Page 126 of Who's Your Daddy?

The revelation stuns her for a second. “Is that why you called?”

“Yes! But you left and didn’t look back. You took that as an opportunity to run right back to him.”

She shakes her head. “No, I didn’t.”

“So, you didn’t go back to him?”

“I did, but—”

I immediately turn away from her, shoving both hands into my hair. I can’t stomach the thought of them together. Him kissing her, holding her – it’s driving me insane. I don’t want to hear a word...yet I want to know every sordid detail.

I turn to face her again. Stepping forward, I box her in, placing my hands on the fridge on either side of her because I don’t want her to have any escape from this question. “Did you sleep with him?”

Her eyes widen to the size of saucers. “What?”

“Did you fuck him?” I hiss through gritted teeth, venom lacing every word. “I don’t care that we weren’t together at the time. I need to know.”

She’s floored, absolutely flabbergasted that I have the gall to even ask that. “No!”

“Don’t lie to me. You were with him for four months. You left Ambrose here, so you couldwork things out, and you’re telling me you didn’t have sex with him? Not even once?”

Her eyebrows furrow together, confusion wrinkling her forehead. “I wasn’t...I wasn’t with him for four months.”

For some reason, hearing that shifts everything off its axis. I had my mind made up about what happened, and it had me feeling a certain type of way. But now I’m doubting what really happened, so I don’t know how to feel.

“So, if you weren’t with him, where were you?”

“I was...”

It’s that pause that gets me. That pause always precedes a lie, and my guard shoots right back up. I wait...and I wait, and she doesn’t say anything. That’s when I realize I’m wasting my time. She’s never going to change. Lying is her default setting, and expecting the truth is simply expecting too much.

I step back and nod, accepting that it is what it is. “Okay.”

My disappointment is immeasurable, but I suck it up and walk away. I’m halfway to the staircase when she calls out behind me.

“Peter.”

I stop in the middle of the foyer but don’t turn around. Instead, I slide my hands into the pockets of my sweatpants and wait for her to speak.

“If...if I tell you, will you promise me that...that you’ll never use this to take Ambrose away from me?”

Again, the vulnerability in her voice makes me cave. I slowly turn to face her again. “What do you mean?”

“I heard...” She takes a breath to steady herself. “I heard you talking to Scott the other day. You spoke to a lawyer about me...so if I tell you this, promise me you won’t use it against me in court.”

The expression on her face lowers my defenses a few more notches. Her nervousness shows in the way she fiddles with her fingers. Her trepidation is etched into every crease on her forehead. She’s still desperately holding back tears, and her helplessness reinforces that I hold all the cards here. She feels weak because she’s completely at my mercy.

Based on her other revelations, I don’t know what to expect. I’m almost fearful about the bomb she’s about to drop, but this dynamic is heavily skewed, and I need to shift some of the power back to her.

“I promise.”

She swallows hard, steeling her nerves. “When I left here, I went to a women’s shelter, and I stayed there until I gave birth to Ambrose. But I couldn’t stay there indefinitely, so after four or five weeks, all my options were running out because I couldn’t get a job, but I couldn’t look after him by myself unless I had a job.” She shrugs, and her shoulders drop with the heavy weight she carries on them. “So...so I went to the Country Club to speak to Teddy. I told him about Ambrose, and I told him he didn’t need to do anything. I just needed a place to stay, so I asked him if he could let me live in the penthouse again.”

The story still doesn’t make sense. “If you were living there, why did you leave Ambrose with me?”

She scoffs. “He didn’t agree to that. He freaked out, called me a whore...and a liar. I tried to calm him down. I tried to reason with him. He wouldn’t listen...and kept shouting at me. I got so panicked that I told him to forget about the penthouse. I would disappear if he just let me use his credit card for a few months...just until I got a job.” She shakes her head as if she regrets her decision. “I didn’t know his wife was there.”

This entire situation is such a tough pill to swallow because every tidbit of information makes it ten times worse. “He’s married? And you were with him for over a year?”

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