Page 54 of After-Party Consequences

He shot off the couch and stormed across the thick carpeting, his rigid strides making his agitation clear. She hadn’t intended to tell him about the baby, because she didn’t think she could cope with a lecture. But all he did was continue to curse about Cade.

‘You don’t blame me?’ she said, still astonished by his reaction as he marched back towards her.

‘Blame you for what?’

‘For getting pregnant with your business rival?’

His frown became a scowl. ‘Do you want the baby?’

She nodded.

‘Then blame has nothing to do with it,’ he said without hesitation. ‘But Landry has responsibilities, to youandto his child.’ He thrust his fingers through his hair, making it stick up in haphazard spikes. ‘I can’t believe it...’ he said, sitting heavily on the couch next to her. ‘I’m going to be an uncle.’

She found herself smiling. It felt good, even though it hurt.

She sniffed. Then blew her nose loudly on the tissue. ‘I didn’t actually come here to tell you about the baby. It’s not due for months,’ she said. It felt important to have his support, especially as it was so unexpected, but it didn’t really change anything.

‘I’m going to kill him,’ her brother said, apropos to nothing.

‘Adam, really.’ She laid her hand on one of the fists clenched in his lap. ‘It’s okay. He’s been very generous. He’s insistingon supporting the baby financially.’ She’d heard from his team the day after he’d walked out. But somehow his generosity only made the whole thing so much worse. Because she couldn’t hate him the way she wanted to be able to hate him.

‘That’s not the point, Charley,’ her brother said, flipping his hand over to grip her fingers—reminding her of the eighteen-year-old who had anchored her once before, when he had been in so much pain himself. ‘The point is he hurt you. He made you cry.’

She clasped his hand, fighting off more tears. ‘Please don’t be nice now, or you’ll make me start crying again. And neither of us wants that.’ She tried to smile. ‘You know what’s good about all this, though?’

He simply looked at her blankly.

‘It’s nice to have my big brother in my corner,’ she said.

He folded her back into his arms. ‘Of course I’m in your corner. Where the hell else would I be?’

She sighed against his damp shirt. ‘I don’t know...but let’s face it, I haven’t always been very lovable,’ she said. ‘Which is probably why Cade didn’t want me either.’

She’d had to face that truth so many times over the last few days as she struggled to make sense of Cade’s abrupt departure.

What an idiot she’d been—building up some ridiculous fantasy they could become a family while busy pretending all her flaws didn’t exist. Convenient, but not reality. Why would she assume Cade would want her for the long haul when no one else ever had?

She had thought they’d made a connection, but what did she really know about honest, open relationships, seeing as she’d never had one of those either?

‘Please tell me he didn’t say that to you?’ Adam demanded, looking even more furious.

She shook her head. ‘Honestly? He didn’t really give me an explanation. He told me he wanted this baby. And somehow I made a silly mistake and got that confused with him wanting me too. But while I was falling in love...he wasn’t.’

Adam dragged her back, his hands gripping her shoulders as he stared into her face. ‘Why the hell would he tell you he wanted the baby if hedidn’twant you too?’ he said. ‘It doesn’t sound like you made a mistake. It sounds like he deliberately misled you. And who the hell wouldn’t want you?’

She could feel the tears welling again at his forthright defence of her. If she didn’t feel so broken right now, she would have been able to appreciate it more. Then the other things he’d said registered... ‘But why would he mislead me about wanting the baby?’

‘The bet,’ he said, then cursed again.

The bet?She felt sick. The nausea she hadn’t felt in weeks dropped into her stomach like a stone.

Was that possible? That Cade had been lying to her about the baby? Simply to ensure she would stay with him for those extra weeks? Could he have done something so manipulative?

‘I can’t believe he would be that cruel,’ she said, desperate not to think it of him. But she’d been wrong about so much else. Why not this too? ‘Do you really think he would lie about that?’ she asked, feeling more insecure now, and vulnerable.

‘Honestly, Charley, I don’t know himthatwell,’ he said, but she could see the sympathy in his eyes and the understanding. Why did that only make her stomach hurt worse? ‘But I do know he’s pretty ruthless in business, and he really wanted Helberg.’

‘But so did you,’ Charley said, still trying to clarify, to reject Adam’s accusations. Cade had never told her why owning Helberg was so important to him, but could it really have beenthatimportant?

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