Page 35 of Broken Boss Daddy

“What is there to explain? You tell me I’m already a father, and I’m trying to wrap my head around how that could be because surely you haven’t been lying to me for months? Years!” Grant’s yell caught the attention of some bystanders and they hurried away.

“It wasn’t intentional, I swear! When I found out I was pregnant, I tried to contact you but I couldn’t. What was I supposed to do, Grant? Pregnant at 21 with a stranger’s baby. You try having to deal with that. So I had the baby, and I raised her—”

“Her?” Grant squeaked out.

I swallowed. “Abby. Abigail. I raised her with the help of my parents, put myself through school to provide her with the best life I possibly could because she only hadme. Then you showed up out of nowhere and I panicked. You broke my heart, Grant, in more ways than I think you can even comprehend. I wouldn’t subject my daughter to that pain if you weren’t going to stay.”

Grant gave me a look of complete disbelief. “That’s how you justify not telling me I had a daughter? That’s bullshit Jess, and you know it. And I’m just supposed to believe this? How do I know you’re not lying to me?Again.”

“You know me, Grant. You know I would never lie about this.”

“I thought I knew you! Now I don’t even know what’s real!” His scream hit me and I backed away from him.

Although I knew our relationship was over, I felt a weight lifted from my shoulders. Grant knew, and that was all that mattered.

“I deserved to know,” Grant said calmly, but there was nothing calm about him.

There was no response I could give him. I knew why I did what I did, and that would be something he will never understand.

At my lack of response, Grant stood up and kicked the bench, storming away from me in a fit of rage.

“Grant!” I called for him, frantically following him. “Please, you have to hear me out!”

He whirled around on me and I stopped walking.

“You had no right—”

“I had every right.”

Grant took a deep breath. “I need some space.”

“I’m not leaving you like this. We need to talk about it.”

“I can’t deal with this right now. Jess, the last place I need to be is around you because I might do something I can’t take back.” He sounded so anguished it broke my heart. “Just leave me be. Go be withourdaughter, if she’s even real.”

With that, he walked away from me. I didn’t need to see his face to know he was heartbroken. I could feel it in his words, and my heart broke along with him.

The same anxiety I felt when I found out his number was fake all those years ago threatened to overtake my every sense. There were no more tears left to cry. Only shear panic that everything was over, finished.

Watching his retreating figure, my anxiety forced me to remember the time when I actually needed him to stay.

(Flashback)

I sat on the living room sofa, nervous as hell and scared about everything that was yet to come.

My mom was next to me, close enough to keep her arm around me as a sign of support and comfort. Yet, she wasn’t crowding me. That was the last thing I needed.

Two objects on the coffee table had my attention—my phone that I was deathly afraid of touching, and the positive pregnancy test that uprooted my entire life, changing it forever.

One month and one night.

That was all it took for me and a stranger to conceive a child out of… lust.

Though, Grant didn’t feel like a stranger to me, not really. But when I tried to get into contact with him the first time, he never answered. Heartbroken but accepting it as it was, I went on with my life until this morning when my mom found me throwing up an empty stomach into the toilet.

My knee bounced with anxiety at what I knew I had to do. Praying that this time the damn idiot would pick up his phone, I snatched up mine and found his number. I dialed it and cautiously put the phone to my ear.

The ringing of the dial tone matched the racing of my heart. The longer it went unanswered, my breathing picked up in time with it.

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