"I'm not him," he says quietly.
"I know." Maybe I needed to be in his lap and feel the tension between his attraction and his responsibility to really understand the differencebetween this man and the other two who have held me. "You've been nothing but respectful.Derek just took what he wanted."
Zane swears again. “Someone needs to teach him a lesson.”
“You can’t?—”
“I’m focused on keeping you safe, don’t worry. You and Bellamy are my only concerns.” He searches my face. “You said he’s not her biological father, right?”
All the blood drains from my face.
No, I can’t stay here for the summer. I can’t let Zane get involved in all of this. I scramble off his lap. He lets me go, lets me pace across the room.
I hear him rise, but he doesn’t follow me as I twist my fingers together and try to think.Stay focused on the plan, Hope.
“He won’t get on a plane. He doesn’t have any government ID, so he can’t follow me to Ontario.”
“If you’re going to drive there, so can he,” Zane points out. “And if he wants to regain control of you, he’ll get that ID. Trying to charge you with kidnapping would be a way to control you, if he can claim he’s Bellamy’s father?—”
“He’s not on her birth certificate,” I blurt out. “He has no claim to her.”
It was a scary decision I made that morning when the midwife helped me fill out the paperwork. But he hadn’t wanted to be there, and hadn’t even seen her yet. She was mine and mine alone, and that’s how I filled it out.
I rub my face. “I don’t have a copy of the papers,” I admit. “But I don’t think he could have changed that.”
“A lawyer could help you figure that out.”
“I can’t afford a lawyer.”
“I can.”
“This isn’t your problem.” I stare at him. “I can’t be your problem.”
“Tell that to this fury inside me,” he snaps, pointing at his chest. “Because I want to fix this for you, Hope. I want to lock that door and never let you leave.”
“You have to,” I whisper. “I need to keep running.”
“Why?”
“Because it’s not Bellamy he has a claim to.” The words tear out of me, broken and helpless. “But I’m pregnant again.”
His disbelief is almost comical. His eyebrows shoot up, his mouth drops open. He stares at me, eyes bugging, and then he slowly covers his mouth with his hand and mumbles something like,say that again?
“It’s why I had to leave when I did. It’s why I have to keep running. He doesn’t have any claim to me or Bellamy, but?—”
“Does he know?” Zane stares at my midsection, hidden behind his rodeo t-shirt. “Is that why he hurt you?”
I shake my head. But I’m not sure what sparked his last attack, and I can’t say for sure that he doesn’t have a clue. “I don’t know,” I whisper. My voice cracks. “I’m sorry.”
I mean it on so many levels. In another world, on another timeline, I would have waited for a man like Zane Kincaid, if I’d known he was out here. Instead I’m going to be a single mom of two, on the run, always looking over my shoulder, always paranoid that my terrible choices will catch up with me.
And I’ll never know what it would be like toexplore that curious flicker of heat that comes from being held by a man who could consume me, but chooses not to.
"Don't be." He lurches forward, then drops to his knees in front of me. His hands come up to grip my hips, his thumbs curving in toward a belly that won’t appear for a few months still. And somehow, even through the t-shirt, he’s careful to avoid where Derek punched me. "Jesus, don't ever be sorry for this. You’re pregnant?”
Confused, I jerk my head, nodding.
His jaw sets so hard I can see the muscle jump beneath his skin. That fury rolls through his gaze again, dark and dangerous, like it could level mountains. “Then if anyone finds out before you’re safe, we’ll tell them it’s mine.”
