Page 57 of Unhinged

With my painful hard-on distracting me, I unzip my jeans to ease it, but then she shoves me harder, and I stumble back. She bites, “You can go to hell.”

“What?”

Hadley wipes tears from her eyes that I overlooked during our kiss. “I’m not yours, Greg Rodwell. I never will be. I’m Finn Wilder’s. Do you hear me? My body and my love are for him only. How could you do this to me?” She wraps her arms around herself. “I’ve told you so many times that I love Finn.”

“Oh. But didn’t you also love him?”

She lifts her chin, defiant and defensive. “Dash.” Her eyes well with more tears. “Yes.”

“A dead guy ranks above me. You didn’t have a problem giving everything to him.”

“You’re damn right. He never forced himself upon me.”

“Huh? I’m not. You… Don’t tell me he didn’t touch you when you were running your little charade with Wilder.”

“He didn’t.”

“No, you just yanked his dick, hoping he’d never find out you were fucking your ex behind his back.”

Hadley clenches her teeth. “Get out.”

“Oh. Did I hit a nerve? Poor guy. He was home, whacking it to a picture of you on his phone, desperately in love with a woman who was riding a washed-up, insecure sports anchor. Pretending that he didn’t whore himself out only weeks before to a massive viewing area with plenty of willing pussy, no matter the sorry size of his dick. But when I brought him back to Richmond, it didn’t take long for him to knock you up. Or did he?”

She shakes her head, swinging her loose hair. “Don’t.”

“Don’t what, Hadley? Make you question who did the knocking?” Hadley pushes me again, but I don’t move. I say, “Another nerve. Do you know for sure she’s not Dash’s daughter? Does Wilder doubt it? Maybe he should wonder if there’s a third contender who unloaded at your station. I mean, you almost sympathy-banged me after my sister died, so it’s possible. Maybe when I fell asleep, you took me for a spin.” Shit. What a horrible thing to say after what I did.

“No!”

I laugh bitterly. “So, if we had sex that night, you would’ve still gone back to Wilder. Shit. What a twisted threesome. You should’ve called Dart and made it a foursome. Fastest cumshot wins, right? Hadley Beckett, racking up dicks like no tomorrow.”

Before it registers, her fist meets my jaw. Stunned with sudden tears, I gawk at her angry face. “You were my best friend! But you’re just another person who betrayed me and left my life! If I didn’t stop you, you would’ve raped me!”

Her words hit me harder than her fist. “No.”

“Then what the fuck do you call it?”

“I thought… I hoped… We would’ve…”

She spits a laugh. “Made love? No. I do that with my husband, my real best friend. For you to steal what belongs to him… For you to bring up Dash, mocking how I loved him… It’s unforgivable.”

“Hadley, I’m sorry.”

“Finn knows what Dash meant to me. And it’s none of your business, but after you mentioned at the cemetery about her possibly being Dash’s, I needed to know for sure. Finn and I had a paternity test done on Finley. We thought it was best since if Dash…” She sniffs and crosses her arms. “I’d want Dash’s family to know Finley. I would never deny them that. Finn would love her either way, so we did it.” As I gape at her, she says, “The result came yesterday.”

“And?”

“My husband’s DNA co-created Finley. Do you want to see the paper proving Finnigan Robert Wilder is her biological father?”

I shake my head, holding my jaw. “I’m sorry.”

“You say you love me, but this isn’t love. It’s a sad obsession.”

“I…”

“And if you want to lecture me on morals, look at your own fucking life and be a father to your own kid.” Lights flip on at the upstairs landing, and Hadley hisses, “It’s Julie. Go. Unless you want to face Finn and tell him what you just did to me. He’ll love disemboweling you.”

“Hadley…”

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