Tessa rested her elbow on the table and pressed her fingers to her temple. “How many of them did you sleep with that night?”
Zach’s mind shuffled backward four years. Yes, he’d gone back to his hotel with someone, but he’d also been pretty damn plastered by congratulatory drinks. “Look, it was a long time ago, and I wasn’t exactly stone sober.”
“Would you remember a unique tattoo?” She pulled her phone from the side pocket of her purse and started tapping the face.
Zach pushed to his feet again. “Even if I did remember sleeping with your friend, that doesn’t mean I’m her kid’s—”
She turned the phone to him, showing Zach the profile of a woman’s naked body, shoulder to hips, with an ornate floral-design tattoo starting just below her armpit and extending to her hip. A space had been left blank in the center for the quote that filled the length.
We’re all broken. That’s how the light gets in.
~ Hemingway
Zach’s gut clenched. He squeezed his eyes closed and hung his head. “Fuck.”
“You remember her now?”
He did. A very distant, disjointed memory. He sure as hell wasn’t ready to admit to fathering her child. Not by a long shot.
He lifted his head and met her eyes directly. “That doesn’t mean I got her pregnant.”
Anger flashed in Tessa’s eyes. “Then why did you pay her twenty-five grand?”
Zach clenched his teeth. “I. Didn’t.”
Tessa tapped the image of the check. “This proves different.”
“Did you ever stop to think that she took the money and ran because I wasn’t the real father?”
“No, that never crossed my mind, because I was with her when she got the check. I consoled her when she broke down in tears. What woman would want to turn the child she loves over to a man who cared so little, he tried to pay her off?”
“That wasn’t me.”
“Hey, guys,” a man from the next booth said. “Take it outside, would you?”
Tessa didn’t so much as look his way. She lifted her hands toward the evidence. “It’s all here. I didn’t use my only vacation for the year and spend thousands of dollars to chase the wrong man for nothing but a signature.”
He was done arguing. And he needed air before he suffocated.
Zach leaned in and swiped a hand across the table, collecting all the papers at once. Straightening, he rolled the documents in his palm. “We’ll see about that.”
8
Zach rapped his knuckles against the door of Josh and Grace’s hotel room, then pressed both hands to the frame and hung his head.
The drinks he’d stopped to hammer back after leaving Tessa at the restaurant hadn’t helped calm the panic tripping through his gut. His heart still raced. His brain continued to spiral.
Josh opened the door, his expression intense and sharp. In moments like this, Zach could see the warrior Josh had been before an injury ended his career with the SEALs. “What’s wrong? What happened?”
Zach straightened. “Can we talk?”
Josh spent another millisecond assessing Zach, processing a million things at once before stepping back so he could come in.
He walked into the suite and turned toward Josh, who was wearing a pair of gym shorts, making Zach realize he’d probably been in bed with Grace. “I’m sorry to bother you, man.”
“Don’t be an idiot.” The Frogman tat on Josh’s back rolled as he turned the dead bolt. “That’s why I’m here.”
“This isn’t work related.”