Wheeler (Seattle Sharks 8)

I turned my tear-filled gaze on him. “You didn’t trust me,” I said.

He furrowed his brow, real pain churning in his eyes. “What? Of course, I do. Faith, please.”

“No,” I said, shaking my head. “You kept this from me. Something this huge. Lukas, this is life-altering. And you didn’t think I could handle it.” I sighed, the tears running freely down my cheeks because I simply couldn’t stop them. Because I knew him. He was a good man. He wouldn’t stand by and do nothing when his child was in need.

And I knew what having a child together did to people—I remembered the stories from Warren Kinley and Jeannine at the last team BBQ. How getting pregnant, unplanned, had been the best thing that ever happened to them. How they hadn’t intended to fall in love, but it was meant to be.

Fuck.

I didn’t stand a chance.

And he hadn’t even attempted to give me one.

I finally reached for the doorknob and turned it.

Lukas moved to follow, but I stopped him with an icy glare.

“Don’t, Lukas,” my voice cracked as a sob wracked my body. “Just don’t.”

“Faith you have to listen to me—”

“I’ll send Eric to get my stuff. Lucky for me we didn’t even get to the unpacking part.” The words came in rough gasps. “I could’ve handled it, you know?” I shook my head. “If you would’ve just talked to me about it...but you lied Lukas. You told me I was the only one…” I swallowed hard. “I should’ve known better.” The words hit their mark. Lukas flinched like I’d actually slapped him, and he stumbled backward, his hand on his chest, as I slammed the door behind me.

As I stomped to my car.

Each step returning me to the real world and shattering the fantasy I’d lived in.

My chest ached as I glanced at the house—the place I left everything I thought I could hold onto, a world so far above mine.

Where I’d left the only man I’d ever loved standing with the mother of his child.

Chapter 19

Lukas

“How did you find me?” I asked the question again with a lethal tone.

Blair sighed. “You did this. You ignored me for too long. So, I had to take action. You’re predictable, Lukas. You keep to the same pick up game schedule during the offseason.” She shrugged. “I followed you from the rink.”

“Get the fuck out.” I turned every ounce of my fury on the woman who deserved it.

“Now, come on, baby, don’t act like that,” she cooed as she walked her fingers up my chest.

I stepped back and put my hands up. “I’ve never touched a woman with any sort of force, but so help me God, Blair, if you don’t get out of here I will pick you up and put you in your car—”

“You would never hurt the mother of your child!” She fanned herself.

“You’re right. You just did that enough for the both of us.” I pointed toward the door Faith had just walked out of. “And before you get dollar signs in your eyes, thinking you can sell the story to another gullible tabloid, no, she’s not pregnant. But the woman who just walked out of here is the only woman who will say she’s the mother of my child. We both know that baby you’re carrying isn’t mine.”

At first, I’d hoped she wasn’t pregnant at all, but my private investigator had confirmed that tidbit right before we paid off the first tabloid.

“Wait, you want to knock up your housekeeper?” She lifted her nose like something offended her delicate senses.

“Faith is not a fucking housekeeper! She’s my girlfriend!” At least I hoped she was still my girlfriend. God, I’d thought we were in the clear. Thought she’d never have to know that this mess was swirling around me.

“Well, that’s unfortunate. I’m certainly not going to let her just hang around our baby.” She shrugged and examined her perfectly manicured nails.

“Good, because we don’t have a baby!” I snapped, raking my fingers over my hair.

“But darling, is that any way to talk about your son?” She rubbed her hand over her swollen stomach.

“Look at me, you crazy—” I hissed out a breath before I said something she could leak and got myself under a modicum of control. “You and I both know that kid is not mine. Not unless you somehow learned how to gestate like a fucking elephant. I haven’t touched you since Labor Day last year. I might be a hockey player, Blair, but I’m not fucking stupid.”

