“I had no idea who you were, and if I did, I would have stayed as far away from you as possible,” she all but yells at me, her chest heaving as she tries to contain her temper. “And I am not playing any kind of games. Whatever you think you know about TJ and me, you’re wrong.”
We’re standing toe to toe, her anger flushed face tilted up to look at me. If I wasn’t so frustrated with her I might find it cute, how her jaw is jutted out in defiance, but I’m too pissed to let her affect me.
“I know plenty. Most importantly, I know I had to pick my sister up in floods of tears after you made your fucked-up play for TJ at a kid’s fucking birthday party.”
Her face turns ashen at my words, and the tension bleeds out from her. Every part of her goes slack, like she doesn’t have it in her to fight with me anymore.
“You don’t get to judge me. You don’t know what was going on then,” she whispers, but the fragility is thunderously loud. “You don’t know me.”
“Well, isn’t that ironic,” I bark out a bitter laugh. “I don’t get to judge you, but you felt it was okay to judge me?” The freaking nerve of this woman.
“You haven’t let me apologize for that.” She tries to debate, but I’ve had enough of her trying to justify her actions.
“I don’t need, nor do I want your apologies. You’re not significant enough for me to care about what you think, sweet cheeks.” I don’t miss the way she winces at my words, and I don’t know which part of what I said causes it. The harsh words or the term of endearment, the one I gave her the night we met.
Bright lights shine across the lawn, pulling my attention away from Lucy. Looking over her head, I see my ride arrive. Relief fills me knowing I can finally make my escape from this whole fucked up situation.
“Let’s make a deal. I’ll forget the shit you said about me, and you can forget all about trying to get me to talk to you. Forget all about whatever it is you think we had. Deal?” I don’t wait for an answer. I move past her to open the car door.
“I can’t,” she says to my back. She says the words so quietly it’s a small miracle that I even heard them.
I’m not even going to respond. I’ve made it clear where I stand on this. I’m not going to entertain her any more than I already have.
“I can’t forget it because I’m pregnant.”
CHAPTER NINE
ASA
She has got to be fucking kidding me.
I turn around, ready to tell her to try a different trick, but the shattered look on her face stops me in my tracks.
Her cheeks are soaked with tears, and one trembling hand covers her mouth. She looks like she wishes she could take the words back, but we both know she can’t do that. As much as we both want it to be possible.
“It’s yours. I swear. I know you might not think you can believe me, but I swear it,” she babbles, the sound of her voice droning into nothing but an echo in my mind while I stand there gawking at her. Everything fades away as shock numbs me. I can’t form thoughts on this mess.
“Buddy, you getting in or what?” the Uber driver asks impatiently. I need to get out of here. This isn’t the time or place to try to deal with something like this.
“Get in,” I command, holding the door open and nodding toward it.
“Pardon?” is her stunned reply, her pretty pink lips parting in shock.
“You got what you wanted. My attention. Now get in, so we can go somewhere that we don’t have a fucking audience.” I point over her shoulder to where my nosey-fuckhead brother is watching us.
“I don’t think that’s a good idea. Not while you’re still so ... tense.”
“Oh, I'm not tense, Lucy. I’m fucking mad. Now get in.” She must sense that I’m on the edge of breaking because she doesn’t argue further. She brushes past me and slides into the back seat.
We don’t speak as we speed toward my place which luckily isn’t far away. I don’t trust myself to say anything right now. I’m too caught up in thoughts of an impending baby to make conversation anyway.
I’m going to be a fucking father.
“This is where you live?” Lucy asks as we step onto the porch that wraps around my house.
“Not what you expected from a waste of space who works at a strip joint, huh?”
“Can you just quit it already?” she snaps. “I know you heard me that day, you’ve already made that obvious.” When I don’t answer right away, she draws in a deep breath before continuing. “I’ve tried more than enough times to apologize for being a bitch. You obviously didn’t hear everything I said that day, and with the way you’ve acted today, I’m past caring. You can hate me, but we have more important things to discuss right now. It’s not about you and your hurt feeling anymore.”
She storms past me and into the house. It’s wholly inappropriate, but my dick twitches at the sight of her stomping away from me in a skin tight dress and tall stiletto heels.
“Down, boy,” I murmur to myself. “That’s exactly what got us into this mess.”
Walking into the open-plan living space, I find Lucy standing in front of the window that overlooks the backyard, the tension in the room almost thick enough to cut with a knife.
“How did this happen?” I ask her, trying to keep my voice even.
“I honestly don’t know. I’m on birth control, and I’m pretty sure we used protection, right?” Her eyes come to me in the reflection of the glass.
“We did,” I confirm, knowing I would never have gone there without suiting up first.
“I shouldn’t have dumped all this on you the way I did. I should have found a better time and place to do this.” She finally turns to look at me.
“Well, I guess I didn’t leave you much choice.” That gets an awkward chuckle out of her, but it’s only there for the briefest of seconds before her face crumbles, and she starts to cry.
“I really am so sorry.” She sniffs. The defeat etched on her face hits me square in the chest. My resolve to keep her at arm’s length weakens in the face of her distress. I’ve only been thinking of my own shock at this news, not taking into account how she must be feeling.
“Come sit down.”
“I don’t have any expectations,” she states, standing in place, only moving to swipe at the tears that are still falling down her face. “I know this whole thing is insane, so I completely understand if you don’t want to be involved. I have no expectations.”
Is she seriously saying this shit to me right now?
“You don’t expect me to be involved?” I repeat her statement, injecting plenty of venom into the words. “Why? Because I'm just a lowlife who works at some scummy club?”
“That’s not what I said.” She tries to intervene, but I’m done listening to her crap.
“It’s not what you said, but we both know it’s what you meant.” She shrinks back at the acid tone of my voice. “I’ll be doing my fair share and not just financially.”
I don’t know what she expected me to do, but if she thought for one second that she could drop this bomb on me and I’d try to dodge it, she’s in for the shock of her life.