“I don’t want to marry you.” Her words sliced into his thoughts.
“What?” He sat up, stared down into her stubborn face, not quite believing she was serious. She’d loved him, was the mother of his child, had practically beat him over the head with bridal magazines just a few years before, and now she didn’t want to marry him?
“You heard me.”
He glared at her, trying to read her expression, trying to decipher what was really going on behind her words. “Is this your idea of retribution because I didn’t jump on board five years ago when you were trying to shotgun me down the aisle?”
She sat up too, glared much more fiercely than anything he could pull off. “No, this is me not wanting to marry you and saying so.”
“You used to want to marry me,” he reminded her, not liking how his euphoria of just moments before had completely dissipated and was being replaced with something dark and ugly.
She shrugged. “What I used to want is irrelevant to what I want today. I don’t want to be your wife.”
He eyed her, noting the slight quiver to her lower lip, the rapid pulse at her throat. “People don’t change that much.”
“Exactly,” she agreed, although he didn’t understand what she was agreeing to. She crossed her arms over her breasts then, seeming to realize she was naked, she yanked her bed covers over her body. “You are the one man I won’t ever marry. Got it?”
What the...?
“Why not?” He didn’t bother keeping his voice low because...well, just because, although he remembered too late that his son was just down the hall and the last thing he wanted was Justice to hear them arguing. “Why not?” he repeated much more softly, hoping she’d take his cue and keep her voice down too.
“Justice.”
“Now I really don’t understand. Our son is why you won’t marry me? Perhaps you didn’t notice but the boy likes me and needs his father, me, in his life.”
“I never said he doesn’t need you or that you shouldn’t be in his life. And of course he likes you. You’ve showered him with attention and gifts. Why wouldn’t he like you?”
“You make the fact that I bought my son a few things this week sound as if I was trying to bribe him. Thanks to you, I have five years to make up for so forgive me if I go a little crazy here at the beginning and want to see my kid’s face light up a few times. I’ve only been a father, that I knew of, for a little over a week. Forgive me if I don’t get everything just perfect. I’m learning as I go. I think I’m owed a little slack there, don’t you?”
Gaze downward cast and pulling her comforter over her body, she nodded. “I’m sure you are. I can’t change the past any more than you can. What’s done is done. If I’d known you’d have wanted to be a part of Justice’s life, I’d—”
“Oh, spare me your sob story,” he interrupted, frustrated, angry, pulling on his underwear and shorts. “We both know the truth. You didn’t tell me to punish me for leaving.”
“I didn’t,” she gasped, sounding horrified.
“You did. Did it give you satisfaction to know that you’d given birth to my child, were raising my son all without me being any the wiser? Did you feel as if retribution had been served every time you looked at him and knew my eyes had never even seen him?”
Her mouth fell open, her gaze narrowed, and her eyes flickered with anger. “Get out!” she ordered, pointing toward her bedroom door.
“The truth hurts, doesn’t it?”
“Get out!” she repeated, grabbing her clothes and dressing in haste then tossing his T-shirt at him. “Get out of my bedroom, out of my house, and out of my life! You aren’t wanted here. Do you hear me? We did just fine without you and don’t need you here. I don’t want you here!”
“As if you could make me stay,” he countered, sliding on his T-shirt, wondering how the magic of moments before had morphed into something so ugly, wondering why he wasn’t stopping this because deep down he knew he didn’t want to go.
“You’ll be hearing from my lawyers,” he said, instead of begging her to forgive him for his pride. “I tried to do this the nice way, even asked you to marry me, but you had to be difficult, didn’t you?” Or was he the one being difficult? Had he rushed things? No, he wanted to marry the mother of his five-year-old child. If anything, he was behind the times. But she no longer wanted to marry him. A fresh pain stabbed his heart. “Have it your way. We won’t get married, but my son will live with me. Not just every other weekend.”
“No,” she cried, her face paling to a pasty white as she dropped onto the edge of the bed as if her legs were no longer strong enough to support her. She sat, staring at him in horror. “You can’t do that.”
He wouldn’t do that. She was a good mother. Justice needed her.
“Oh, yes, Brielle.” He barely recognized his own voice, but defensive pain pushed him down a different path than the one he wanted to travel. No, he didn’t need to feel sorry for her. He needed to remember what she’d done to him, to their son, and why? Because she’d had some misguided notion that he should have married her without knowing and since he hadn’t agreed, she wouldn’t marry him at all? She didn’t deserve his consideration. She sure hadn’t shown him any. “You had five years. I want what you stole from me. Five years.”
Red splotched her pale cheeks. “No judge is going to give you that!”
“No?” He arched his brow, too hurt and angry to stop his bitter words. “You think you can provide that boy with a better life than I can? Think again.”
“I have provided him with a good home, a good life. I give him everything he needs,” she insisted.