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She actually has the audacity to look offended. “I’ll get a paternity test if you want. He’s yours.”
“You’re damn right, we’ll get a paternity test, and if he’s mine, I’ll take care of him, but you’ll stay the hell out of my life.”
“Look, Brady, I know I should have told you sooner, but I was scared.”
I narrow my eyes, tamping down my burning anger. “What do you want?”
“I just want you to know your son.” Her voice quavers. She’s trying too hard.
“Bullshit! What do you really want?”
“Nothing, Brady, I swear.”
She pulls on my arm. I tear it from her grasp, glaring at her. How dare she show up after all this time and drop this shit on me?
“When I read your story in the paper and started thinking about how you must’ve felt not knowing your father, it made me reconsider my choice to keep him from you.”
How convenient for her that the press got a hold of my story. “Yet that was over a year ago.”
Her gaze drops. “It took some time for me to find the courage to tell you.”
“I’m not buying it.”
She makes her way up to the door. “Fine, I’ll leave. I just need to get Andrew.”
Tori opens the front door. Her face isn’t lit up like it was earlier tonight. My heart sinks. Just when we were making progress, Annabelle shows up and ruins it with her lies.
“Please don’t leave,” she tells Annabelle with a kind smile. “Andrew is in the kitchen having a snack. I’ll take you to him, and then I’d like to speak to Brady alone, please.”
Annabelle gives Tori a weak nod and follows her to the kitchen. A few minutes later, Tori returns. She motions for us to sit on the steps. I reluctantly agree.
She pulls my hand onto her lap. I have no idea what to say to her. She speaks first. “Brady, I know you don’t want to believe her, but Andrew is yours.”
My aggravation comes out in a growl. “No, he’s not,” I insist, turning to look in her pale blue eyes, which are now clouded with tears. “I had sex with her once, and we used protection. She’s up to something.”
Tori smiles as a stray tear slides down her cheek.
“Please don’t cry.” I wipe the tear away, angry at myself for putting it there.
“It makes me sad to think that after everything you went through, you could deny him.”
I growl again. How could she think that? “It’s not the same thing.”
“Isn’t it?” Her frown deepens. “You once thought your real father didn’t want you. Don’t you remember how that feels?”
I do remember, and it sucks. Even if I don’t trust Andrew’s mother as far as I can throw her, it’s not his fault. She told him I was his father right in front of him. He must be confused, and hurt. “What am I supposed to do?”
“You should do what feels right.” She pats my knee and stands. “I’m going upstairs.”
She leaves me on the steps. When I hear the door shut, I scream, considering the fact that Tori is probably right. Annabelle had a tough upbringing and was horribly insecure, but she didn’t sleep around, although most of my friends had tried to get with her. She wasn’t a virgin, by any means, but she wasn’t a slut. She usually dated a guy a few times before she slept with him. I remember being surprised when she gave it up to me. I also remember feeling like shit the next day. She wanted more, but for me it had been a quick, drunken roll-around and nothing more.
As much as it kills me, I have to face this. I get up and go into the kitchen, where Andrew and Annabelle are seated at our table. Andrew beams up at me, his green eyes the same ones I see when I look in the mirror. He’s definitely my son. My earlier anger surfaces, only this time it’s not because I think Annabelle isn’t being truthful. She kept me from my son for more than four years. I glare at her across the table, ready to unleash a string of expletives. Wi
th Andrew present it would be wrong. I refuse to let him be witness to the two of us fighting. God only knows what this kid has seen.
I nod my head at her to come into the living room. She stands and places her hands on Andrew’s shoulders. He’s pushing grape after grape into his mouth. “Andrew, honey, Mommy is going to go into the other room to speak to Daddy. Can you be a good boy for a few minutes?”
He nods and shoves another grape in his mouth. I get a little more pissed listening to her calling me “Daddy” like he’s been around me his entire life.
