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There’s an awkward beat. Two crows call to each other outside the window, circling playfully in the pale winter sky. Sunshine spears through puffs of white cloud.
Helen blows out a short breath and unties the robe. “I don’t know how to say it, so I’ll just… I’ll just show you.”
Show me what?
The robe slides off her shoulders, puddling on the floor, and I frown at her body. Show mewhat? Is she injured? I can’t see any scars or bruises.
Then Helen turns to the side slightly, one hand cupping the swell between her hips, and my whole body goes cold. I’m icing over. Inside my aching chest, my heartbeat slows down until I can barely feel it.
Thump, thump, thump…
…Thump…
“You’re pregnant?” I sound wrecked. Iamwrecked. I’ve never felt despair like this. “Whose is it?”
The question comes out unbidden, and immediately, I wish I could stuff it back between my teeth. Because Helen flinches, wide-eyed, and it’s none of my goddamn business anyway.
What does it matter whose it is? I’ll still love her. Still take care of her and the baby. I’m just torturing myself, rubbing salt in the wound by picturing Helen,myHelen, with one of the familiar faces in town, but God knows it doesn’t matter. Not really.
“How…” My assistant is winded, gasping for breath. Her bare chest rises and falls. “Howdareyou?”
She crouches and scrabbles for the robe, yanking it back on. One of the sleeves is inside out, and it takes her a few tries to punch her fist through the fabric, grunting between harsh breaths. When Helen glares at me again, knotting the robe belt, her cheeks are wet with tears.
I limp around my easel, so hollow. “I’m sorry. You’re right, it doesn’t matter—”
“It matters tome, you ass!”
Fuck. Do I need to drag some deadbeat for DNA tests? I’ll do it if that’s what Helen wants, but I’d much rather she’d takemeas the father. What kind of idiot would blow his chance with this girl?
Palms raised, I try again. “Whatever you need, sweetheart, I’ll support you.”
“You’re damn right you will.” Helen raises her chin, eyes flashing, and she’s so fucking beautiful in her fury. An avenging angel. “You might treatmelike dirt, Rufus Grangemoor, but you will not do that with our child. I won’t allow it.”
And I am… confused.
“Our child?”
Helen huffs, wringing the fabric belt like she’d rather wring my neck.
“Ourchild? How is that—what do you mean? You’ll let me be the stepfather?”
I won’t let her down. God, I never dreamed I’d have this much of her. And hope rises in me, a warm, golden bubble—that explodes into mist when I see Helen’s glare.
If looks could kill, I’d be a pile of ashes on the floor. But fuck, I’m trying here!
“I mean,” Helen says, each word chipped out of ice, “that you are the biological father, Mr Grangemoor. You are the only man I have ever slept with; the only possible candidate. But if you insist on a DNA test—”
“Wait a second.” I grip a fistful of hair, and the room is spinning. How can any of this be happening? And it comes to me, dripping down my spine like freezing melt water off the mountains.
…Those dreams. Those fucking dreams. One of them must have been real.
Christ.
She and I—
And all this time, we—
Then I said—
