“What about your daughter?” I snap. “Do you ever think about her?”
I can’t help it. No matter how many times I tell myself not to feed into it, I do every time.
Those once-dreamy eyes narrow even more. “Leave the baby out of this.”
The baby.
The. Baby.
I grit my teeth together. “She has a name, and she’s hardly a baby anymore.”
He scoffs.
The very moment I told Benedict I was pregnant and he asked me to get rid ofit, was when I knew I made a gravemistake. I’ll never admit that I regret meeting him, because I got Charleigh out of it, but I wish he’d just leave us be.
“How did you find out about me Ubering?” I ask.
The lone Skittle in my stomach threatens to come back up when he doesn’t answer me. Instead, he looks out the window, unfazed by my questioning. Even worse, he seems unbothered from my dig at his nonexistent parenting.
Heavy silence fills the car, and the longer we’re stuck in here, the more my hackles rise. The betrayal from his absence in Charleigh’s life cuts like a knife to my skin, and each time he pops back up, the knife pushes in a little farther.
“The only reason you ever come around is because you can’t stand knowing that I don’t want you.”
Benedict stiffens.
The air grows tight.
I shouldn’t have said that.
Something else I learned about Benedict very early on is that he isn’t someone you want to cross. A man like Benedict has too many connections, and his intellect goes much further than my podunk high school diploma and half a year in college.
“Is that how you want this to go?” he asks in a calm voice.
I think I prefer his angry voice instead, honestly.
I dig my nails into the steering wheel again. “This is nothing you haven’t heard before. If you want to be in Charleigh’s life for honest reasons, then fine. But if you only want to see her to get to me, I won’t allow it.”
My–our–daughter is not a toy.
She will not get stuck between a man who can’t take no for an answer and a woman who refuses to settle.
Staying away from Benedict isn’t just for my sake; it’s for hers too.
Benedict’s smooth chuckle brushes against the side of my face as he shifts in the passenger seat. “I didn’t want to pull this card but…”
My heart stalls from his dramatic pause. He’s toying with me, and I bet if I were to look at him, he’d be smiling like a fool.
I clear my throat. “Pull what card?”
“The one where I take you to court.”
I freeze. My scalp tingles with apprehension. “To court? For what?”
Benedict opens the passenger door. The cool night air rushes inside my car, but it doesn’t even touch the heat on my skin.
He swings his long legs around until his feet hit the pavement. With the sudden space between us, I get the nerve to look at him. His eyes pierce right through me, and the truth is as clear as day—he isn’t bluffing.
Once he’s fully out of my car, I’m half tempted to drive away with the door still open, which is something Zoe would do, not me, so I keep my foot pressed against the brake.
