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“And risk losing you?”
“You can’t…” He squeezed the bridge of his nose. “You can’t possibly be this selfish.”
“I am. When it comes to you, I just am.”
“What would have happened if you were? If the tests said you were pregnant?”
Tears squeezed from both corners of her eyes, and he knew she was sorry. He knew she felt terrible about what she’d done, but it was impossible to do anything at the moment but hurt.
“I would have eventually had to say something,” she said. “Once the baby got here, it would have been…obvious.”
“Would you have had Kofi’s baby?” he asked. “Raised it with him? Married him? Stayed with him?”
“Joel, I’m sorry.”
“Sydney, I don’t know how to handle this relationship with you.Youasked for the divorce. Even before we finalized the whole process, I begged you. I tried to find ways to work things out. We slept together. We slept apart. I would have bled to keep you. What do you want from me?”
Tears dripped from her chin. “I want to get back together. I want you back. I’ll even have your kid if that’ll get you to come back.”
He laughed, a dry and mirthless rattle in his chest.“Mykid? What, you’ll disappear after it’s born?”
“Joel, if you agree to leave the team, I will give you a baby.”
She didn’t get it.
He wanted a family, not only a child.
It wasn’t as though he’d tried to force her into wanting children. It was what she’dtoldhim she wanted. She’d lied about them being on the same page. Then, the reasons he’d wanted to stay together had more to do with loving her than anything else. As a couple, they’d put so much time into them, it had made little sense not to stay together.
At the time, he didn’t want anyone else. Back then, he couldn’t so much as imagine wanting someone else.
“Who all knew?” he asked. “Who all knew about Kofi and the pregnancy and Joel, the idiot who thought he was the only man his ex-wife was fucking?”
She looked up at the sky. “Larke, Mo, Ari, and Tayler. Then later, Xara. None of the guys knew.”
“And Ayesha?”
She chewed on her top lip.
“Sydney, did Ayesha know?”
“Yes. I told her first. She bought the tests.”
“So, she knew. She looked me in the face…” His voice trailed off. “Sydney, this isn’t easy for me, and I know it hasn’t been easy for you either. I’m tied to you in a way I don’t think anyone who’s never been in a long relationship would understand. But, things have changed. I’m changing. There are things I’m discovering about myself that I would never have if it hadn’t been for…”
A traitor.
The woman who’d pretended to be his confidante. A woman he’d started to develop what he now realized were misplaced feelings for. What was that thing called in therapy when someone developed fake feelings for their therapist?
When Ayesha was with everyone else, did they laugh at him? Did they look at him with pity, him pining after a woman in an entire relationship, and his ridiculous ass never knew?
He was pissed.
So pissed.
But the thing that hurt most wasn’t what he’d expected to hurt the worst.
“Whose baby would you have wanted it to be?”
