Page 23 of Scarred Heart

It wasn’t Rhiannon.

My insides went cold when I saw Spencer’s text.

Spencer:I’m outside the building, wondering what else you’ve kept from me.Considering going door-to-door to find you.Unless you want me to piss off your neighbors, tell me your apartment number.

“You stupid fucker,” I whispered.Who was I talking to?Me or him?Because I was the one stupid enough to entertain his questions out on the sidewalk.Then again, what was I supposed to do?Scream for help like he was harassing me?The thought had passed through my head—not something I was proud of.I was in the middle of panicking at the time.

At least Hannah was gone, leaving no chance of an unplanned meeting.I’d never intended for him to know about her, but now he threatened to piss off my whole building in an effort to learn more.There was part of me that wanted to call his bluff and invite him to go ahead.We would see how far he got until he gave up.

On the other hand, now that he knew, that left the door wide open for me to say the things I had held back all this time.He had the nerve to act like I robbed him of the chance to be with his daughter.

With trembling hands, I typed 502 and sent the message before talking myself out of it.He must have missed Hannah leaving, or else I would’ve gotten a text from Rhiannon to warn me.No way would he have done the smart thing and stayed in the shadows, and there wasn’t a doubt in my mind he would’ve recognized his child on sight.If only she didn’t look so damn much like him.

I didn’t have to wait long, and he was knocking on the door, making me wish I hadn’t gone to that damn event for Alexander Landry.Since there was no turning back time, I took a few deep breaths to steady myself and moved the chair, unhooking the chain.

The way he pushed into the living room, anyone would think he was coming in to wage war.“Where is she?”he growled out, his head swinging back and forth.

“Are you fucking serious right now?”I closed the door and leaned against it, shaking my head at his theatrics.It was pretty pitiful.“For one thing, who do you think you are?This is my home.You don’t get to barge in here and make demands.”

“You lied to me.”His teeth were clenched so tight I could barely make out a word he said.“You kept her from me.”

“Kept her from you?Is that the story you’re going with?You are truly deluded.”Hell, maybe I should’ve thanked the creep who tried to break in here.The timing couldn’t have been better.If it hadn’t been for him, I would have fucked this asshole.There wasn’t a doubt in my mind that was where we were headed before the phone rang.I would’ve had even more regret than I already did.

“What does that mean?What, you think I’m a liar like you?”His cold laughter slithered up my spine like a snake while we stared daggers at each other.“Not everybody is as good as you at only telling part of the story, Rowan.”

“Enough of the bullshit, enough of the posturing.We both know you don’t mean a word of it.”

“What the hell are you talking about?What, do you think I’m pretending?”He laughed again, turning away, pacing to the window and back like a caged animal.“Right now, I wouldn’t throw you a lifeline if you were drowning.”

That was uncalled for, and it only added fuel to my burning rage.“You can leave my apartment if that’s how you feel.Nobody talks to me that way, especially not somebody who has got to be a goddamn sociopath.How can you stand there and make me the bad guy in all of this?”

“Rowan!You had my baby, and you never told me you were pregnant!”He threw his arms into the air, his voice echoing when he raised it to the threshold of a shout.“You kept her a secret from me for more than ten years.I’m supposed to feel generous right now?”There was no time to process this before he whirled on me again, pointing a finger.“But no…” he continued, ignoring the way my mouth fell open, “… it’s worse than that.You had every opportunity to tell me the past few days that I had a daughter in the world somewhere.How can you look me in the eye, knowing that, and still refuse to tell me about her?Doesn’t she deserve to know who her father is?”

Something was wrong.Now that it was just the two of us in an otherwise quiet apartment, and Iknew nobody was coming over here to attack my baby, I could focus on not only what he said but how he sounded.

How he looked.

He wasn’t acting.

I had seen more than enough of it, good and bad, over the years to tell the difference.He was hurting.I had hurt him.

Somehow, that was the worst of all he had—the nerve to turn himself into a victim.Like he had been abandoned.“You know what?”I whispered, shaking with rage that was just beginning to simmer below the surface.“Maybe if you hadn’t taken the coward’s way out after the fucking crash that upended my whole goddamn life, you would’ve known about her.”

“Wait—”

Yeah, fuck that.I was on a roll.“Maybe if I felt like I could trust you not to run away like a bitch the way you did, you might have watched our daughter grow up.And maybe if you didn’t have me sign a contract stating I would never, under any circumstances, contact you ever again, I would have reached out.Do you think I wanted this?It’s only by the generosity of my parents and my sister that I was able to make anything out of my life after you destroyed it.They’re the reason Hannah has anything close to a semblance of normalcy.I could never have done it by myself, even with the damn money you threw at me.”

By the time I got it all out, my chest was heaving, like I had just gone five rounds with the heavyweight champ.There was a feeling of pride that went along with it.Finally, I told him everything he needed to hear, and it felt so much sweeter than I had ever imagined because I hadn’t imagined him having the nerve to act like he was hurt by the consequences of a choice he made.

I waited for him to react, expecting a firestorm of accusations and empty self-defense.When all I got was open-mouthed silence, I groaned.“Say something, at least.For once, take responsibility for your choices.”

“Rowan…” He sounded for all the world like a man who had woken up from a long nap and didn’t know what day it was or whether it was morning or night.A fuzzy sort of confusion was heavy in his voice, in the way he looked at me.“Exactly what did the contract say?Because I never read it.”

“Oh, give me a break,” I growled out, driving my heel against the door behind me with a grunt.“Like he wouldn’t tell you.”

“Who?”

“That ghoul.The lawyer.”The thought of him made me shudder the way I would if a snake slithered over my foot.

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