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“I wanted to tell you so many times, but?—”
“We’ve seen each other three times. Two of those times we were fuckin’ each other stupid and yet it never seemed right to tell me we had a kid?” he shouted. “You had plenty of chances, but you didn’t.”
“I really didn’t but?—”
“How about the first time we got together at the Bellagio? You had no trouble fuckin’ me but you couldn’t tell me I had a daughter?”
“That’s not fair.”
“Then at the club, but no, you lied again.”
“I never lied to you, I just didn’t tell you.”
“Right.” He pushed off her desk, then paced in front of it. “I always forget how you have so many fuckin’ ways of gaming the truth.”
“I was going to tell you that afternoon in your penthouse.”
“But you didn’t. You told me all about Frank being your father, but you left out me being a father.”
“I know, I know.”
“Forget all that.” He stopped pacing and faced her. “You should’ve fuckin’ told me ten years ago when you first found out you were pregnant.”
“I was so confused and mixed up, and what could you have done. I had just found out Frank was my father, and I had no intentions of coming back to New York and living under his rule.”
“None of that matters. We could’ve worked something out, but you never gave me a chance.”
“You wouldn’t have left New York to come to California. You were just opening up your club in Manhattan.”
He slapped his palms against the cool glass desk. “Don’t put this on me.”
“I’m not, I’m just saying it wouldn’t have worked and if you think about it you’ll see I did the right thing.”
“No fuckin’ way I’ll ever get it. We could’ve done something, somehow, someway, but as usual you lied cause that’s what you do.”
“I swear, I was going to tell you in your penthouse, but then Jax came and all that shit with your club happened and you had to leave.”
“You always have another excuse.” Nick twisted his lips into a sneer.
“How did you find out?”
“Frank. He assumed I knew she was mine.” Nick barked out a harsh laugh. “I guess it’s fitting Frank tells me about my kid, cause you and him are exactly alike. What the fuck could I expect? Of course you’re related, you’re as twisted as your old man.”
“I know you’re hurting, but when you calm down you’ll understand.”
“Nah, I’ll never understand.”
“You don’t know what it was like.” Cheryl sucked in a sharp breath. Her words tumbling over each other. “The fear of being alone in a place where I knew no one.”
“All the more reason you should’ve told me.”
She’d only been in L.A. three weeks, one week after Frank dropped the paternity bomb. She’d been bartending at a dive bar on Sunset Blvd. and on her dinner break she bought a pregnancy test from the CVS on the corner.
“Don’t even try to imagine what it was like because you can’t ever know.”
Her hands shook in the bathroom stall of the Rainbow Room while Led Zeppelin sang about a stairway to heaven. Buying the pregnancy test was just a formality toconfirm what she already knew—she was alone and pregnant—yet deep down she was happy.
The room spun, so she leaned on the counter for support. For one terrible moment, she thought she might vomit. She drew in a steady, deep breath as the familiar wave of nausea overwhelmed her, followed by a cold sweat. Slow. In and out, try to control it.
