Sinclair
My dreams were crashing and burning. I could see it in Wyatt’s eyes. Whatever he’d felt for me before was gone. Now, he felt resentment and loathing toward me. The only sweet spot in this moment was Alyssa asking him if she could call him Daddy. The emotion that swept over his face was so raw and real. It was the final confirmation that I was a terrible, terrible person.
“What’s going on out here? Supper is getting cold,” Peggy called from the house.
“Go tell your grandma that we’ll be right in,” I said.
Alyssa beamed. “She’s my grandma. Can I tell her, Mama?” She spun to Wyatt. “Can I tell her that you’re my daddy?”
He nodded, although I wasn’t sure he fully agreed. “Tell her we’ll be in in a minute.”
Alyssa ran off, with Wyatt and I watching her. When the door shut, I knew I was in for more of his anger. I deserved it, though. If he kicked me out and divorced me, I’d deserve it. The only thing I had to hope for was that he didn’t try to take her from me.
“Wyatt, I’m so sorry. Honest to God, I spent the whole drive home tonight trying to figure out how to tell you.”
“‘Alyssa is your child’ was too hard?”
I looked down, feeling ashamed. “I was hoping to find a way to tell you so that you wouldn’t be angry or feel betrayed.”
He laughed derisively. “You kept the truth about my being her father from me and you thought I wouldn’t be angry?”
There was no answer to that because I knew he’d be mad. That was why it had taken so long to tell him. There was no way he wouldn’t have been mad unless I’d told him that first time I saw him. The longer time went by, the angrier he’d become, and so my desire to tell him and not lose him had been lost for some time.
His green eyes were hard as he stared down on me. “All this time, I’ve been so fucking in love with you.”
I gasped at his words and then immediately felt pain as I knew that love was gone now. For one split second I’d had my dream, but then I killed it with my deception.
He shook his head at me. “I’ve been trying to make this marriage real, but it’s been a sham the whole time.”
“No.”
“That’s the way you wanted it, isn’t it, Sinclair? That’s why you didn’t want Alyssa here, because you were afraid I’d find out the truth.”
I couldn’t deny it because at one point that was true.
“That’s why you wanted to stay in her room, because you didn’t want me to get too close to you or her. You were planning to never tell me.”
“No, Wyatt. I was going to tell you. I really was.”
He sneered at me. “I don’t believe you. Does your boss know you’re a liar?”
&nb
sp; I flinched.
“Maybe it won’t matter to him. Unless you have a child of his hidden away too.”
“Wyatt.” I understood his anger so I took it. “Please. Let me-”
“Explain? What is there to explain? You purposefully didn’t tell me I had a child. Let me tell you something, Sinclair, you won’t keep her from me.”
“I don’t want to.” But a shiver of fear ran down my spine as I worried that he’d try to take her from me. “You’re a wonderful father, Wyatt.”
He scoffed. “So, is that what you were waiting for? I had to pass some sort of test before I could find out about my own daughter?”
I couldn’t completely deny that either. “We can work this out, Wyatt. We can be a family. We can be real.”
“No. No fucking way. That ship has sailed, Sinclair.” He leaned toward me. “How can I build a life with you when I don’t trust you? When you’re the type of person that would keep me from knowing I was a father. Especially since I’d made it clear that I loved her. Not even then did you deem it important enough to tell me the truth.”