Page 79 of Faking It with my Best Friend's Brother

And I probably deserve it.

“It doesn’t matter how,” Chloe says. “He’s in love with you, Ava. I’ve never seen him like this about any other woman. If you let this go on any longer, it’ll destroy him.”

“Chloe, I know. I know all that, but how am I going to tell Maddox that Mimi is his daughter and that I hid from him all these years?”

I feel it in the air then. A stillness that tells me even before I turn around that I’ve made a huge mistake.

I was wrong in thinking that Maddox wouldn’t come over because of his long meetings.

And somehow in my anxiety, I didn’t hear the door open.

Maddox is standing behind me. And from his face, I know he heard me.

Chapter Twenty-Six

Maddox

I’mnotanidiot.

I’m able to form conclusions from bare details and form all kinds of connections from nothing.

But never in all my years did I ever think I would walk in to hear Ava announcing that Mimi is my daughter.

It takes me a long time to process the information.

In fact, it takes me so long that I almost think I'm going crazy. Or that I'm delusional. Mimi and I have a lot of similarities, sure. And she was conceived in the same year Ava and I first met. But that can be a coincidence. Coincidences happen all the time.

But then Ava looks at me. I see the fear and alarm in her eyes. The guilt.

It tells me everything I need to know.

Mimiismy daughter.

The realization slams into me with the velocity of a freight train.

Tension beats at my temples as a thousand stray words flood my mind. Truth and fact fight for logic in my head.

Mimi is my daughter? How the fuck is Mimi my daughter?

I have a low sperm count, a one in a thousand chance of fathering a child. Ava and I only had sex once, one drunken night five years ago.

And she kept this secret this whole time. She kept my daughter a secret.

But Ava wouldn’t do something like that. Nah, that would be too far.

Only someone unbelievably cruel would pull something like that.

Emotion riots through me and I have to clench my fists to keep from reacting.

“I'm the father.“ The words are said in a voice that doesn’t sound like mine. It’s too calm but accusatory at the same time. I'm daring her to deny it, to say that I’m wrong. That I’ve got this all wrong.

Defend yourself. Tell me I'm crazy for even making an assumption like this.

But she only bites her lips and says nothing.

Fuck.

I walk out.

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