She couldn’t speak. She was having an honest to goodness panic attack. She’d never had one, but she’d heard others talk about how they felt, and this was either a panic attack or a heart attack. Her heart felt like it was popping out of her chest on each beat. Air wheezed into her lungs. Sweat popped up along her forehead and between her shoulder blades.
All she could do was whisper “Holy fuck…holy fuck…holy fuck…” while rocking back and forth.
“Hey,” Abby said, her voice taking on a stern tone. “Look at me.”
Tessa shook her head. “Can’t. Can’t. Oh my God…”
“Mommy,” Sophia called from the other room. “I ca
n’t find the Band-Aids.”
When Tessa didn’t respond, Abby said, “Mommy’s fine. Why don’t you get dressed for the day?”
“All by myself? Why?” The shocked, borderline you’ve-got-to-be-kidding tone in Sophia’s voice forced a huff from Tessa.
“You’ve been nagging me for weeks to let you do it yourself,” Abby told her. “Show me what you can do.”
“Oh-kay,” she said with an if-you-say-so, but-I-don’t-think-it’s-going-to-go-very-well tone.
Abby pulled Tessa’s hands to her lap and held them there. “It’ll take her forever. Talk to me.”
Tessa pulled her hands from Abby’s grip and shook them to relieve the tension building into painful tingles. “That’s who I…” she whispered, clenching her fingers into fists again. “Oh my God. That’s who I was with last night.”
Abby glanced at the television and the two images, which had been moved to the left side of the screen, overlaying an action shot of one of them—presumably Zach—surfing through an enormous wave.
“Oh God.” Tessa pushed to her feet and paced toward the sliding glass door.
“Tessa—”
Something sliced into her foot. Tessa sucked air through her teeth and took her weight off that foot. “Dammit.”
She hobbled to the door, balanced on the jamb, and pulled a sliver of ceramic from her foot. And swore again. Then slumped against the jamb.
Abby met her at the door and murmured, “Which one did you sleep with? Please tell me it was Ian.”
“I thought it was Ian.” She rubbed her damp forehead with her palm. “I feel sick.”
“You said Zach left town, so it couldn’t have been him, right?”
Tessa had never felt this stupid in her entire life. But this was worse than stupid, this was… If she were honest, if she were objective, she’d label hooking up with the father of the child she wanted to adopt—before he’d signed the papers—negligent.
Only she hadn’t done it knowingly or willfully.
She’d been misled.
Or maybe she’d misled herself.
God, she couldn’t think straight.
Abby leaned against the opposite doorjamb and crossed her arms. “I guess the good news is that we know where he is now.”
“And the bad news is,” Tessa said, “he’ll think the woman who wants his daughter is a negligent slut.”
“He was there too.”
But it wasn’t the same. That age-old double standard still applied. And worse—he wasn’t the asshole Tessa had built up in her mind. Tessa’s gut burned. She looked at Abby. “He’s not a bad guy. He might sleep around, but he’s genuine and sweet and funny. He even asked about Sophia.”
“You told him about her?”