AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Vincent isn’t in the living room when I head back out there, and before long, I hear Jace leave the bathroom.
I make sure he’s tucked into bed before grabbing the extra blanket and pillow from the closet and head back out to the living room. I freeze in the open doorway, finding Vincent sitting on the couch, the very place I had planned to sleep tonight.
“Close the bedroom door,” he says. “We need to talk.”
Chapter 13
Stormy
Mila looks resigned as she reaches behind her to tug the door closed.
I’ve had a couple of hours to work this conversation through my head, but it doesn’t make it any less difficult to initiate.
The fact of how I want her to answer my questions surprises me the most because I don’t think I’ll feel relieved if she told me I wasn’t Sutton’s father, and that scares the absolute shit out of me. I know literally nothing about kids other than they’re tiny people who have a lot of the same requirements as grown people, only they don’t have the ability to meet those needs on their own.
They have to eat, bathe, be given instructions on how to do things. It was very clear watching Sutton eat that she can’t be trusted to do that on her own. I’d have been paying for stain removal had Mila not been right there beside her, refocusing her to make sure the pizza only went into her mouth rather than all over the place. I never would’ve thought to put a towel under the chair she sat Sutton in, but I know the person who designed this suite is an idiot for putting carpet under the small dining table.
“She’s my daughter,” I say when she takes a seat in the armchair rather than beside me on the sofa.
I expected nothing less from her.
“Yes.”
My skin grows clammy, my palms sweating. I’m filled with more emotions than I can count or even explain, however fear takes up most of the space in my chest.
I’m a father, a literal father, not just some guy that has been tasked with the welfare of two young boys. It changes a lot of things, including something visceral inside of me.
“Why didn’t you tell me you were pregnant?”
She shakes her head. “I don’t know.”
But she does. She has to. It was a decision she had to make.
“Did Carlen know?”
She’s quick to answer this time.
“Neither Janet nor Carlen knew you were the father. They never found out about that night.”
“You said you were on birth control,” I remind her.
“I was.” Her eyes dart away. “I just wasn’t very good at taking it like I should. I want you to know I didn’t get pregnant on purpose.”
“I find that hard to believe.”
She stiffens, her jaw muscles flexing as she grinds her teeth.
“You really think I wanted to be a single mother at the age of twenty-two?”
“Obviously, because that’s what you did. I never received a phone call or even a summons to court for child support.”
“I didn’t want your help,” she snaps. “I didn’t need it.”
“You’re so prideful, so self-involved, that you didn’t consider that maybe I had a right to know that I had a daughter?”
She looks away from me now, guilt swimming in her dark eyes.
“I was afraid you’d make me—”
