Fake Marriage (Contemporary Romance Box Set)

My heart ached knowing I wouldn’t be next to him. I got ready for bed and climbed in. It was then I realized why he’d moved rooms. I could smell him on the sheets. Chances were, my scent was on the sheets and he couldn’t stand to be around it so he moved to another bed.

I pulled his pillow into my arms and inhaled. And then I cried at my own stupidity and selfishness.

31

Wyatt

I was a fucking mess. Weeks after learning I was Alyssa’s father I still felt like I’d been sucker punched. Worse yet, just because Sinclair had completely destroyed me, didn’t mean my longing for her ended. If only it did, because it was driving me crazy to both love and loathe the mother of my child.

My child. How had I not figured it out earlier? What did it say about me as a father that I didn’t know instantaneously that I was Alyssa’s father? Wasn’t there some sort of built-in DNA detector? Shouldn’t I have known my own child instinctively?

If not that, how about common sense and math? I left ten years ago and Alyssa was nine. Nine years plus nine-months gestation, made nearly ten years. I was a fucking idiot to have not even considered it. And Sinclair was happy to keep me in the dark.

Jesus, that hurt. I rubbed my hand over my heart as I rode with my men herding the cattle to another area of the pasture to feed. I knew physical pain from my father’s fists and even from the horrors of war. I’d take that type of hurt over heartache any day.

I tried to turn my thoughts to the fact that I was a father. I was fucking psyched about that, and it helped that Alyssa seemed happy about it too.

“Can I learn to cattle ranch too, Daddy?” Alyssa asked me last night as I took her out for a short ride.

“If you want to. Someday this will all be yours, if you want it.”

“Really? The horses too?”

“All of it. But only if you want it.” My child was going to pursue her dreams no matter what they were. If she wanted to be an astronaut or fashion designer, I didn’t care. I’d help her achieve it.

The days rolled on as they always had in this short fake marriage: Me up before dawn to take care of the ranch, Sinclair and Alyssa out before I got back, supper together because my mother insisted.

“Studies show that families that eat together have kids who do better in school and life,” she said when I tried to get out of having to eat with Sinclair. It always felt like the knife twisted in my chest when I saw her now. It was so ha

rd to sit at the table with Sinclair and pretend that everything was normal. That first night after I learned the truth, I nearly threw up my food as all the hurt and anger built, churning in my stomach.

My mother also insisted, quite rightly, that I needed to get along with Sinclair at least in front of Alyssa. So, I sucked up the anger and pain and did my best to be civil, even as I died a little bit inside each time I thought about her betrayal.

My mother, of course, forgave Sinclair. “Maybe it’s something only a mother understands,” my mother said that first night when Sinclair was at her parents’ and we’d put Alyssa to bed.

I glared at her.

“What would you do for that little girl, Wyatt? Anything? Everything?” she asked me.

“I’d give my life,” I growled at her.

“What would you sacrifice? Love? Sinclair?”

“What’s your point?” I hated that my mother sided with Sinclair.

“My point is, Sinclair was thinking of doing what was best for Alyssa.”

“Because I’m such an asshole that Alyssa would be better off without me.” God, does my mother think I’m not good father material too?

My mother rolled her eyes. “It has nothing to do with you, Wyatt. That’s the point. I’m sure Sinclair didn’t like not telling you, but in her mind, she had to be sure Alyssa would be okay. You’d do the same. You’re lying to yourself if you think otherwise.”

“I’d never have kept her from her mother. She wasn’t going to tell me. She’s living under our roof, sleeping in my bed, and she wasn’t going to tell me.”

My mother’s expression turned sympathetic. “You have exactly what you wanted, Wyatt. Sinclair and a family. You need to forgive her or you’re going to lose it all.”

She was right. But I didn’t care.

And so it went. I did my best to be civil, but I couldn’t look at Sinclair and not see her betrayal. To feel it deep in my soul. I wished Stark or his goons would show up because I’d have enjoyed pummeling someone to deal with all this anger.