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He grips my biceps and holds me firmly in front of him even as I thrash to get away from him. But it’s more than just him. I want to run away from this ugly truth that I’ve unwittingly taken part in. “Oliver, please, let me go.”
“No. Wait.” He bends his head, face coming close to mine, making me look at him. “Wren, what did he say?”
“You’re the baby’s father.” I wriggle in his hold. “There are DNA results.” My lips tremble, slick with tears. “Why would you lie to me?”
Shocked or perhaps dejected that he’s been found out, Oliver carefully releases me. I stumble backward, needing room between us.
“No, Wren, listen to me. Dot’s lying. I don’t know how she did it or if the tests are even legitimate, but I’m not the father.” His hands curl into fists at the center of his chest. “She’s lying. I swear on my life. I’d never lie to you.”
“But…but…” I trail off, urgently trying to gather my wits and slow my thoughts. A tiny spark of hope flickers bright in my chest. “How is this possible? Malone said he saw the results. He said you two weren’t over and that you lied about that too.”
“No.” He takes my hand in his. “That isn’t true. Think about it. All of this, it’s Dot. This is retaliation for me calling her out publicly. She’d been too quiet. We knew she might do something. This is it. I can’t explain the DNA. I want to see the test results with my own two eyes. It’s got to be a fake.”
I wipe my nose with the back of my hand and try to steady my breathing, stop the tears. Most of this makes sense. Dot was too quiet, absent after his announcement at the Grill. Then last night, the library.
“Oliver, last night when she talked to me, this is what she meant. She planned this. Most probably went to her father distraught and… Wait, how do you know about the DNA tests?”
He fills me in on his visit with her this morning and how useless it was, then his drop-in at the Grill for lunch. I gasp, mouth open, stomach roiling, as he describes Percy confronting him.
“And Pop?” The thought of my father, the disappointment and anger he must feel at not only Oliver but also me, devastates me. “What did he say?”
“He wasn’t there. He doesn’t know yet.”
“I didn’t tell you all of it. The mayor didn’t only come to talk about Dot.”
This isn’t going to be easy to voice—losing all that I’ve worked for and that I’ve failed Jack, and Courtney, and Brayden.
“What else did he say?”
“Bright Horizons isn’t going to be approved and I…” My voice cracks and he tightens his grip on my hand, hauling me into him. “They’re going to fire me.”
“What? They can’t do that.” He presses his lips to my forehead in comfort despite how wrong he is.
“They can and they will.”
I fill him in on my conversation with the mayor, and once done, I crumple into another wave of tears. There’s nothing I can do about Bright Horizons or my job, not now. But the more I think about the pregnancy and what I know of Oliver, of course I know it’s a lie.
Oliver is telling the truth.
A charged knowing blankets me, persistent and prickly. Yet it’s out of my reach, like something on the tip of my tongue and I can’t quite form the words or the thought.
Then it smacks me in the face.
“Wait. Dot and Kellen. I still think there’s something there. Do you think he helped her with the DNA results? Maybe he isn’t the father and what I saw wasn’t an argument over the paternity, but maybe payment for faking DNA results?”
I’m reaching, and every word out of my mouth sounds bizarre and unfathomable.
“Maybe. Faking results is something Kellen could do. He’d know a guy who knows a guy…” Oliver stares off into the middle distance, most probably working this out from all angles like I am.
A woman enters the library, one of Lara Crandall’s followers, and stops short when she spots Oliver and me. Then she makes a big display of clutching her chest, mouth open, before she turns and leaves.
I groan and drop my head into my hands briefly. “You know she’s going to make this into something it isn’t. Embellish what she saw.”
He scratches the stubble on his chin. “Yeah. We better get used to that.”
“This is only the beginning.” I wipe the tears from my face and slide in behind the desk. “Please go.”
“Wren, can’t you get someone to cover for you?”
