Forbidden Fate (Crowne Point 3)

* * *

When I got to Lottie, she was awake in the room she’d slept in before we’d started to share my wing, and she’d changed out of her costume into pajamas. She sat up when she saw me.

“I’m asking for a paternity test. Or you could just stop this right now and tell everyone the truth.”

She blinked rapidly, then glared. “I would expect nothing less from my husband and the father of my child.”

“Can you blame me? I don’t remember us having sex, Lottie. Want to remind me when the fuck that happened?”

She clenched her jaw and shot me a glare, and I prepared for an argument. Then suddenly she threw her head in her hands.

And cried.

I shifted, rubbing the sharp pain in my neck as Lottie cried harder.

“You came on my thigh and…” she said through her hands.

“And what, Lottie?”

Her eyes met mine, shiny and shamed, angry.

“I pushed it up inside me.” She swiped away tears. “I haven’t had sex with anyone else. A paternity test will show that.”

I couldn’t move, couldn’t breathe, couldn’t fucking blink, could only stare at Lottie as the room caved in on me. The dying wind was suddenly howling again.

“What the fuck is wrong with you?” I finally managed.

“The girl is supposed to do that, you know? She’s supposed to do that for me, but you hired your mistress.”

I bit my jaw until it ached. “Charlotte.”

She looked away and bit her bottom lip, working the flesh for a good two minutes.

“My mother used to tell me stories of how my father doted on her during her pregnancies. I thought you would start to love me again…I never thought you would divorce me,” she shouted. “What you did, no one does. It’s not fair she gets to have everything. She gets you. She gets a healthy baby. She gets everything, and I did everything I was supposed to do!” she screamed. “It’s not fair!”

Color drained from Lottie’s face with her scream, and her eyes went cross.

“Calm down.”

It came out harsher than I intended, because she flinched.

The air was sticky. Spiny.

“If you don’t calm down, you could lose the baby,” I said, softer.

Her eyes slashed to mine. “Wouldn’t that solve everything?”

I ground my teeth together. “How long have you known?”

“A while.”

“You’ve been dealing with it on your own?”

“I know you don’t love me, Grayson. I was afraid of how you would react.”

I dragged my hands down my face.

Angry.