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Ulla had known the reckoning with Analise was going to happen the second Taylor Barnes reappeared. Although, she was surprised it was about to happen at two in the morning.
She clicked on a lamp and opened the pummeled door. Analise’s pretty, pale face was stained with blotches, and her eyes held contempt. “Where’s my ring!”
She barged past Ulla with a black Adidas shoebox in her hands and dumped the contents on the floor. Analise dropped to her knees and scrambled through photographs scattered on the carpet.
“Isa? What are you talking about! What is all this?”
Analise clutched a photograph and held it, jabbing her finger on a captured moment: seventeen-year-old Isa kissing Taylor, her left hand palming his cheek, and on it, an engagement ring.
Ulla whispered, “Did he give all this to you?”
“That’s how much he loved me.”
Ulla hardened her jaw. “You’re pining over your teenage infatuation two days before your wedding?”
Analise slammed a palm on her chest. “That teenage infatuation is the father of my child!”
“So?”
Analise threw up her arms. “So? So? That’s all you have to say for lying to me for twelve years? For ripping me and Penelope away from him all because what—you had some fucking grudge against his parents?”
“It was more than that.”
“More than what? You just wanted to punish Linnea, but all you did was ruin my life. You nearly destroyed Taylor, and you kept your own granddaughter from her father. I don’t even know you!” She pushed the hair from her forehead, taking in ragged breaths.
“Ruined your life?” Ulla repeated. “You really have it so bad now? You’re going to throw away a perfectly good future with a perfectly good man?”
“That is not what I said.”
“I saved your life. I saved you and Penelope from a bunch of selfish, entitled people that would’ve taken advantage of you.”
“I don’t care about his parents. What did Taylor do to me? Tell me how horrible he was.”
“He was a rich, spoiled brat. And a drunk. Because of him, we got robbed —”
“What?”
“And even if that wasn’t the case, he was so possessive of you, forcing you to lie and sneak around, and got you pregnant.”
“No. I made us sneak around, and I’m pretty sure I was an active and willing participant in getting pregnant.”
“How would you even know?”
Analise dropped to her knees and started grabbing scraps of mementos. “Letters, emails,” she gathered a stack of photographs and thrust them at Ulla, “and everything I needed to know from spending the past twenty-four hours with him.”
“Does Penelope know?”
“Penelope knows.” She began replacing the box as they argued. “Unlike you, I don’t believe in lying to my child.”
“He almost killed you.”
“It was an accident.”
“I was there,” Ulla countered.
“He thought I was breaking up with him. He was trying to stop me.”
“He pushed you!”
