Ryan followed Penny into the nursery and went straight to the crib. He set Peter down on a cotton dinosaur fitted sheet and moved toward Penny with an exaggerated, seductive swing of his hips. “What do we think about getting a start on baby number two?”
“Peter’s not even six months old. I’m still recovering from his birth. It will be a while before I’m ready to think about another.”
“That’s not what I wanted to hear.” Ryan frowned. “Peter needs a sibling.”
“I can’t fathom another child. I can’t even fathom a full night of sleep.”
“Come on, darling.” Ryan crossed the room, rested one hand on Penny’s shoulder. “Me and you, we’re meant to be together. Meant to have a family. How do you think we ended up like this? It was fate. All the obstacles we had to overcome just to be together…”
“What obstacles?”
“Oh, you know…” Ryan shrugged. “The other man primarily.”
“Roman wasn’t an obstacle. I broke up with him.”
“He was an obstacle, but now he’s not.” Ryan seemed completely unaffected by the fact that the man in question had been murdered. “Isn’t life so much better now that you’re completely free?”
“I was free,” Penny said. “At least I thought I was.”
As she spoke, her blood began to chill. He knew. He knew that she knew, and she should have guessed that he’d be prepared. She should have been more careful. She should have known he’d been watching, watching, watching.
“Aw, honey.” Ryan tsked. “I can see it in your eyes. You don’t trust me. It’s that stupid trial. You don’t believe anyone anymore. It’s ruining you.”
“I think you might be right.”
“Well, you never have to doubt me. We are meant to be together. You can’t fight fate.”
“Not even if you orchestrated fate?” Penny murmured. “You made me believe that we were destined to be together when I was most vulnerable. Pregnant, single. You held my hand when I went into labor, made me believe we were a family.”
“We are a family.”
“Families don’t have to kill to be together.”
“Sweet Penny.” Ryan shook his head. “You are so naive, darling. I love that about you.”
Penny backed away, inching toward Peter. Ryan stepped between her and the crib and raised his hand. He grasped her chin between his fingers, hard.
“I hoped it wouldn’t come to this. I was prepared to come clean about what I’d done for you, for us…but only when you were ready. You’re not ready yet.”
“You murdered a man just to be with me?”
“Roman was a sad excuse for a man. He didn’t understand the word ‘commitment.’ When I found out you thought he was the father of your child, I had to do something about it.”
“You planned his murder for months.”
“God, you ladies made it easy. You talked point blank about killing him. I couldn’t believe my luck—it was too perfect. Apparently, the lawyers thought so, too. That court case is a fucking mess.”
“How…”
“One little listening device sewn into your purse, and I heard everything. Unfortunately, I know you found the bugs this afternoon. The trackers. You shouldn’t have touched them, Penny. I saw you, heard you. I’m always listening, watching.”
“How’d you do it?”
“What, kill him?” Ryan smiled. “I’m not proud of the murder— that bit is messy. But the rest of it was perfect, I have to admit. The knife’s availability was made possible by you, darling. You and your filthy little habit of stealing. Yes, I know you stole the knife from Eliza. I know you also stole wineglasses from her. I would have bought you those things new, but you didn’t let me.”
“You’re the one who took them from my apartment?”
“The knife was easy. I held on to that for a while. You didn’t notice it was missing, which was a small relief.”
“You were biding your time.”
“I didn’t plan on the big event being the eve of Valentine’s Day, but it’s fitting, don’t you think? He didn’t deserve romance. That afternoon, when I heard y’all talking about murder, I couldn’t hold back. I listened and waited, like I’d been doing for months, and it paid off. Talk about destiny. It had already been planned, and then you all tied it up with a big, fat bow. There was a nice sprinkling of evidence and motive for everyone. Plenty to go around to muddy the waters.”
“You went into Eliza’s house? How?”
“It’s easy to get through the door when it’s left open. Eliza left in such a rush, she didn’t bother to close it. Quick jaunt upstairs and voilà. Roman was naked in the shower, rinsing off his latest conquest, when I got to him.”
Penny winced. “That is awful. He didn’t deserve to die.”
“He did.”
“That wasn’t your choice to make.”
“You’re welcome. I made a difficult decision, but it was for the best, Penny. For us. I’m telling you it was fate.”
“Fate is not an excuse for murder.”
“It was too easy to do it. It was destiny. The rest, after the murder, was a fucking cakewalk. I just had to plant a little seed of doubt in everyone’s mind to point the attention away from us. Y’all wanted Roman dead, so that part was easy. You know it’s true. Even you doubted your closest friends.”
Penny didn’t respond, because that bit was true. She’d wondered if Eliza, Mark, Marguerite, or even Anne had been guilty over the course of the trial. Had she truly believed one of them had done it? That was hard to say.
“I decorated the murder weapon with Eliza’s fingerprints— transferred from the wineglass, easy peasy, thanks to you. Anne’s a nutcase who hides it well. All I had to do was turn up her issues with postpartum depression and booze. It was a bonus people thought Mark did it. But that man doesn’t have the balls to do what I did.”
Penny’s skin crawled. She’d moved in with this man. She’d thought they could be a family, that he could be a father, maybe a husband. Had she ever gotten it wrong.
“Don’t go feeling sorry for him,” Ryan said. “Roman was the scum of the earth. I couldn’t risk you ever going back to him. I knew you wanted him to be the father. I waited for months— months—for you to tell me about my own child. I had to watch from a distance as you grew our baby, and I had to pretend to be surprised when you finally came clean to me.”
“I didn’t know what to say.”
“I had to walk into that ridiculous office that you called a job opportunity and pretend to run into you. Pretend to count on my fingers back about…oh, nine months. How thick do you think I am? You should have told me about my son. What you did was fucking rude, Penny.”
“I’m sorry. I should have told you, but I didn’t know who the father—”
“The baby is mine. I know it.”
“How can you possibly know?”
“I told you, it’s fate,” Ryan said. “We’re destined to be together. We always were. From the day you walked into class, I knew I’d have you. One way or another.”