “Oh Brad!”

“You have to pay her off, now, immediately,” his father demanded.

His mother glared at Paul. “How could you be so stupid? You have to get her to have an abortion. I can’t have a grandchild by that h—”

“Don’t say it, Mother, or I’ll walk out of here and you’ll never see me again!”

“You’d choose your family over her, over that . . . that woman?” she choked out. “All I tried all these years was to make sure you found a good woman. All I wanted for you was a respectable wife. How could you do this? How could you get involved with such filth?”

Before Paul could respond, a heavy fist slammed on the table, but it was neither his father nor Quentin who’d demanded silence by such means. It was Mirabelle.

Surprised, Paul stared at his great-aunt, but she was glaring at Paul’s mother, not at him.

“Oh, get off your high horse, Nora! Like you were that much better!”

His mother gasped and her eyes widened in shock.

“Maybe it’s time for your children to find out about your past!” Mirabelle continued, undeterred. “You know I was the only one of Brad’s family who was always on your side, but what you’re doing now is not right, Nora.”

“You wouldn’t!” his mother shouted, but Mirabelle couldn’t be stopped. Then her eyes shot to Paul and Olivia. “Don’t listen to her!”

Mirabelle huffed indignantly. “Or shall I call you Nolene? Wasn’t that the name you used when you were stripping at the Gold Club in Boston—when Brad picked you up?”

“No! Liar!” Paul’s mother choked out, her eyes wide in horror. “Brad, tell them she’s wrong!”

His father looked indecisive.