Since she was focused on the floor, I took the opportunity to study her. Her hair was longer and thicker, waving and curling the way I remembered, making me desperate to thread my fingers through it and yank her head close to mine. The need to take her, to claim her as mine, only heightened at the sight of her belly rounded with child—which I was rapidly realizing must belong to me. My fingertips itched to reach out and touch her.
Instead, I clasped my hands behind my back. "And the baby?" I murmured.
Watching her eyes fill with tears was all the answer I needed. There was no stopping the flash of anger I felt knowing she'd hid the truth from me.
"When were you planning on telling me?" I snapped. "When the child went off to college?"
"Hey, now," Danny intervened, and my head whipped in his direction, a nasty retort on the tip of my tongue. "She tried, but your winner of a family threatened her life."
"What?" I didn't think I was capable of any more shocks to the system, but there it was.
As I watched, Kinsley nodded, wiping at the falling tears. "I called you." She sucked in a breath. "When your parents came to Chester, I went to see them."
My broken phone. The deleted phone number on the new one. Suddenly, it all made a sick kind of sense. Almost unable to believe they knew and never told me, I pinched the bridge of my nose. "And what did they say?"
"Well." Before going on, she cleared her throat, but she couldn't stop the falling tears. "Mrs. Gallagher was very polite, even though I took her by surprise. But before she could say anything, Mr. Gallagher came to the door and called her away."
The rest of the words stuck in her throat, and she hugged herself. Brenda approached, wrapping her arms around her again, and Danny spoke from his place by the window.
"Father Of The Year said there was no way the baby she carried was yours because you would never even look twice at someone like her, much less fuck her." Danny watched Kinsley turn her face into Brenda's shoulder at the reminder of Carson's degrading words. "Then he instructed your mother to pay Kinsley to never come back around, or he'd send someone to track her down and kill her and her bastard."
Pain thundered through my head and chest, forcing me to lean back against the wall and grip the edge of the desk for balance. They knew. All these months had passed, and they knew. "I can't believe it."
"Believe it. Now, since we've managed to do just fine without you for the past seven months, we'd like to go home and get back to our lives."
"Not a chance." I straightened as jealousy, need, and desperation warred inside me. "The baby is mine. I'll not let you run off to live with these people while you're carrying my child. You'll come live with me, and I'll take care of everything."
"Whoa, whoa, whoa." Brenda looked over Kinsley's head. "You can't make unilateral decisions like that. It's her life; her baby."
I shouted, "It's my child! Mine. She'll come with me; she'll live with me."
"Stop it," Kinsley whispered again.
Danny pushed off the window. "There's no way I'm letting you talk her into going with you."
"Stop talking about me like I'm not here!"
Silence fell, except for the ticking of the wall clock.
To me, Kinsley said, "You left me with no way to contact you. I tried, so help me, I tried. You don't get to tell me what to do now. I've made plans. We've got things taken care of. I don't want to move."
"But you have to." I was bewildered by her reluctance. My child would never want for anything now that I knew about it.
"She doesn’t have to do anything she doesn't want to do," Brenda insisted.
"Look." Logan stepped forward. "This is between Kinsley and Burke. I think the two of you should come with us and let them talk."
"I don't think so," Danny said automatically.
Caden moved forward. "Listen, we're all tense and a little surprised by the turn of events, but we can remain calm and step out. We'll sit right there in the reception area where you can see her through the glass wall."
"No one is going to whisk her out the window without telling you," Logan said dryly.
Danny rolled his eyes. "Kins, will you be okay?"
Nodding, she wiped her face again and hugged Brenda before she left the room. When it was just me and her, she fell silent again. The view from the window seemed to beckon her, so she walked over to look out at downtown Bristol.
"Kinsley."
