Page 116 of Forbidden Hearts
“Not possible.”
“It very much is possible since I left the doctor not even twenty minutes ago. I’m pregnant, Johnathan, and it’s your baby.”
He laughs once. “Did you lie about being on the pill? What? Couldn’t keep me some other way so you did this to trap me into whatever life you wanted? Did you think I’d leave my wife if you were pregnant?”
My chest feels as though someone is squeezing it, and I want to throw up. “You didn’t even tell me you had a wife! How exactly would I be trapping you into what you promised?Youare the one who said you were single.Youare the one who convinced me that we didn’t need condoms, saying how it felt too good being inside me raw. So, maybe it’syouwho wantedmeto get pregnant.”
“You’re delusional. You knew everything, you just wanted it to be different.”
My God, he’s such a piece of shit. Gone is the sadness and feelings of helplessness. I could spit fire right now. “I know now. I’m pregnant, and it’s yours.”
“Get rid of it.”
No hesitation. No concern. Not even a glimmer of the man he pretended to be. “What?”
“Either you get rid of it, or you keep it and I never want to know. I’ll send you a couple hundred bucks so you can do what you want, but that . . .child. . . isn’t mine. I have my family, and I will not let you destroy it. You were a good lay, Phoebe, but not the mother of my children. I will never claim that baby as mine, so you’re on your own.”
With that, he disconnects the phone, and I empty the contents of my stomach.
thirty
ASHER
“Is Phoebe coming?”Olivia asks for the tenth time.
I give her my best attempt at a smile.“I don’t know.”
Brynn taps Olivia’s arm.“Tell him to go check on her.”
My sister has saidthatten times, but optics matter. I can’t go running after my daughter’s nanny, not when I’m clearly fucking desperate for her.
I’ve tried to keep my phone out of my hand, but I’ve failed miserably. She hasn’t responded to my last two texts, and I don’t know what is going on, but I’m worried she’s sick and alone.
“She doesn’t want me to check on her. She’s probably asleep.”
Are you at my house or yours?
Rowan hands me a beer. “She’s probably banging some guy. It’s not like you give her any time off.”
I could break his nose for that. “She’s not banging some guy.”
How do I know? Because she’s banging me too often to fit another man in.
“Well, she’s not banging me.” He practically falls into the chair beside me. “If she were, she’d be right here.” Rowan pats the chair beside him.
Jackass.
“You know that not all women are impressed by you, Rowan,” Brynn notes.
“It’s all a façade. The ladies love a bad boy.”
He’s not wrong about the façade, but it’s not them—it’s him. Rowan likes to play the part of being the eternal bad boy, always out for fun, nothing in life is serious, but those who actually know him are aware that he’s a liar. Rowan wants a family more than anything. He wants love, but he isn’t willing to sacrifice for it.
Like it seems that I am by sitting here, pretending that I don’t care about Phoebe when nothing can be further from the truth.
Phoebe
Yours, but I just got sick. I’m going to stay here. Have fun.
