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Alexander looks up from my phone. “What?”
“How did you know that Louis wasn’t my father’s real name?” I think back to the moment everything went to shit at the pâtisserie. “Who called you to tell you that?”
He doesn’t answer. I try to think of all the conversations we’ve had about my father. How tense Alexander has been, almost as if he knows something he’s not telling me. Why is my father’s name so important to him?
Why isanythingabout my father so important? A sense of dread starts to build in my stomach when Alexander doesn’t look like he’s forthcoming with the details.
“Where is this even coming from?” I ask him, my voice pitched higher than I would like. I’m holding on to the vestiges of my sanity, trying hard tohear him outand not blow up like I want to. “Why do you care so much about my father all of a sudden?”
Alexander’s expression grows guarded quickly, and he tosses my phone back at me. It hits my chest then falls into my lap. He just sits there, staring at me,glaring at me, and I desperately want to know what’s going on in his head.
None of this makes sense. Just a few minutes ago, everything was perfect.
I was on the cusp of telling him about the baby, of sharing my dreams for our future. Now, it just feels like a huge tornado of hurt and pain, and I don’t even know why the fuck it’s happening.
“Because…” he begins but stops short to suck in a deep breath. “Because if we’re to spend the rest of our lives together, I at least need to know that you aren’t lying to me, hiding things from me. I need to know the kind of family you’re from.”
I narrow my eyes. His lips moved. Words came out. But it’s like I can’t hear him clearly, because he can’t be saying what I think he is.
“You need to know thekind of familyI’m from?” I ask for clarity.
“Oh, fuck off with that look,” Alexander hisses, wagging a finger at me. “Don’t act offended. I’m not the one on trial for lying!”
“What the fuck did you expect me to say to you?” I shout. “That I planned to run off with my father because I thought you ratted me out? Would telling you that have made anything better?”
“But not telling me has made everything worse,” he shoots back. “If I had known that Michel Moreau was your father then…” Alexander's eyes are as hard as diamonds. His voice tapers off, but I know exactly what he’s going to say.
And I’m fucking livid he would even think it.
“Then what?” I ask, unhooking the seatbelt to lean over the center console toward him. “If you had known then you wouldn’t have chased me down like a predator all over campus? You wouldn’t have fucked me? You wouldn’t have forced your way into my life and—”
“Stop.” The single syllable is clipped, slicing through my words.
I pause, briefly. But I’m not done. Every emotion I’ve held back since we got on that plane comes bursting through the walls I erected to keep them at bay. I’m angry at Alexander foreverything. For dragging me to his family home, ill-prepared. I’m even angry at him for getting pregnant, even though I had as much to do with that as he did.
“You’re in no fucking position to lecture me about my family.” Venom drips from my words, and I hold his gaze with all the vitriol pumping through my blood. “Yourfather may as well be the devil himself. You asked me to become your wife, and I said yes, even when I knew that you had the blood ofhundredsof people on your hands.” My eyes burn, but not with tears of sadness. No, they’re as hot as lava, streaking down my flushed cheeks. “We’re the same, Alexander. You can hate me for hiding the fact my father is a killer all you want, but it doesn’t change the fact you are one too.”
My last sentence seems to strike a nerve. He leans over sharply, the sudden movement putting his face inches from mine.
“I’m nothing like your bastard father, Alize,” he says through clenched teeth.
“You’re right,” I say with a shrug. “You’re worse.” I pull away, finally breaking our stare off. “You bring me here, far away from everything that I know. You take me on a mind-blowing date, then you pick an argument with me and start acting like I’m worse than the scum on your shoe?” A curt laugh falls from my lips. “I wish you’d just make up your mind about me, about us. It would make everything easier.”
My stomach clenches at my words. Maybe if I told Alexander that I’m pregnant, it would fix the argument. But is that what I want? A man who’s with me out of duty, not because he actually wants to be? I swallow around the lump in my throat as I weigh my options.
Worse yet, what if he doesn’twantour child? It might be half him, but the baby would also be halfme.Quarter of Michel Moreau, who he hates so much.
“Get out of the car,” Alexander’s harsh words snap me out of my spiral of thoughts. The locks click open. My head snaps to his. He’s already refastened his seatbelt, his hands on the steering wheel like he’s about to drive off somewhere.
“What?”
“Don’t make this any harder, Alize,” he snaps, not even looking at me. “Get out of the car, now. I need to think.”
My insides grow cold, and the numbness spreads from my chest to my fingertips. He’s leaving me. In the middle of this argument, he’s leaving me instead of trying to work it out.
“Where are you going?” My voice cracks.
“Get. Out. Of. The. Car.” Alexander reaches over and opens my door.
