“How dare you say that when I have done more than most women in this situation! I’ve sat idly by while you basked in this time. I’ve been supportive, devoted.”
“Then, why are your clothes still here when I have an empty closet, just waiting for you to finally take the leap? There never was a world where you and Oliver slept under the same roof. You were always the first to say that you shouldn’t be a part of the baby planning, shower, birth. You’ve excused yourself from everything, and it’s never been for me. It’s for you. You’ve always wished he never existed. I bet a piece of you is excited with the prospect that he could be Shawn’s.”
He paces a step and then looks back at me before continuing, “You never gave Oliver a chance, and you never gave me one. I never had a hundred percent of you. You always had one foot out the door, ready to run. I just could never figure out if it was me you were unsure of or Oliver. Now, I know it was both.”
“Sebastian, that’s not entirely true.”
He closes his eyes and lets remorse cover his face. “The fact that part of that speech was true is enough to break my heart.”
The tic in his jaw tics, his face as sharp as granite. With a hardened stare, he walks toward the door.
“Please, don’t leave,” I beg, but it’s no use.
Sebastian storms out, leaving me breathless—and for the first time since I met him, not in a good way.
Chapter Twenty-Four
Sebastian
I leave Amy’s place in a mad rush, my knuckles reddened with how fierce I’m gripping the steering wheel. I’m used to stressful situations, I thrive in intense environments, but hearing Amy suggest that I might not be the father of Oliver is too much for me to handle. It’s like a knife to the stomach, only it’s not just one, but a thousand pulling in and out, like they’re trying to kill me all at once.
Red. I see it everywhere. I stormed out of there because if I hadn’t, I would have lost myself to the fire burning inside me and raged—which is not something I do often. I like being calm, organized, and just. What happened in there was torture to my heart.
Amy’s never been okay with me having a baby. The first night I told her about the pregnancy, I saw it on her face. The shock, the despair, the disappointment. It was understandable. We’d just started dating, and that was a huge ball for me to drop.
Still, I pursued her. I wasn’t lying when I said I’d never felt for another woman the way I do about her. She’s feisty and intelligent, funny and enchanting. Her beauty is immeasurable, and we’re attracted to each other with a fierceness of animals pawing at one another in the dawn of heat. Damn, if I haven’t spent many nights watching her naked form, asleep in my bed. Her dark hair splayed on my pillow and her long lashes fluttering as she dreams. The face of an angel, the heart of a saint, and the body of a vixen. She calls to me—mind, body, and soul—in ways that bring me to my knees.
Until tonight.
Shawn and his pathetic drunken state. He’s no man, behaving like that. I’m sure he believes the story he’s drinking his sorrows over, which is disgusting, to say the least. A man takes responsibility for his actions with a barreled chest and a strong gut. He doesn’t cower in a bottle of cheap booze.
“Fuck!”
The way Amy jumped on the believability train has me cursing. I bet she never questioned his story, the timing, the details. Her heart wants this to be true, so she was more than eager. I thought I knew her, that I loved her, but how can I love someone who would try to hurt me this way?
“Ahh!” I roar into the cabin of my car as I careen down the highway.
Wrath at Shawn and his story. Resentment at Amy and her reaction. Fury at myself for still loving her despite the fact that she doesn’t want the one thing I love as much as her.
Oliver.
My son.
MY.
SON.
He has to be mine.
My foot hits the gas pedal. I’ve never driven this fast. I don’t know where I’m going, and if I keep this up, I’ll crash, so I exit and pull over at the first opportunity and slam my fist against the steering wheel.
“Goddamn it!” I yell out.
A man walking by is startled by my outburst, but I pay him no attention as I drop my head back against the headrest.
After taking a few breaths, I start to lay out the details because I will prove to them that Oliver is mine.
He has to be.
Thinking back to the last times I was with Lauryn, I knew something was off, but I never would have thought she was cheating on me. I’ve always been very straightforward with my girlfriends. The one thing that I will never forgive is adultery. If you don’t want to be with me, fine, end it. Just don’t see other people behind my back.
That was how Lauryn and I ended. Quick, easy, and painless. We didn’t play with emotions or string the other along in pure selfishness. At least, that’s how I thought we’d ended. Infidelity was never on the radar. She would never. Well, I always thought she wouldn’t.
The first woman I’d ever loved cheated on me, and it felt terrible. I was young, in college, and bawled for days. It wasn’t my brightest moment, but my heart is fragile when it comes to love. I take what I want, care for it, love it. If you break it, I break too.
I thought that was painful to live through back then, but this is a totally different situation. There’s a baby—my baby—who I’ve held since he was seconds old. I cut his umbilical cord and held him on my bare chest for skin-to-skin contact.
Shawn wasn’t there. He’s never been there.
Of course he hasn’t.
Shawn obviously hasn’t spoken to Lauryn in months because by his drunken state, he just figured this out, too, which means Lauryn can solve this very upsetting misunderstanding in seconds because she must have never reached out to him the way she did to me, saying I was the father.
I know Lauryn isn’t perfect, but I don’t see her being the kind of person who would lead someone astray like this when there’s a possibility he’s not the father.
I have to be the father.
I put the car in drive and peel out of my spot on the side of the road, needing to get to her.
At her building, I put the car in park, turn it off, and throw off the seat belt, slamming the door behind me. As I take two steps at a time inside her apartment building, going to the second floor, I still can’t get there fast enough. I need this feeling inside me to go away. I need to hear her say what I know to be the truth deep in my soul.
When my knock is louder and harder than it should be, I close my eyes, trying to calm the rage boiling inside me. I hear her open the door, but fear grips at my chest, and I don’t have the nerve to open my eyes until I ask the worst question I’ve ever had to ask in my life.
“Did you cheat on me?”
She doesn’t respond, and I feel the bile creeping up in my stomach, burning like a fuse that’s about to explode, as I repeat to myself, It’s not true. It’s not true.
I will myself to open my eyes, and when I do, I regret coming here at all. I’ve seen this expression on many people throughout my career. It reads I’m guilty, but I’m going to use everything in my power to lie like my life depends on it.