—until I heard her voice.
“Mommy?”
The world stopped.
A tiny purple torpedo shot down the stairs and barreled through the crowd forming around me. Throwing her arms around my waist, she looked right up into my eyes—tearing a cry from my lips.
My baby...
In front of me. In my arms. Drowning me in her calla lily eyes.
She was mine.
My angular face. My full lips. My button nose. Even my thick, bushy brows. The only features stolen from me by her father were her thick, curly hair and round, blinking eyes. But everything else was me.Mine.She was—
Sue’s.
Not my baby. Sue’s baby. Her daughter. That she lived with in a house with Micah, Rhodes, and Alex—all of whom touched and kissed the woman they thought was Sue without a trace of jealousy between them. And in that moment... I knew.
I knew why Sue spent eight fucking hours in the car talking about herself but didn’t once mention she was in a relationship, or three, and that she had a daughter.
I knew she didn’t tell me, because she wanted this. She wanted this exact moment where I stood there—eyes blown and mouth gaping like a fish—shocked down to my very soul that Sue went out and landed the only three guys on the planet I truly fell head over heels for.
She wanted to see the look on my face when I realized just how much she stole from me—just how much she won.
The mother’s love I lost. The baby I couldn’t have. The home I never really had. And the men who made my heart skip three beats even then—no matter all the time that passed.
She took it all. And for all her bullshit about wanting to bring me home and make things right with Omma, she still couldn’t resist another opportunity to laugh at my pain as she twisted the knife in.
My promise and resolution to forgive her burned away in an eruption of white-hot hatred.
Looking into Micah’s, Rhodes’s, and Alex’s eyes, I had only three words to say to their worries and concerns.
“That fucking bitch.”
Pitching to the side, my head rushed to meet the floor. Darkness took me before it finished the trip.
Chapter Five
Ilay in the middle of the bed, trying not to look left, right, or forward as the doctor checked me out.
“Hmm.” She flashed that annoying light in my eyes. “Any numbness or dizziness?”
“No.”
“Nausea or vomiting?”
“No.”
“You said before you fainted that you had a pounding headache.” She drew back, which gave my newly acquired niece room to move in and snuggle under my arm. “How’s your head feeling now?”
“Fine. The headache’s gone,” I replied. “The impromptu nap helped.”
“But she should still go to the hospital, shouldn’t she?” Rhodes spoke up from his position on the left side of the bed.
Micah was posted up on the right. Alex had the foot of the bed covered. And even worse, Davis was posted up against the bedroom door.
There was no escape.
