Page 93 of Who's Your Daddy?

“No!” I shriek. “Peter, you’re making it seem like I knew all along and purposely manipulated you into believing you’re the father. That’s not true. I didn’t even consider the possibility that you might not be the father. I was so sure it was you.”

“Well, it isn’t. It’s some rich asshole who owns...” He throws his head back when the realization hits him, clasping his hands at the back of his neck. “You know, Scott told me he wasn’t your father. He tried to warn me about you so many times...and I point blank refused to listen. I defended youeverytime.” He sneers, shaking his head at his stupidity. “You were sleeping with a guy twice your age, so I’m seeing a pattern here. This...using men for money is not a new thing for you.”

“I wasn’t using you!” My voice still has that screechy pitch because I’m trying to get through to him, but he’s just not listening. “And I didn’t use Teddy either. I genuinely thought I was in love with him, but now I can see that it was just...infatuation. I just wanted someone to...to...” I pause because it sounds pathetic. “I just wanted someone to love me. I was young and sosostupid. I was only nineteen when we met, and so naïve and...and when I look back at our relationship now...I realize it was a mistake to get involved with him in the first place.”

“Oh, you realize it was a mistakenow?” He smirks sardonically. “When he was splurging on you and gave you a penthouse, then it was okay? You lived off him quite comfortably for five years, using him for everything you needed, but now that it’s over, that’s when you see it as a mistake.”

I’m not sure if I’m too emotional or he’s too angry, but he’s not making any sense. “I wasn’t with him for five years. We were only together for fourteen months.”

This throws him for a loop. “The math isn’t mathing, Li. You just said you met him when you were nineteen. That was five years ago.”

Oh, shit! Oh, shit! Oh, shit!

How did I forget about this? This lie is such a fundamental part of me that I completely forgot it was a lie. He hates me anyway. I might as well just tell him everything.

“It wasn’t five years ago,” I say, my voice small and meek. “I’m not twenty-four. I’m...I’m twenty.”

The color drains from his face. His whole body stiffens. “You’re what?”

I don’t respond.

“Say that again. How old are you?”

I don’t look at him. I can’t, so I just focus on the dark fibers on the rug in front of me. “I’m twenty.”

“You’re twenty?” His breathing elevates, and I assume it’s the compounding effect of me continuously dropping bombs on him today. “You’retwenty? And that’s not something you thought I needed to know? Fuck! Do you know how young that is?” He paces the room, trying to burn off the restless energy building within him. “Once again, this is something you should’ve told me from the beginning, because I never would’ve left the country club with you if I knew you were only fucking twenty!” The look on his face is unmitigated horror, showing how repulsed he is by this revelation. “So, all this time...allthis time I’ve been screwing someone who basically just graduated high school.”

I shut my eyes, bracing myself for the next detonation. “I never graduated high school.”

That shocks him enough to stop pacing.

“My parents...my parents died a few days before my eighteenth birthday, so I just dropped out.”

I’ve been trying to get this out for so long, and it caused me so much anxiety that I couldn’t even put a sentence together, but now I’m utterly numb inside.

“Wait. What? Your parents...” Confusion muddles his expression again. “Your parents are dead?”

It’s not that he said it in a callous way. It’s the fact that hearing it out loud reinforces my loss, reinforces just how alone I am. The wall of strength I’ve been battling to keep up disintegrates, turning to dust in a few short seconds. I collapse inside, dropping my head into my hands. Tears stream endlessly down my cheek, and I can’t seem to stop them.

“That’s what I’ve been trying to tell you,” I say between sobs.

He doesn’t rush to comfort me the way he usually does, and that only makes me feel more isolated. He just stares at me as if he’s looking into the eyes of a stranger. His eyes search mine, trying to find some semblance of someone he recognizes. He doesn’t find her because his expression becomes cold and hard.

“Pack up your shit and leave,” he says, his tone acrid but deathly calm. “I don’t want you here.”

Somehow, I was so focused on telling him the truth that I never even thought about what the consequences might be. I open my mouth to protest, but I can’t even find any form of defense because deep down, I know I deserve this.

“Peter...” I say as some last-ditch effort to get him to – I don’t know – reconsider. “I...I have nowhere to go.”

“That’s not my problem.” He turns and heads back to the foyer. “Why don’t you go back to the guy who put you in this position and ask him to help you out for a change?”

He takes his car keys out of his pocket and walks out the door.

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