Page 77 of Friends Who Fake It

“So thiswaspunishment?” He demanded.

“No!” She locked the door behind herself. “It was never that! Can’t you see that if I’d wanted to punish you, I would have told your wife the truth? I would have broken up your marriage just to spite you?”

“You think a love child would have broken up my marriage?”

She winced, not wanting to contemplate this evidence of how strong his bond was with the other woman. Arabella had been hauntingly beautiful – Elizabeth had envied her for long enough.

“I think you have no right to stand there in judgement of me. I think he’s my son and I’ve been doing the best I can. And now I think you should leave, and come back when you’re less emotional.”

“Less emotional?” He repeated, and his face was a mask of complete calm. It terrified her, more than shouting, more than anything.

“I am not emotional,” he responded. “I am thinking clearer than I have in years.”

“Then think clearly somewhere else,” she muttered.

“Oh, no. If you think I’m going anywhere, then you are crazy, Elizabeth Jones.”

She blinked, a frown curving her lips. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

He spoke with cold determination. “I have a son – and I am going to raise him.”

Ellie blinked, her enormous caramel eyes showing all her emotions, all her worries. But Xavier pushed on regardless. “I’m based in Madrid, but I can move here for the interim. I have a place in Kensington.” He looked around her townhouse. “You can rent this place out.”

“Hold up a second.” She lifted the palm of her hand, needing to physically reinforce what she was saying. “What are you talking about?”

“It will take thirty days to acquire the necessary wedding approvals,” he pulled a pod from a canister and inserted it into her coffee machine. As though he’d done so a thousand times. As though he belonged in her home.

“Wedding?” She blinked, finally catching up with what he’d said.

“Wedding.” He confirmed, pulling a mug from the bench and placing it in the machine, pressing the button. Dark liquid began to fill the cup. “Is my name on the birth certificate?”

Her mouth was dry. She hadn’t expected this juggernaut of thoughts and ideas. “You’re going too fast,” she said with a shake of her head.

“So try to keep up.” The words were clipped. “Is my name on the birth certificate?”

“No.” She said it without apology, but the look he sent her drove barbs of ice through her heart. “I didn’t want anything to link us to you.”

He swore, harsh and guttural, then lifted the coffee cup to his lips. “You didn’t think my son should know who his father is?”

“One day,” she said, frowning. “I hadn’t…”

“You hadn’t?” He demanded, impatiently.

“I hadn’t thought about that.” And then, more defensively, “I had to take each day as it came, okay?”

“No. Not okay. Nothing about this is ‘okay’. I find your actions to be reprehensible – and that is using the most polite word I can think of.”

“Oh!” She let out an angry retort. “You’re one to talk! You who went around sowing his wild oats all the while having promised yourself to a perfectly nice woman? Isn’t that a little like the pot calling the kettle black?”

“So apparently I used you for sex!” He said, the words grim, his expression guarded. “I cheated on my fiancé who, I agree, is the best woman I’ve ever known.” Pain ripped through Elizabeth’s body. “I was a bastard. Butnothing,nothing,nothinggave you the moral right to keep my son from me! I do not care what you think of me personally. He is my son.” He pointed a hand at his chest, his eyes flaying her with the strength of their pain. “My flesh and my blood make up his small body, and you wanted to keep that from me. Nothing conferred upon you that right.”

Uncertainty was a tidal wave and she was caught inside of it, unable to ride above it, sinking through the water, tumbling to the bottom. She was lost, and she could only stare at him. She tried to hold onto her reasoning, to remember the motives behind her choices.

“You were getting married. I had no idea I was pregnant. By the time I discovered the truth, you’d left England.”

“So you kept track of me? Why?”

She swallowed past the bitterness curdling inside her throat.Because I loved you.“I don’t know. A sick obsession,” she spat angrily. “But you married and as soon as I saw those photos, I gave up.”

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