Pain flashed on his face, followed by anger. “Obviously not or you wouldn’t be carrying someone else’s child.”
“I’m not. Who said you were sterile?” she shouted, getting mad at the accusation.
“The doctor who performed the vasectomy.”
“You’re neutered?” How had this never come up in conversation? She couldn’t help but blurt out, “Why?”
“Because I can’t have kids.”
“You don’t want a family?” There went her dream. It shattered in an instant.
“Never said that. I got some junk frozen in case I found someone. And let me tell you right now, I didn’t defrost any to turkey baster you with. So don’t even try to claim I did.”
“Seriously?” she snapped. “Do you see me as that desperate? Well, I have news for you. I’m not. The only thing I did was stupidly have unprotected sex with you. Should have known better. Does this mean your STD panel was a lie too?”
“I’m not the liar here,” he seethed.
“Neither am I. And quite honestly, I don’t think I like you right now. You need to leave.”
“I want to know who he is.” Violence seethed from his pores. His anger all too real. He really thought the worst of her.
It broke her heart.
“Then look in a mirror because, whatever you might think, it appears as if your vasectomy has reversed itself because this is your baby. But don’t worry, I won’t come after you for child support,” she spat.
“As if I’d pay. One paternity test—”
“Will prove it.”
“Indeed, it will,” he muttered as he stalked out the door.
Left and he didn’t return. Not that night. Nor the next morning.
A stunned Honey wondered how she could have been so dumb. He’d made her believe he loved her. Made her feel so damned special. And then to play the aggrieved victim…
How dare he?
“Don’t worry, peanut,” she whispered to her belly. “We’re better off without him.”
In his misplaced ire, he’d forgotten his cat. Good. Because Honey had bonded with Terror. They’d even come to an understanding. She’d not put him in the cage to carry to work if he let her put on the harness on him and he sat on her shoulder, his leash wrapped around her hand, just in case.
That day at work she kept expecting to see Ulric. The coward instead texted to inform her he’d be swinging by the house to pick up his cat.
She texted back. No.
Why not? Terror is mine.
So is this baby. Guess what, I’m keeping both.
She then blocked his number. Eyed the clock and gathered the cat and her things. “Francis, I’m leaving early.”
“Hot date?”
“Not exactly.” She’d not told him of the breakup. It helped she’d not yet cried. Anger sustained her.
Until her mother opened the door to her childhood home.
Then she burst in tears.
9
After Honey’s heart-rending announcement, Ulric went home and got drunk. The hangover the next day ensured he went to work in a foul mood.
Muttering.
Snapping.
Refusing to tell anyone what happened.
Wendell sent him home. “Get out of here. I don’t care if you had a fight with your girlfriend. We don’t need you being a dick.”
It was more than a fight. Much as he didn’t want to believe it, she’d cheated on him. The woman he would have sworn was his mate. The one that made him ridiculously happy had betrayed him.
His apartment only depressed him further. Not only were there pieces of her scattered all over—like the underwear dangling from the corner of the bookcase—but Terror was still at her house.
He texted her about retrieving his cat, even as it might kill him to see her.
Her reply. No.
As if she could keep his pet. He was waiting at her house around the time she should come home. Only she didn’t. He backtracked to the clinic to find it closed.
Where was she?
He knew where she hid the spare key in the yard. It wasn’t hard to enter and discern his cat wasn’t there, and neither was Honey.
Which led to panic. Had she been accosted on her way home?
He texted. Where r u?
She didn’t reply.
He texted Dorian. Do a locate on Honey’s phone.
It took only a few minutes for a reply. An eternity.
She’s at her parents’ place in the burbs.
So not dead. Good. Because a shattered heart didn’t mean he wished her ill. Hell, if she’d been pregnant before they met, he would have gladly taken on the role of father. But the lie…
How could she betray him like that?
Thinking about it depressed him, so he hit a bar to get drunk. Completely wasted. Blasted out of his mind. So drunk he could barely walk by the time Dorian came to get him.
“What the fuck happened to you?” Dorian asked.
“She wasna da one,” he slurred. It took a lot for someone his size, and with his Lycan metabolism, to get incapacitated, but he managed it and kept it going. It took one full week of him calling in sick before Griffin showed up and barked, “What the fuck is wrong with you?”
“I is sad.” His lips turned down. Ulric was especially sad because he’d run out of booze and had yet to locate his phone with the app to order more delivered.
“Dorian said something about you and some woman not working out.”
“Not just any woman. Mine. She was supposed to be my mate. I felt it. In here.” He thumped his chest. “She said she loved me. And then she just had to go and sleep with someone else.”
“You caught her?”
“No.” His lips turned down. “Never suspected it.”
“Then what makes you so sure?”
He didn’t have enough booze left in his system to ease the discomfort of this conversation. “She’s pregnant.” He spat the dirty word.
Griffin recoiled. “Oh.” He paused. “You’re sure it’s not yours?”
That got his old friend a side-eye. “Duh, ’course it’s not mine. You should know better than to even ask. Or have you forgotten the Pack pays the monthly bill to keep my swimmers on ice ever since I got the big snip?”
“And you’re sure it’s still intact?”
“I think I would have noticed if my vasectomy failed,” was Ulric’s sarcastic drawl.
“How?” Griffin asked. “Because, in most cases of recanalization occurring years after the procedure, the only real clue comes from accidental pregnancy.”
Ulric blinked. “Hold on, are you saying my vasectomy might have healed itself?”
“While rare, it can happen.”
“How the fuck have I never heard of this?” Ulric blurted out. Only to blanch. “Shit, does this mean there’s a possibility I could be the daddy?” If that were true, then Honey hadn’t lied and he was officially the biggest asshole in the world.
Griffin rolled his shoulders. “I’m only saying it’s possible and something we should find out for sure. So let’s get you tested. I’ll speak to Maeve about collecting a sample and sending it off via her clinic.”