But the thought of some faceless coward walking out on her—onthem—makes something vicious spread through my chest. I step closer to her side of the table, my hand resting on her lowerback as if to make sure she’s real, still here,still mineeven if she doesn’t know it. Roxanne stiffens.
“And he just disappeared?” I say, my voice soft and lethal. “Didn’t care if you were safe? Didn’t care if your child had a roof? Didn’t care that you had no one to rely on?”
Her hands clench.
“Mak,” she says again, warning in her tone.
The warning makes something hot and reckless rise inside me. “And you’re still defending him,” I say tightly. “That’s the worst part.”
“I’mnotdefending him. You’re making assumptions.”
“Then why the secrecy?” I step around the table until I’m standing directly in front of her. The land manager is watching us now, awkwardly. He’s wanting to say goodbye, but is not sure if he should interrupt whatever is happening between us. “Why won’t you just say his name?”
“Because it doesn’t matter.”
“It does to me.” I already know his name, but she doesn’t need to know that. Eric Harlan. He got a spot on the local force thanks to his uncle, who died an alcoholic two years ago.
She flinches, barely, but enough.
Enough to light a fuse.
“Oh,” I say quietly. “I get it.”
She looks up.
“It wasn’t one man,” I continue, letting derision lace through my voice. “You moved through men quickly then, didn’t you? Enough that you don’t know who—” The thought of it, ofother menhaving their hands on her, making her moan like I did, sends a roar through my body I’ve never felt before. I’ve built my empire on logic and secrecy, but if given the chance I’d rip through her lovers like the bear they say I am.
Roxanne slams her palm down on the table.
I fall silent.
Her breath is sharp, chest rising and falling, cheeks flushed dark.
Then she says it.
She spits the words out like they burn her tongue.
“Andi is yours.”
The world tilts.
For a moment I think I misheard her. The sound of the river, the distant call of a raven, the wind through the pines—everything seems to drop away from the edges of the world until all I can hear is the pounding of my pulse. Somewhere, the men are escorting the land manager off the property. I hear a car door close, but the rest of the world is dead to me.
“What,” I say, low and dangerous.
She swallows, chin trembling, but eyes fierce. “Andrea is yours. You are her father, Makari.”
My heart slams against my ribs. I grip the edge of the table to keep from moving, from doing something I’ll regret.
Roxy takes a step back as if she thinks I might actually tear the pavilion apart.
Maybe I could. The fury, the shame, is that sharp.
“You knew,” I say through clenched teeth. “You knew, and you didn’t tell me.”
“No,” she says, voice shaking now. “I didn’t.”
I shake my head slowly, a laugh tearing from me, hollow and disbelieving. “You expect me to believe that?”
