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I clench it into a tight fist, imagining the warmth of a certain set of large, calloused fingers.
“When your mom cheated on me with that other man… she became pregnant.”
I’m too shocked to gasp. Too shocked to cry. All I can do is stare across the table, my brows knit in focus. My body knows what’s happening long before my brain finally, begrudgingly accepts it.
“After Alexis?” I ask. “Between me and Alexis?”
He winces, the expression full of pity. “No, it wasn’t between you and Alexis.”
I frown. “Then when was—”
Realization crashes over me all at once.
“I got a vasectomy a little before then. At first, your mom told me it must have failed.” He keeps talking, but his words are swirling into a dense fog around my head. “I tried to believe her, but I was suspicious. I tried to let it go, but then I found her letters to the man and… she came clean. She told me everything.”
I suck in air, but it isn’t enough. My lungs can’t expand under the crushing weight of a lifetime of lies.
“I’m not your biological father,” the man I thought was my dad says. “You’re the product of her affair. You’re another man’s daughter.”
40
RAYNE
I’m not sure how I end up back in my car.
Did I say goodbye to my dad? To the man I thought was my dad, rather? I have no way of knowing. Because the moment I understood what my dad was saying to me, my brain shut down. It was like a failsafe to keep me from spiraling into a million different dangerous directions. My mind and body went into autopilot.
Breathing? Walking? Those are okay. Those are safe.
Thinking? Talking? Big red warning lights with accompanying foghorns.
Don’t do that.
Still, on instinct, I reach for my phone and punch in Natalia’s number. As the line rings, I’m not sure what I’m going to say. I just know it would do me good to hear a familiar voice.
And I do. Only, it’s Natalia’s voicemail I get.
Maybe I’m busy or maybe I’m just playing hard to get,she says with a flirty laugh.Leave a message and I might get back to you.
I hang up without leaving a message. Leaving a voicemail is for people with functioning brains. Right now, I’m not one of those people.
I call Harmony next. Her phone barely rings before she answers. There’s a shuffling, staticky noise before I hear her voice in a harsh whisper. “I’m at a christening for my coworker’s baby and your call ruined the whole ceremony. I’ll call you later, okay, butthead?”
She hangs up without a response from me.
I look through the window and see my dad and Pat walking out of the front of the cafe. The bolt of fear that shoots through me at the thought that they’ll find me despondent in the parking lot is enough to kick my ass into gear. I throw my car into reverse and streak out of the lot.
The town where my dad—I can’t bear referring to him as “Kenneth,” so “Dad” it remains, I guess—lives is tiny, but I still don’t know where anything is. So I end up back at his house without really meaning to.
I need to get Yuliana, so maybe it wasn’t such a bad idea. Then I can get back to the hotel and figure out what my next move is.
But before I can figure out how to kidnap my own daughter from her not-a-grandfather-anymore’s house, Lana peeks through the front window blinds.
I can’t face her. I have no idea what to say and no clue what my plan is. Plus, if I talk to her at all, it’ll last too long and then my dad and Pat will show up. I don’t want to be here when they return. I just need space. Distance. Time to breathe.
Lana steps onto the porch and waves me in, her brow creased in confusion. I pull out my phone and call her.
“Why are you calling me from the driveway?” she snaps, raising a hand to her forehead to try and see me through my windshield. “Come inside.”
