Tristan knew her too well to recognize she burst out the story before she got coldfeet.
“You’re saying he forced you to sleep with him, so he wouldn’t tell me that he was fucking you? That doesn’t make sense. He wouldn’t tell me that and risk getting his face smashedin.”
“That was my response to him, then I told him to fuckoff.”
Tristan threw his hands up. “You’ve totally lost me here. How did he blackmail you, if that didn’twork?”
Izzie held his stare without a word, her eyes moving over his face, clearly buying time. Never a goodsign.
She finally said, “That last tour, you didn’t come with us on the road because you were putting together the band,remember?”
“Yeah, Noah and I wererecruiting.”
“Exactly. On the road, I’d be too late to come down for breakfast or I wouldn’t eat at all in the mornings. Most of the time, my face was ashen. Mark noticed I was pregnant before I did. He knew he would never break us up, if you learned you and I were having a baby. So, he played his last hand. He told me he’d have his Crips buddies kill you, if I didn’t dump you forhim.”
A loud buzz rang inside Tristan’s head, muffling Izzie’s voice. Stuck in loop, his brain didn’t process the rest of her words. All he heard was that one piece of information that threw his certainties into the trash can. A humungous monkey wrench had been thrown into his life and the gears gotstuck.
Feeling like he should yell at the top of his lungs, he was surprised as he whispered, “What the fuck, Izzie? You’re saying Arthur ismine?”
She nodded, and his worldcrumpled.
Again.
11
Izzie
It killedIzzie to see the pain in Tristan’sface.
He had the right to hateher.
Kick her out of hisapartment.
Make ascene.
He did nothing of theabove.
Instead, he sat on the couch, elbows dug in his powerful thighs, hands dangling between hislegs.
His eyes stared intospace.
She had stunned him, brokenhim.
Again.
She needed him whole, but she was breaking him all overagain.
It shattered her heart just thesame.
She had waited too long to give him thetruth.
It brought pain rather thanredemption.
What was Ithinking?
She could only pray he would understand herreasons.
“Fuck, Izzie. I need time. I need to process this crap. You shouldn’t have dumped this shit on me like that. I mean, I’ve got a son, for fuck’s sake. You never told me I had ason.”
