Page 85 of The Alpha’s Unclaimed Mate

“Are you threatening to take her from me?” Her voice shakes, but she glares at me through the fear. “Because I’ll never let you. I’ll fight you for her with everything I have, every court, every dollar, every last breath in my body. She’s mine.”

It cuts me that she’s this afraid of me. I hold her gaze and don’t look away. “You think I’d tear Mia out of her mother’s arms? After everything I’ve seen of you? Is that truly the man you take me for?”

Jessa’s eyes fill to the brim and refuse to spill. “I don’t know what to think of you, not anymore.” Her voice shakes. “All I know is I wish I’d never set foot in this town.”

My heart breaks at those words.

Chapter Eighteen

Jessa

The second the words are out of my mouth, I instantly regret them. The color has drained from his face as he stays there frozen.

For ten years I’ve hated a man I invented, one who deserved every ugly thing I ever thought. And yet today, as I watch the look in his eyes, the hurt, I feel guilt flood through me.

I don’t want to feel guilty. I don’t want to feel like a monster because I lashed out at him, not toward the man who was the reason I ate one meal a day through a pregnancy, the reason I left college with a year to go.

“I didn’t know you were in this town.” The words tear out of me even as I hate myself for them. “If I’d known, I’d never have set foot here.”

“Why?” He utters the word quietly. I’d rather he shouted. “Because you didn’t want me getting a chance to see my own daughter?”

My head drops. He hooks two fingers under my chin and tips my face back up, giving me nowhere else to look.

“I don’t remember sleeping with you, Jessa,” he murmurs. “I swear it. I’ve tried to remember that night, but I can’t. The memory isn’t there.” His thumb rests against my jaw. “But Mia is mine. When you came to me back then, nobody told me. I’ve spent the last decade unaware of her existence. If you hadn’t told me how you were treated, I would have no way of knowing. I would never have turned you away.” His voice roughens. “But the past is the past. The fact remains that she’s mine. I’m asking you not to take her from me now.”

A chill goes through me. “How can you know she’s yours? Did you take my daughter’s blood to get her tested?”

“I gave blood the night she was poisoned.” He doesn’t look away. “It happened at the healer’s. She needed it, so I gave it.”

The floor tilts under my feet. “So you tested her.” My voice climbs. “That was behind my back, in a room you wouldn’t let me into. You ran a paternity—”

“There was no paternity test.” He cuts me off. “I’ve had my suspicions for a while. She has my birthmark, same shoulder, same notch broken through the edge. She hates carrots. She’s allergic to the same flowers I am.”

“That’s not proof,” I whisper.

“No,” he agrees. “But it was enough to make me sure. If you want certainty, get your coat. There’s a clinic two towns over that opens at seven, and I’ll drive.”

I catch his forearm and hold on. “No.” The word tears out of me.

Paper makes it real. It goes to lawyers, then to judges, and I know how much a judge cares about ten years of sleepless nights once a rich man walks in.

He looks at me and then sighs. “All right.”

I don’t understand why he’s so agreeable right now.

“How long have you known? Be honest.”

He studies me. “The night she got poisoned. They needed a blood transfusion.”

“And you said nothing.” I search his face. “It’s been more than a week since then, and you didn’t say a word.”

“I wanted you to tell me yourself.” He lets go of my chin. “You’ve not exactly kept your disdain of me a secret, now have you? I knew that the second I pushed, you’d run.” His mouth twists. “So I waited. I thought you would slowly trust me and tell me the truth.”

My knees buckle, and Marcus catches me before I can fall, steering me into a chair. He then drops to one knee beside it, boxing me in without laying a finger on me.

“I had nothing to do with it,” he tells me. “I really don’t remember sleeping with you.”

“Was I that insignificant to you?” My voice splinters halfway through. “Was I just another notch on your bed pos—”