"Sixteen weeks."
Another laugh, sharper this time. "Sixteen weeks. Four months you've been lying to me. Four months you've been sneaking around behind my back with—" He whirls on Grant. "With this fucking asshole."
"David—" Grant's voice is measured, careful. "I understand you're angry, but if you'd just let me explain?—"
"Explain?" My father's control finally snaps. His voice rises to a roar that makes me flinch. "Explain what, exactly? Explain how you fucked my daughter? How you got her pregnant? How you've been lying to my face for months while you—" He breaks off, his hands clenching and unclenching. "All these years of friendship, and this is how you repay me?"
"It wasn't like that." Grant's jaw is tight, but he doesn't back down. "What happened between Emma and me, it wasn't some calculated betrayal. We connected. We fell in?—"
"Don't you dare say you fell in love." My father's tone is vicious. "She's twenty-four years old, Grant. Twenty-four. You have scotch older than her."
"I'm well aware of her age."
"Are you?” He steps closer to Grant, his posture aggressive. "Or were you too busy thinking with your dick to think about it?"
"Dad, stop." I move between them. "Don't talk to him like that."
"Don't talk to him—" My father stares at me like I've grown a second head. "Are you defending him? After what he did to you?"
"He didn't do anything to me. I wanted?—"
"You wanted?" His laugh is cruel. "Emma, sweetheart, you don't know what you want. You're a child playing at being an adult, and he took advantage of that."
The condescension in his voice ignites something in me and I want to punch him in the face. "I'mnota child."
"No? Then explain to me how a smart, sensible daughter of mine ends up pregnant by a man twice her age. A man who's supposed to be my friend, who I trusted—" His voice cracks.
"David, please." Grant's voice is strained. "Let me explain what happened. How we?—"
"I don't want to hear it." My father's eyes are bright with rage and something that might be tears. "I don't want to hear how you seduced my daughter. How you used your money and your experience and your—" He gestures wildly. "Whatever the fuck you used to get her into bed."
"It wasn't like that," I say desperately. "Dad, he didn't seduce me. It was completely mutual?—"
"Stop." The word is a command. "I don't need the sordid details of how this happened. What I need is for both of you to understand the magnitude of what you've done."
He turns to Grant, and the look in his eyes is pure hatred. "You were my brother. My best friend. When my business almost went under, you were the one who helped me restructure. When Helen was sick five years ago, you were at the hospital every day. You were at Emma's high school graduation, her twenty-first birthday, every major event in her life. And now—" His voice breaks. "Now you're the father of her child?"
"Children," Grant says quietly. "She's carrying twins."
The correction seems to rob my father of speech. He stares at Grant, his mouth opening and closing soundlessly. Then his gaze swings to me, and the disgust I see there makes me want to disappear.
"Twins." He says it like a curse. "You got my daughter pregnant with twins."
"We got pregnant," I correct, my voice trembling. "It wasn't something he did to me. It was mutual. We both?—"
"Mutual." My father's laugh is broken. "You think this was mutual? Emma, he has decades of experience manipulating people, closing deals, getting exactly what he wants. You never stood a chance."
"Dad, that's not?—"
"And you." He rounds on Grant again. "I want to hear you say it. I want to hear you admit what you did."
Grant straightens, his expression carved from stone. "I fell in love with your daughter. And yes, I got her pregnant. But David, I swear to you, I never meant?—"
"You fell in love." My father's voice drips with scorn. "How convenient. How very convenient that you fell in love with a girl young enough to be your daughter. A girl who happens to be thedaughter of your best friend. Tell me, Grant, did that make it more exciting? More forbidden?"
"No." Grant's voice is hard. "It made it more complicated. Because I knew exactly how you'd react, and I did it anyway because I couldn’t not fall in love with her."
My father takes a step closer, his face inches from Grant's. "You love her enough to destroy her reputation? To make her the subject of gossip and speculation?”
