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Jeff cleared his throat. Get a grip. “Mia, I demand an explanation right now.”
“Yes, I owe you both that much.” Maria sat down on the bed and took Angie’s hand in her own. She rubbed it lightly. “I found out I was pregnant after you were arrested. With all your trouble with the law, I assumed you were guilty.”
Jeff’s heart began the stampede again. Ire flamed within him. “After everything we shared, how could you know me so little? Do you really think I could kill someone?”
“No.” Maria shook her head. “But I knew you’d go to prison for a long time anyway. I figured you’d had a hand in it. After all, it wasn’t the first time you’d been at the scene of a crime. There was no way around it. You had a record. I needed to make sure my baby—our baby—had a chance at the life and the name she deserved. So I seduced Wayne and, a month
later, told him the child was his.”
Jefferson plunked down onto the other bed. “Oh, Mia.”
“I’m not proud of it. But he adored your daughter, Jeff. She was his favorite. She wanted for nothing while he was alive.”
“Oh, Mia, you don’t understand.” He lowered his heavy head into his hands. All these years. He’d gone to prison, for God’s sake. To prison, because he thought he’d lost everything.
Maria gripped Angie’s hand tighter. “What? What are you not telling me?”
“I only pleaded guilty because I thought you’d betrayed me. I’d been ready to fight. To fight for us. To do anything to get out of the mess I’d gotten myself into and go straight for you. I was going to get a job, make my own way, prove to my grandfather that I wasn’t the fuck up he thought I was. I was ready to prove it to you. For us. Mia…why? You were the love of my life,” Jeff said, his voice wavering. “All this time, I had a child. A child I never knew.”
“Mama?”
“Yes, Angie?”
“Harper and Catie?”
“They’re your father’s. Er…Wayne’s. I never strayed during our marriage. Not once.”
“And I—”
“Jeff is your biological father. I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean for you to find out this way. Or to find out at all—”
“You planned to keep this child from me forever?” Jeff’s voice had deepened, tinted with more anger, almost rage. Yes, he was angry. This woman had stolen his life. “Didn’t you think I had the right to know I had a daughter?”
“And didn’t you think I had the right to know who my real father was?” Angie demanded.
Maria’s weight sank down farther into the bed, as though she wanted to melt into it, to melt away and never return.
“Angie, you had a real father. A real father who adored you.”
“Would he have adored me so much if he’d known the truth?”
“I don’t know. But what does it matter?”
“What does it matter? Are you serious?”
For Christ’s sake. The two of them were going on and on as if he weren’t in the room. “And what about me, Mia?” Jeff interjected. “What about me?”
“You were serving a life sentence. What would you have done with a child? What would I have done as a single mother?”
“You never loved Daddy,” Angie choked out.
“He never loved me either.”
Angie shook her head, rubbing her cheeks against the hotel pillow. “You shouldn’t have married him. He deserved to be loved.”
Marie held her—their—daughter’s hand. “I did it for you, Angie. For you. Can’t anyone see that?”
“Bullshit.” Angie sat up. “You did it for yourself. Your boyfriend was going to prison and you were stuck pregnant. You trapped an innocent man into a marriage neither of you wanted. I’ll never forgive you for this. Never!”
