Again, I moved away from him, not wanting his hands on me.
“I remember you knowing exactly what you thought about it,” I said shakily. “You threw money at me and told me to get an abortion.”
He grimaced. He actually grimaced.
Well, there you go. I had never seen him do that before. Mr. Cool, Smooth, and Confident was capable of something other than his usual self-righteous arrogance.
He was starting to look like the old Charlie. The one I’d fallen in love with only a few months after we’d met. Before I knew what a douchebag he was.
I opened the door. “You need to leave.”
But he didn’t move. He just stared at me. The handsome man in the three-piece suit with the chocolate brown eyes and the full set of lips I’d pressed a thousand kisses to. The man who’d pursued me with such vigor I’d finally given in and agreed to date him even though I knew I was probably walking into hell. The man who’d lied to me for two fucking years. The man I no longer loved.
The man who was so completely opposite of Caleb.
“I’ll go. But you know it’s my baby.” He came toward the door and stopped. He looked down at me, his handsome face full of affection. “I think you and I need to try again. For the sake of our baby.”
I couldn’t believe his audacity.
But then again, he was arrogant enough to think that I would even consider it.
“Get. Out.”
He left and I quickly closed the door behind him and slid to the floor. My face crumpled with tears and I let out a strangled sob. Because he was right.
If what he said was true, then there was a very good chance this baby was his.
CALEB
I knew something was wrong the minute I walked in the door.
And by wrong, I didn’t mean crazy wrong like we’d experienced over the last few months.
I mean, fucking wrong.
Honey had been crying.
She was sitting on the couch, her face tear stained and pinched with emotion. She hugged her DO WHAT YOU LOVE EVERY DAY cushion to her chest. Scrunched up tissues lay scattered across the coffee table.
“What’s wrong?” I asked, a tingle of alarm starting in my chest.
Her chin quivered and she wouldn’t look me in the eyes.
I sat down next to her, and without a word I pulled her to me, holding her against my chest. I didn’t know what was wrong. But as I held her in my arms, she went limp and started to cry.
“Baby . . . speak to me,” I said gently.
She pulled away, and the agony on her face shoved my tingle of alarm into a full-blown panic.
She swallowed thickly as she struggled with the words.
“The baby . . .” she started to talk, but then her chin trembled, and her face broke again. Slowly, she regained her composure and delivered the words that changed my life in a calm and almost alien voice. “There is a good chance it’s Charlie’s.”
It took me a moment.
And then boom!
It hit me like a fucking car bomb.
“What do you mean?” I asked.
She looked at me, her big, beautiful green eyes glittering like the ocean. “Charlie came to see me today.”
I bristled at the mention of his name.
“Apparently, we had sex only three days before you and I met.”
“Apparently? What, you don’t remember?” I didn’t mean for my voice to sound so sharp. But fuck.
With a shaky voice she explained to me about the night they were in a car accident and about the pills Charlie gave her to calm her nerves. And I swear to God, I saw red when she told me what he did afterwards. Clearly, he had taken advantage of her while she was out of it. My fingers trembled. She couldn’t even remember it.
“You and I used a condom. Lots of them,” I said, my throat thick. My breathing started to come quicker as my mind buzzed. I hated asking. But I needed to know if the odds were in my favor or his. “Did you use protection with him?”
When she didn’t answer, I pressed her. “Did you?”
She shook her head. “Not always. We were together two years . . . ”
I stood up. I felt punched in the chest. Heat traveled up my spine and across the back of my neck, and it became harder to breathe. There was a terrifying possibility my baby didn’t even exist. And that thought fucking killed me.
I closed my eyes against the thought. My heart squeezed and rattled against my ribs. This was so fucking wrong. We were having a baby together and I was fucking in love with the idea of us being a family. Of holding my daughter in my arms. Of being a good father to her. Of all the milestones. The first steps. The first words. The first loose tooth to the first day of school.