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“Oh, my God. Please tell me you didn’t get pissed off and walk away without letting her talk.”

“She said enough when she informed me that you broke my trust. And you still haven’t answered my question. Why did you tell her? That’s my business to share with someone. Not yours. How did it even come up?” He pinched the bridge of his nose. A dull throb started at the base of his neck and crawled up the back of his head to his temples.

“I think you should ask her,” Melinda said.

“So do I,” Trinity said as she stepped through the sliding glass door, holding a bottle of wine. No glass. Just the open bottle.

He jumped in his seat, spilling his beer. “Shit,” he mumbled.

“Especially since I’m right here.” Trinity raised the bottle and took a drink.

“Emmett. You’d better listen to what she has to say. I’m hanging up now,” Melinda said, and the phone went dead.

Emmett sucked in a deep breath. He’d thought he had a handle on all this fertility shit, but he didn’t, and that pissed him off.

“I never thought I’d call you an asshole, but what you did back there was cruel.”

Emmett couldn’t argue that point. “You’re right. And I’m sorry.”

“That doesn’t change how much you hurt me. And if I didn’t have a tiny understanding of what you might be feeling, I would have called myself a rideshare and wouldn’t have even bothered to say one fucking word to you ever again.”

He turned and caught her gaze. Emotion filled his heart. The last thing he ever wanted to do was put the kind of pain that stared back at him right in this moment in her eyes. He wanted to pull her into his arms and kiss it away.

But he knew he couldn’t. What he’d done could be unforgivable. It was also totally self-sabotage. He cared for her more than he had any other woman he’d dated since Melinda. It didn’t matter that they’d just met. His feelings for Trinity consumed him. He couldn’t explain it, and he wasn’t even going to try.

But he knew how his subconscious operated because, deep down, his biggest fear since finding out that he couldn’t father children was complete and total rejection.

Just like he’d felt from Melinda.

They might have been able to come to an understanding where they could be friends, but that didn’t change how he’d felt as if he were less of a man all of a sudden.

Less than human.

“How is it that you understand? And before you answer that, how did you and my ex even get on this conversation?”

“The answer to that is the same.” Trinity lifted the bottle and took another swig. Some red wine trickled down her chin. She wiped it with the back of her hand.

He reached for the alcohol, but she jerked her arm back.

“Melinda and I were chatting about a lot of things when we ended up talking about her and Chad doing IVF.”

“So, naturally, she told you I was totally against that when we found out I couldn’t give her a child.”

“For a man who is usually very intuitive, you’re being a butthead.” She downed more of her beverage. “Our conversation wasn’t about you, though she did tell me that was one of the reasons the two of you ended your relationship. But that was only on the tail-end of me telling her that I no longer had the required plumbing to have children.” Trinity wiggled the bottle out in front of her.

He tried to take it, but she once again yanked it back close to her body, though only after she drank some more.

“I can’t have kids either,” she said. “But the worst part is that I know what it’s like to have one.” She held the bottle up, opened her mouth, and finished it. “And minutes later be told, ‘Sorry, it didn’t make it, and now we’re going to perform an emergency hysterectomy.’”

“Jesus,” Emmett muttered. “I’m surprised you didn’t slap me.”Assholewasn’t a strong enough word to describe his selfish act. Talk about being self-centered.

“That still might happen.” She hiccupped.

“Did you just drink that entire bottle?” He reached across her body and snagged it, realizing it wasn’t the one he’d opened. Shit.

“Are you drunk-judging me now, too?”

“Not at all,” he said as he set the bottle down. How quickly the alcohol hit her system would dictate how much time he had to make a decent apology. Because, pretty soon, she wouldn’t remember shit about tonight. He turned her chair and placed his hands on her legs. “I’m sorry about making this all about me and not thinking about your feelings. I got emotional about something that is still obviously an issue for me, and I became blinded by my inadequacies.”

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