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“No, stay away,” I said, my voice strained like it was being squeezed through a tube. “There is nothing attractive about this.”

“I did this to you,” Evan said. “The least I can do is hold back your hair.”

Which he proceeded to do. I couldn’t remember the last time a man had done that for me, if any man ever had. I retched and heaved until my stomach was emptier than it’d ever been. Finally, it was done, and I sat back on my heels, feeling like I’d been hit by a bus.

The front door clicked open at the same time as I flushed the toilet and stood up, and Lily walked in.

She froze when she saw me and Evan both come out of the guest toilet.

“What’s going on here?” she asked. She looked around and took in the lighting, my flushed face, Evan’s guilty look. She narrowed her eyes.

“Is it his?” she asked.

I felt the blood drain from my face.

“Lily.” I didn’t know what to say.

“It is, isn’t it?!” Lily was starting to freak out. “I can’t believe it! I knew you were lying to me, but my dad? Dad!” She turned to Evan. “You couldn’t stick to the rest of the girls in Manhattan. You had to start picking from my friends? I think of going to be sick. You make me sick!”

“It’s not as bad as it looks, sweetheart,” Evan said, his hands up in defense.

“Oh, it almost can’t be, can it, Daddy?”

Evan shook his head. “Really, this isn’t what you think.”

“Come on, cut the crap. Both of you. You think this is fine, fucking each other behind my back and I wouldn’t care? My dad is perverted freak and my best friend is right in there with him. I’m sick of being lied to, by the only two people that are important to me? This is bullshit.”

She turned around to leave.

“Lily,” I called after her. She spun around at the door.

“Don’t you dare, Scar. You could have said no to him, you know? You should have. I don’t want to see you again. You two want to ride off into the sunset together, be my guest but I’m not holding your hand through this. Fuck you, Scar.”

She’d never sworn at me and it hurt like a bitch. I’d messed up. I’d known it for a while but the sinking feeling in my stomach made me want to vomit again. Losing Lily hurt more than any of sex had felt good. Without another word, she left the house, slamming the colossal door behind her. The whole mansion seemed to echo with the bang, and we were left behind in a room that felt like all the air had been sucked out of it.

It wasn’t even the wake of her destruction that we were experiencing, it was the wake of ours.

Chapter Twelve

Evan

I fucked up. Lily was gone, angry. We hadn’t even gotten around to talking about how we were going to deal with telling her, and now, she’d figured it out all by herself. I’d always said Lily was too fucking smart for her own good.

But this was my fault. I should have told her what was going on. I should probably have told her what I’d been planning for so long–let her into the idea of having a baby with a surrogate.

Instead, I’d lost my daughter.

Scarlett and I walked back to the kitchen. Neither of us touched the food I’d prepared. I had no appetite, and after she’d thrown up everything that she’d eaten since last year, it seemed, she didn’t look like she could stomach anything else. This was brutal. I had heard of morning sickness, but seeing it first hand was something else. I couldn’t even remember if Clara had had the same when she’d been pregnant with Lily.

It had been so long ago.

I had blown out all the candles, and Scarlett had switched on the lights. The romance of the evening had been drowned out by Lily’s explosion.

“I’m going to try her again,” Scarlett said. She had her phone in her hand. She’d tried dialing Lily since the moment she’d left, but Lily wasn’t answering.

I’d tried a few times, too, but I knew my daughter. If she was pissed about something, she had to calm down before she wanted to talk about anything. And I had a feeling that this would take a hell of a long time to calm down about.

“We shouldn’t have done this,” Scarlett said. “This was such a big mistake. I shouldn’t have lied to her.”

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