The floor dropped from under her.
“No.”
“Don’t lie to me. You were there for months. Someone took you in. Someone fed you. Someone made you think you could keep my child from me.”
Reese stared at her hands.
Wade leaned a little closer. “Who did you meet there?”
Reese thought of Stella giving her a job with no references. Nell gushing about mate.com. Brie at Sweet Summit Bakery offering her pastries she’d never tried before. She thought of Blaze putting shoes on Stella’s tired, pregnant feet in the middle of the diner.
She thought of Steel Protection’s door opening when she needed someone to help her feel safe. And Axel. The man who’d told her he loved her and didn’t care that she couldn’t say it back yet. The man who loved a baby girl who wasn’t even his.
She let out a soft breath, and a small smile curved on her lips before she could stop it. Wade lowered his beer bottle slowly from his mouth.
He frowned, his body tensing. “There was someone.” He put down his beer and adjusted the pistol in his lap. “Was it a man?”
“No,” Reese said too quickly.
Wade’s mouth tightened. She knew the mistake as soon as she heard herself make it.
He leaned closer. “You had another man?”
“No.”
“Don’t lie to me. Did you sleep with him?”
Reese went still again.
Wade’s hand closed around the handle of the pistol.
“Answer me.”
Wade stared at her, breathing through his nose. His face changed, and the careful tone disappeared. His mouth tightened, and something ugly moved across his eyes.
“You lying slut,” he said.
Reese went cold.
“You let another man fuck you while you’re pregnant with my son.”
“No.”
“You think I don’t know what happens when women get loose?” His voice rose, sharp enough to make her flinch. “You think I don’t know what you were doing there? Whoring it up with any man who looked at you.”
“I didn’t.”
“You’re a worthless whore.”
The words hit her hard in the gut. Reese didn’t react. The pistol was still under his hand.
Wade leaned closer. “Is the bastard even mine?”
For one second, her mind went completely blank.
The baby moved low in her belly, small and real and innocent of all of this. Reese wished so hard that Elsie wasn’t his. She wished she belonged to Axel. She wished Wade had no claim to her baby girl at all.
But wishing did not change anything. Wade’s fingers tightened around the grip of the pistol, and Reese forced herself to meet his eyes.
