“I want a paternity test.”
“Why? You want this problem to go away. Let me go away.” Fliss reached for the latch.
“So you can, what? Raise my child in some squalid flat on government handouts?”
“I would sell my diamond earrings, but I never received them, did I?” she shot back.
“You’re still playing out of your league, Fliss.” His hand came up to the door again, leaning on it. “I won’t let you use my child against me.”
Her heart had become a shriveled thing inside her, leaving a cavern for her voice to reverberate with emotion.
“Don’t judge me by your standards, Saint. That’s not something I would even think to do. I’m naive that way—which I’m pretty sure you know because I didn’t feel played until I heard about those earrings. I thought you were charming and interesting and a generous lover. I thought we were two people who had a really nice time together, but you know which one of us was full of BS that night? You. It was all an act to get me into bed, wasn’t it? And you think I’m into role-play?” She pointed between her breasts. “You’re superficial and callous and kind of a bully. There’s no way on earth I would raise a baby with you. Now, let me go before I scream the place down.”
Fliss made to elbow him in the stomach, forcing him to step back to avoid it. She opened the door and left.
Saint had taken a kick from one of his mother’s horses once. This was a similar sensation. He felt knocked clean across a stall.
He was vaguely aware of other sensations. His fingers were still stinging where he’d cut them with the glass. His blood felt thick and congealed in his veins, as though it was pooling in shock. His guts were pure acid.
It wasn’t true, was it? There’d been a handful of paternity claims in his past. In the first case, he’d been young enough to buy in very quickly and had nearly bought his partner a ring, only to learn she wasn’t even pregnant. Another time, he hadn’t been the father.
Those false alarms had not only made him cynical about such claims but made him all the more diligent about wearing condoms. He bought them himself and regularly checked the dates. As Fliss had noted, none had split, so it seemed highly unlikely they had failed.
A compulsion to double-check the dates had him striding into the bathroom where his shaver was in its case. A half strip of condoms was tucked beside it, exactly the way he usually kept it. They were the brand he liked and part of the same strip he’d used with Fliss. The stamp said they were within their use-by date.
She’d been with him every second that night. There’d been no opportunity for her to poke holes in them—
He swore and crushed the strip in his fist, eyes pressing closed. Fliss hadn’t had an opportunity to sabotage his birth control, but someone else had.
With a grim sense of premonition, he tore one out and sealed its opening to the tap. He filled it with water, then held it at his eye level and watched a droplet of water leak out against the skin. As soon as it fell, another formed. Then another.
With a curse, Saint threw the condom into the shower. It landed with a loud splat. He tried another. Then another. All of them were damaged.
Julie. He couldn’t prove she was the one who had done it, but no one else had traveled with him and spent time in his space, and she’d already shown herself short on scruples.
At least he wasn’t expecting a baby with her.
No. He was expecting one with Fliss.
You’re superficial and callous and kind of a bully.
He drew in a breath that burned, hating himself for going full Ted Montgomery on her.
But this circumstance was exactly what his own father had faced when Saint’s mother had come to him with her unplanned pregnancy. Ted had been on the cusp of what had turned into unprecedented success. Norma had contributed to his ascension in no small way, not that Ted ever gave her that credit. Any warmth or charm that Saint possessed had come from her. She’d compensated for Ted’s utter lack of empathy.
But such a one-sided relationship could only be sustained so long. Eventually, their marriage had become a toxic partnership, one that continued to rain nuclear fallout on Saint to this day.
That was why he wore condoms. He didn’t want kids. He didn’t want to discover thirty years from now that he was as damaging a parent as his own had been.
He was about to become one anyway. He didn’t need a paternity test to prove it. He sent another dour look to the discarded condoms in the shower.
Fliss might have walked a very thin line between implying and outright lying about whether her baby was his, but he had no doubt that she was pregnant and that he had put her in that condition. He had even less doubt that she wished it had been nearly any other man.
This isn’t a game, she’d said. The baby is mine.
Saint found himself thinking, Mine, too.
He braced his hands on either side of the sink, reminding himself to breathe while he took that in. Whether he wanted to be a father or feared he’d make a terrible one didn’t matter. He was about to be put to the test. This was real. And he did take responsibility for his actions—even when his mistake was putting too much trust in the wrong person.
Swearing did nothing to help, but it felt very satisfying to curse out a long, vicious blue streak. Sensation was seeping back into his limbs, and his brain was crawling out of the rubble of emotions that were still piled up around him: shock and fury and guilt. So much guilt toward Fliss. There was something else there, too, deep under the heavy weight of that. Something that was too nascent to excavate. Something almost like relief or... He didn’t know what it was and would rather focus on taking action.
He needed a paternity test for his father’s sake. Ted would turn this into another black mark against Saint, possibly vetoing the board’s approval.
Saint swore again, tiredly this time, and pinched the bridge of his nose.
You want this problem to go away. Let me go away.
As if it were that simple. She was right. As soon as she grew plump enough for people to suspect pregnancy, they would do the math and guess that he was the father. Even if he wanted to take the easy way out that she’d offered and made a statement that the baby wasn’t his, she would still be badgered.
And he couldn’t turn his back on his child. Not in good conscience. Within a year or two, the baby would look just like him anyway, giving how strongly he resembled his own father.
No, if Fliss was having his baby, they were having their baby.
Where had she said she was going? Errands. Hell. That could mean anything. If he wanted to catch her, he’d have to be waiting in Nottingham for her.
He went to look for his phone to order the car, ignoring the way Fliss’s last words resounded in his ears.
There’s no way on earth I would raise a baby with you.
