Page 33 of Secret Daddies

Positive.

Positive.

I stared down at the two pink lines for a moment, waiting for my vision to right itself so I could see what the real result was. Because there was no way—there was just no way that I could be seeing this properly. Because if I was pregnant, then my entire life was about to be flipped upside down, and I didn’t know how to get a handle on it.

I planted my hands on my stomach, trying to make sense of what I had just discovered. I would need to go to the doctor to confirm it, but I knew in my heart of hearts that the test wasn’t wrong. All of it added up too well for that.

And if I was pregnant—if I was going to have this baby—then I needed to figure out how the fuck I was going to manage my life from this moment out.

I’d thought cutting the guys off was going to make things a little simpler. But instead, everything had just turned into a bigger mess than I could possibly have imagined.

17

DEVON

“Hey,Maya, I need to talk to you.”

She stopped in her tracks when she heard my voice, and I could have sworn I saw her shoulders slouch downward before she turned to face me. When she did, I could see dark circles under her eyes, a pale, clammy tone to her skin, and for a second I thought better of following up on the question that I needed her to answer so badly.

No.God knew I’d been waiting long enough to speak to her about this. No matter how much she kept trying to dodge my questions about Matty, I knew I deserved an answer to them, and I wasn’t going to let her keep pulling this shit with me. I needed to know if that kid was my son. I was done waiting, no matter how rough she might look.

“What about?” she asked me, her voice hollow, as she stared up at me. In the last month or so, it felt like something had changed with her, though I couldn’t put my finger on what it was. Something about the way she carried herself seemed to have shifted, as though she knew something none of the rest of us did, and she wanted to keep it that way.

I crossed my arms over my chest. “You know what about.”

She sighed heavily. “Do we have to do this now? I?—”

“Yeah, we have to do it now,” I replied. “I’ve been waiting long enough. I deserve an answer, Maya. Today. Now.”

She flicked her tongue out over her lips, her eyes sliding this way and that, as though she was searching for a way out of this conversation before it could go any further.

“Nothing’s going on for another hour,” I reminded her. “They’re changing out sets after one of the lights busted. It’s the perfect time for us to talk. So come to my trailer, now, and let’s get this out. Once and for all.”

I had timed it right, and I knew there would be nothing going on to distract her from what I was asking of her. As much as she had tried to duck and dive me for the last few weeks, I had been tormenting myself with questions about Matty, about the truth of who his father was. I needed to know. I deserved to. And I could tell that, no matter how badly she wished she could dodge this question, she understood that too.

“Fine.”

I led her to my trailer and opened the door for her. My mind flashed back, for an instant, to the two of us together in here before, when she kissed me and managed to distract me from the questions that had been bubbling close to the surface since I found out about her son. But I wasn’t going to make the same mistake again. She could strip down naked in front of me and begged me to fuck her right then and there, and it wouldn’t work on me.

Well, probably.

With the door closed behind us, I focused my attention on her. She didn’t look at me, dodging eye contact, like that would make this go away.

“Maya. Maya, look at me.”

Finally, she did as she was told, locking eyes with me. I felt a rush of concern as soon as she looked at me—I could tell that there was something going on with her, and despite what might have happened between us in the past, I still wanted the best for her. I didn’t want her to suffer or struggle.

“Are you okay?”

She nodded quickly. “I’m fine. Can you get to the point? I need to eat something…”

I took a deep breath, trying to pull myself together, but there was no way I could prepare myself for what I had to ask her.

“Is Matty my son?”

She stared up at me for a long moment. In that second, I thought she might try to deny it again, tell me that I was crazy, that I didn’t know what I was talking about, that it was none of my business anyway. But all at once, the air seemed to leave her. Slowly, she nodded.

“Yeah,” she confessed, her voice hitching at the back of her throat. “Yeah, he—he is.”

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