Page 31 of Fall

The baby starts crying lightly, and I hold my hands out, watching as Devon slides her into my arms. I head to the kitchen to sort out a bottle, while the others follow.

“Isn’t it weird that we now share a niece?” Devon comments.

“My daughter is lovely, isn’t she?” I say to Blake and Izzy, who give me wide-eyed, confused looks. Thank god they quickly realise and blank their expressions.

“Yes, lovely,” Izzy says, and Blake shakes his head with a small smirk.

“I would stay, but the moving vans are coming today and I can’t leave Ace to sort the stuff out by himself. I doubt he will even answer the damn door,” Devon comments.

“It’s nice to see you again, Devon,” Izzy replies, and he nods, looking between Blake and Izzy for a second, but I see it.

“I’m glad you’re happy,” he says, before walking to the door.

“She is,” Blake says, his words possessive, and Devon gives him one nod. Some kind of understanding between them.

“Tell Tilly I will be over tomorrow,” he tells me.

I have a feeling her family is going to be around a lot now.

Chapter Sixteen

Tilly

“Are you disappointed in me?” I ask quietly as my mum sits down on the sofa, and I go to sit next to her.

I’m still in shock that she turned up here, and that Harley just claimed to be the father of my baby. The man who says he can’t be with me is being there for me in every damn way anyway. I doubt he sees it like that, though.

“No . . . just a little shocked, Tilly,” she says, leaning back into the sofa and looking around the room.

“This is a nice house, does your boyfriend own it?” she asks me.

“Yes, and his brother, Luke, lives here, too. Izzy stays over sometimes.”

“I can’t wait to see little Elizabeth. I’ve really missed her, it must be nice to have a friend around,” she says, and I nod.

There’s an awkward silence that spreads between us, and I don’t know how to break it. I can’t exactly say sorry for not telling her and yet, I don’t know what to say to her. I don’t like seeing my mum like this, so worried and confused.

“Is Dad okay?” I ask, actually wondering why he isn’t here. My dad is not the type to let his wife fight his battles, and I know from the three phone calls I’ve answered that he isn’t happy with me.

“He had business to clear up before the move, so he won’t be here until tomorrow,” she replies.

“Oh.”

“Ace misses his sister, so does Grayson,” she tells me, and I nod, knowing I miss them too. I’ve always been close to my brothers. We aren’t far from each other in age.

“Why didn’t you tell me? Why did you run?” she asks me the second question before I can reply to the first.

“I–” I start to say, and she cuts me off.

“Devon may be an idiot and know nothing about pregnancy, but I’ve had four children. You’re pregnant for nine months, and you didn’t leave our house until about four months ago, so there is no way that little baby is Harley’s unless you cheated on Daniel in France. Now . . . you want to say the baby is early to your brothers, or even your dad, to carry on with this lie, then fine, but not with me,” she says firmly.

“The baby is Daniel’s,” I say, hating to even mention his name out loud or admitting that even a part of my sweet, baby girl belongs to him. I will spend the rest of my life making sure she is nothing like him at all.

“Why doesn’t he know?” she asks me.

I look at my mum, with her red hair like mine and the smart look in her eyes as she thinks everything over. I know I should tell her, but the words don’t seem to want to leave my lips. I end up thinking back to Harley, how he told me everything about him, and he wasn’t frightened to do that. I need to be strong like him. At the end of the day, I didn’t do anything wrong.

“The night I left, he hurt me, Mum, and he tried to–” I take a deep breath. “He tried to rape me. I ran away because I don’t want him anywhere near my baby or me. Harley is just protecting me,” I say.

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