Page 125 of Who's Your Daddy?

She avoids looking at me and reaches over the counter for her dirty plate. I’m not going to pretend that things haven’t been tense. They have. And I’m not going to act as if it’s not awkward every time we’re around each other. It’s painfully awkward. But she’s even more squirmish than usual tonight. She becomes even worse as I approach her. I stop beside her to get a bottle of water from the fridge and her body stiffens.

“How was the wedding?” I ask, testing the waters to make sure I’m not imagining this odd behavior.

She washes and dries the dirty dishes at lightning speed. Her movements are quick and clumsy, as if she can’t get away from me fast enough. “Oh, it was great. Very beautiful.”

Yeah, something’s off. “Everything okay?”

“Fine.” She forces a smile as she gathers up the papers. “Goodnight, Peter.”

I catch a glimpse of her scribbles before she snatches it up. It only gets my attention because I recognize Carl’s number. While he’s the property manager for almost all my buildings, he doesn’t work exclusively for me. And I know from personal experience that he doesn’t only manage the maintenance issues, he also deals directly with tenants and potential tenants, even acting as a letting agent sometimes.

So, why does she have his number? She tries to squeeze between me and the fridge to get out, but I place my hand on the fridge, blocking her path with my forearm.

“Are you looking for an apartment?” I ask.

“Uh...yeah.” She seems taken aback by the question and nervously toys with her fingers. “I was going to talk to you about it tomorrow. I’ll start phoning around on Monday, and hopefully, I’ll be out of your hair in the next week or two. If...if, um, you want me to leave sooner, I will. I can go to the shelter tomorrow and stay there until I get everything in order.” She half-scoff, half-laughs. “I’m already packed, so it’s really not a problem.”

Is this a joke? I’m so confused right now. It feels like someone just kicked me out of nowhere, and I’m completely disoriented. “What are you talking about? Where is all this coming from? You’re making it sound like I gave you an eviction notice.”

“Peter...” She shuts her eyes to recompose herself, and she doesn’t look at me when she opens them again. “I don’t think this living arrangement is good for either of us. It’s tenseallthe time. It’s not conducive to a healthy environment for us.”

“Yeah, but it’s not aboutus,” I fire back. “This is the best arrangement for Ambrose. If you leave, what are you expecting to happen with him? Because I’m telling you now, Li, you’re not taking him from me.”

“I’ll still come over to see him every day if that’s okay with you. And once I have my place sorted out, we can maybe look at sharing—”

“No,” I cut in because I’m not even going to entertain the idea of seeing him every other day or every other weekend. “Not gonna happen.”

Her shoulders slump, and she lets out a helpless sigh. “Peter, please be reasonable. I don’t want to fight about this. I shouldn’t even have to fight you on this because he’smyson, not—”

“Don’t.” Even though it’s barely a whisper, she can hear the warning in my tone. “I strongly advise you tonotcomplete that sentence.”

That makes her feel even more helpless, and she bites down on her lower lip when it starts to quiver. “What do you want me to do? We both know that you don’t want me here, so I’m trying to...I’m trying to find a solution because I can’t keep feeling like...” Her eyes shift up to meet mine. “You can’t stand the sight of me. Most days, you won’t even look in my direction. And...and I miss that. I miss the way you used to look at me. I miss the way you used to kiss me every time I was annoyed. I hate that you don’t smile at me anymore.”

It's that tiny hint of vulnerability in her voice that throws me off. I step back to distance myself from her, leaning against the counter instead.

“You lied to me, Lia. You betrayed me in the worst way.”

“You lied to me, too.” Her voice cracks as it increases in pitch. “You told me you were committed to me. Youpromisedme you wouldn’t hate me once I told you about my past. You told me that this...” She waves her hand around to gesture to the whole room. “...was the home and the life we were building together...and then you kicked me out...in the middle of the night...when I was thirty-two weeks pregnant. That was a betrayal I didn’t see coming either.”

My head drops. It’s an automatic reaction to her triggering the guilt and shame I carry with me every day. It takes a good minute, but I eventually subdue my self-loathing enough to look at her again. “Don’t...don’t put that all on me, Li. I found out that you were a totally different person from who I thought you were. I found out that you lied about knowing who his real father was.”

“I never lied about that!” she yells, becoming more exasperated. “I found out the same day as you.”

She rambles on about how she was watchingStep Up, and it sparked the memory that we didn’t actually have sex that night. That shocks me because I still don’t remember a damn thing. She explains her conversation with Dr. Cheng, and I start to see just how stupid we both were in this situation. And when her pain-filled eyes focus on me again, I see how it was never her intention to deceive me.

At least not on that front. She may have been telling the truth about thatonething. Granted, it’s the biggest thing, but everything else was a lie, and those lies were all intentional.

“But you refused to even have a conversation about it,” she continues. “You just kicked me out, knowing I had no place to go.”

Tensions are rising in tandem with our voices. She’s so hurt she’s on the verge of tears. I’m so angry I’m actually shaking.

“How did you expect me to react, Lia?”

“I don’t know!” she screams. “Maybe with a little more compassion than that. You could’ve at least waited ‘til the next morning, but you wanted me gone right that second. That proved that you never gave a damn about me. The only reason you were with me was because of Ambrose. The second you found out he wasn’t yours, I became completely dispensable. You tossed me out like I meant nothing to you.”

Every time I lose my shit, something bad happens. So, I’m trying to remain calm. I’m trying to not let my temper spiral out of control. But she’s pissing me the hell off.

“No, the reason I reacted that way is because youdidn’tmean nothing to me. I fucking love you, Li.” I stop dead when it registers that I said that in the present tense. I don’t correct it because it’s true and continue hoping she didn’t pick up on that. “But I don’t know who you are. I put my all into our relationship. I gave everything of me, and you couldn’t even give me the truth. You lied about your parents, your ex, your fucking age. And you dropped all that on me in the space of five minutes. And yeah, my reaction was stupid and impulsive, but I tried to rectify it. I called you to ask you to come back, and you blocked my number.”

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