Page 136 of David's Love

“What are you talking about?” I bark.

Her eyes trail to the spot in question.

“That’s not the truth. She says it in her letter.”

And just like that, she pushes to her feet and slides her coat on.

“What are you doing?” I ask.

“You need to read that letter without me in the room. I’ll be downstairs. I’m getting some tea and a sandwich or something. You need privacy to process that thing.”

“You’ve already read it, I suppose.”

“Yes, I have. But only because… Well, it doesn’t matter. It wasn’t my intention to stumble into this. It’s just that since we spent time at Julie’s house, I couldn’t stop thinking that something was amiss. Something didn’t make sense to me. I watched you both when you sat next to each other at the table. She even looks like you.”

“She has blue eyes. That doesn’t mean she looks like me.”

“Please read Anna’s letter. And the list she had created. The timeline of your story.”

She’s ready to walk out.

“Julie can’t be my daughter.”

She spins around, her lips puckered, a frown on her face.

It’s the first time I've seen this stern Elizabeth.

“Not that it’s my business, but you two had sex the night you broke up. One of those hate fuck sessions. Whatever. It’s not my business.”

The memory of that night comes to me, galloping with torches in the background.

Yes, we did.

After she told me that she didn’t want to see me again. And I had to prove to her how much she actually wanted to see me.

She couldn’t dismiss the facts. She trembled in my arms, moaned out my name, and came under my frame with him outside.

That was proof enough.

Not enough to make her change her mind.

But still.

“Julie is not my kid.”

What the fuck? I’d know if I were a father.

“Anna and Ned were engaged. They were together,” I argue.

“And yet she slept with you.”

“Yes, she did. In my head, she was still mine.”

“Apparently, in her head, she was still yours.”

I toss the papers on the bed.

“Julie was a premature baby. But she was conceived a couple of months later,” I say.

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