“So Tabitha is my…”
“Your niece. Yes.”
Poppy felt her fingertips go numb. The world was moving around her, but everything inside her stilled, like her blood had flashed over to ice.
“How long have you known?” she asked, not able to hide the feeling of betrayal that was sinking into her bones.
“I found out on Thanksgiving.”
She shot off the couch like she was ejected from a booster seat. “You’ve known who he was for aweek,and you haven’t told me?”
He remained silent.
“How? How did you find out?!”
“When I met Deacon at your door the night he checked on you after your emergency room visit something felt off to me. So I had asked a friend to check him out. I could have doneit myself, in less than an hour I could have known everything, but that felt wrong to me because it was personal. I was only looking into him because of you. So, I told Alex to only share his information with me if whatever was off with him pertained to you. He got busy, and it took him a few weeks to get the job done.”
“So you’ve known for a week?!” She still couldn’t believe he hadn’t told her.
“Yes.”
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
“It wasn’t my place to tell you,” he stated flatly, coldly, like it was a legal disclaimer.
Hearing him say those words was a literal punch in the gut. She felt her stomach drop, her chest cave in, and her body contract around the ache like she’d been hit with blunt force. Her eyes stung with emotion. “Not your place to tellme? I’m the…”the mother of your child.She couldn’t finish those words, not to him.
For once she thoughtshehad the special relationship, thatshewould be the person someone would be loyal to. That she would be the person someone else prioritized, the one who came first, not the afterthought. But here it was again, even the man who shared her bed and her unborn child’s DNA was more loyal to a stranger than to her. She could feel the old bitterness swelling up, like a childhood fever. Her throat clogged with emotion, she swallowed it down.
Don’t cry. Don’t give him the power of seeing you cry.
She turned on her heel and stalked to the door, every step a rebuke. Her body was clenched and rigid, running on stubbornness and adrenaline. She yanked open the door, ready to slam it behind her, but AJ was there, moving faster than she’d expected, blocking her escape route with a suddenness that made her flinch.
“Where are you going?” he asked.
“I told Frankie I’d help her set up for the wedding tomorrow. I’m staying at Liam’s tonight.”
“No,” he said, his voice soft and hoarse, like the word cost him something.
She glared at him, but he didn’t back down.
“What?” she demanded, arms folded over her chest, as if she could physically shield herself from the next blow.
“You said we need to talk.”
“I don’t want to talk now.” Her voice came out clipped and curt. “I’m going to Frankie’s. I told her I’d help set up for the wedding tomorrow. I’m staying at Liam’s tonight,” she repeated, hearing how petulant she sounded and hating herself for it, but also not caring. She was tired of being the one who was fine being left out, who let things slide.
He reached for her arm—not rough, just enough to keep her from leaving—and she felt a flare of panic at the contact, as if she were being handcuffed to the moment. His hand was warm, his grip gentle but unyielding. “Please. Stay.”
They were two simple words, but she could hear how foreign they were to him, how close to pleading. AJ didn’t beg. He didn’t even ask. But still, she couldn’t do it. Couldn’t trust herself to not say something she’d regret forever or to keep the tears from falling. Maybe she was overreacting. There was a very good chance her ‘daddy issues’ and the void being the child of the ‘other woman’ had left in her were sabotaging this moment. Still, she had to leave.
“I can’t.” Her voice was small and final. She pulled out of his grasp and left, her footsteps echoing on the porch, each step hammering the decision in place.
When the door clicked shut behind her, it was like a punctuation mark on something irreversible. It felt like a metaphor of the door shutting on them.
32
AJ stoodin front of the mirror, his hands moved with precision, deftly looping and pulling the silky fabric to create the perfect knot, like a skilled musician playing a symphony on a finely tuned instrument. The tie hung elegantly around his neck, completing his sharp and polished look.