She examined me with cold, calculating eyes before dismissing me. “Whatever. No one will care. You’re a known manwhore, Lukas, and we have a documented history. In fact, just about your entire team saw me there that wee—” her eyes bulged. “That’s why she seems familiar. Faith...Faith Gentry? Her brother has a sizable contract with the Sharks if I remember correctly.”

“You are such a mercenary. And you’re leaving.”

“I don’t think so, Lukas. You throw me out of here, and I’ll go straight to the papers. Who on earth would throw the mother of their son into the streets!” She covered her mouth.

“The minute I release the paternity test results—”

“In four months? Then another couple of months for the test to come back, of course. When Faith is long gone? When I’ve already moved in with you and set up the sweetest little nursery for Vaughn? Vaughn Vestergaard, doesn’t that just have the sound of a future NHL star?”

She didn’t know.

Holy shit, Langley was good.

“Right, so here’s the thing. That little test you had done for the actual father? Remember that? It was about three weeks ago.”

She paled.

“You do remember!” I grinned, letting my teeth show. “I have a copy of the results. Had the lab send two sets and one is still sealed, so when I walk my ass over to the legitimate news, not the cheap tabloids you frequent, and they break that seal, there’s no saying I tampered with the results. That kid is not mine, and all you’ve done is embarrass yourself, Blair.”

Her lower lip trembled as she changed tactics. “Please, Lukas. You’re a good guy. I know you wouldn’t throw a girl out with nowhere else to go.”

“You hurt the woman I love, Blair. There’s pretty much nothing I wouldn’t do to you. Except touch you. That I would never do again. I’m hoping you saved whatever payout you got from that gossip rag because I’m guessing they’ll make you pay it back the minute I come out with those results.”

“You wouldn’t. Please, Lukas. You don’t have to live with me, or even have a hand in raising him, but please don’t...I’ll be humiliated!”

“You humiliated yourself, Blair! How the hell did you think you were ever going to get away with it?”

“I...You were an easy target! I figured you’d been with so many women you wouldn’t remember which was which, and you’d do the honorable thing.”

My jaw flexed as I struggled to keep the rage locked down. “I was willing to let you go away quietly,” I said softly. “I paid a lot of money to help you do that, Blair. No one would have known what you tried to do. But then you hurt Faith. So I’m sorry, but that guy who does the honorable thing left the fucking building with the woman he loves, and you’re stuck with me. So get the fuck out before you find out just how cruel I’m capable of being when you fuck with the people I love.”

She held her head high. I’d give her that.

But she sure as hell left.

She wasn’t answering my calls. Not that I blamed her. I hadn’t exactly started blurting out my evidence.

But she hadn’t even paused to hear it.

She’d believed the worst without so much as letting me speak.

I should’ve known better.

Her words stung as they echoed in my head.

She still wasn’t letting me speak, because I couldn’t find her. She wasn’t at her house, or any of the places she frequented, which led me...here.

Standing on Eric’s front porch.

I rang the doorbell, swallowed the bile that made its way up my throat and waited to ge

t punched in the face again.

I’d counted to twenty before the door opened.

Pepper took a long look at me and sighed. “This is either the smartest choice you’ve made or the stupidest, but either way, you’ve got balls coming here.”

“That baby isn’t mine.” I looked her straight in the eye and made sure she knew I meant it.

“I figured. Eric...well, his sister’s been crying for hours, so he might be a little less hesitant to believe you.”

As much as it broke my heart to know she’d been crying, a small piece of hope floated to the surface. “Is she here?”

“No.”

My eyes slid shut. “Fuck.”

“But Eric knows where she is,” Pepper whispered.

My gaze snapped to hers. “He does?”

“Yep, but I’m under strict orders not to let you in, and he’s got Hudson and Nathan in there with him now, pretending to watch the Seahawk game.” She nodded toward their living room.

“Nathan?” I questioned.

“Noble?” She looked at me like I was an idiot. “Please tell me you knew his first name.”

“Nope, I didn’t,” I told her the truth. There would be no lies today. Not one.