Page 27 of The Irish Rogue

“Ye’re the mother,” he snapped, his voice going up. But he rallied and regained control. It took him a moment, but then he asked again, “Who is the father?”

Kennedi stood up and braced herself. It took her several moments, then she said, “You are.”

He turned, muttering several quiet epithets and she stood there, glaring right back at him.

“Why the hell didn’t you tell me that you were pregnant?” he demanded in a low, angry voice.

Kennedi didn’t say anything. Instead, she pulled up her phone and flipped through something. When she came to the call list on her phone, she turned it around and showed him. “I tried to tell you. Several times, Sean. You didn’t give me the courtesy of returning my calls.”

He had the decency to look guilty, his jaw clenching. But then he shook his head. “No, I’m not accepting that. Ye had a son! Ye gave birth tomyson and ye didn’t tell me anything!”

She sliced her hand through the air, shaking her head. “You left town without a word!” She huffed a bit. “You left me here, in a small town, pregnant and alone! I tried calling you several times, Sean. I wanted to tell you! I accept that you don’t want the responsibility of being a father, but…”

“Ye don’t know anything about me!” he argued furiously.

That reply took all of the anger out of her and she slumped slightly. “You’re right, Sean. Idon’tknow anything about you. I know…well,” she felt her cheeks heat up and prayed that it wasn’t too obvious. “Well, the things I know about you are no longer relevant.” She looked out the window, then down at Declan. His tiny fists had slipped out from underneath the blanket again. He looked like he was ready to go into battle. When she looked up at Sean, she realized that he had the same exact expression on his face.

That broke her heart for some reason she didn’t understand and wasn’t quite ready to analyze just yet.

Taking a slow, deep breath, she forced herself to calm down. “The past doesn’t matter, Sean. What matters is the present and what’s best for Declan.”

His blue eyes lifted, sapphire fire burning from their furious depths. “And you know what’s best?”

She lifted an eyebrow at him. “You think you know?”

“I might know, if ye’d bothered to tell me of his existence.”

Kennedi bristled. Leaning forward, she braced her hands on her desk, glaring at him. “I might have told you about his existence if you’d answered your damn phone!” she snapped.

He ran a frustrated hand though his hair. “I might have answered my phone if you hadn’t rushed away from me as if you were ashamed of what we’d done that day.”

She gasped and pulled back, stunned and horrified. She stared at him, wondering where that wound had come from.

She shook her head as she said in a softer tone, “I didn’t rush away from you, Sean. I wasn’t ashamed ofyou.”

He crossed his muscular arms over his equally impressive chest, glaring at her. “You could have fooled me,” he snarled. “You raced out of that lake house as if your ass was on fire.”

“I did,” she replied, her anger dissipating as she realized that…she’d hurt him that morning! She’d been so focused on her own shame, her own terror at the potential gossip, that she hadn’t paused to think about what Sean must have felt about her abrupt departure.

Her tone softened further. “I was ashamed, but not because of you. I was ashamed because…” she shrugged, unwilling to tell him the vicious stories that the townspeople had whispered behind her back all of her life. Her mother’s antics were legendary. “I wasn’t ashamedof you.”

He didn’t reply for a long moment, as some sort of electric current quivered between them.

Then he suddenly broke their glaring contest. Running a frustrated hand through his hair, he backed up a step. He gazed down at Declan, and she saw the hunger in his eyes. The need. She recognized that need because she felt it too. Whenever she was away from Declan for too long, she longed to hold him, snuggle with him, and just…breathe in the same air as her precious son.

“We need to talk,” he snapped. “But I need time to process this.” Again, Sean’s eyes were drawn down to the small carrier, drinking in the sight of his son. When he looked up at Kennedi again, he’d wiped all emotions from his face. “Can I…he’s sleeping now, but…I’d like to…I need…” he stopped and ran both his hands through his hair this time. “I’m struggling to come to terms with this.”

Kennedi had no compassion for him. “Imagine what I went through a year ago,” she snapped at him. “Alone, in a small town, and pregnant, with a bunch of gossipy bitches telling me that I’m a whore.” Just like her mother, they’d said, among other horrible comments.

That jerked him back to the present and he narrowed his eyes. “Who said those words to ye?” Sean demanded in a furious hiss.

She laughed bitterly, then glanced down at Declan to ensure that he was still asleep. He hadn’t even moved, she realized with a pang of wonder.

When she looked up at Sean, she knew she had to do what was best for Declan, even if it wasn’t the best course of action for her.

Crossing her arms over her stomach, she reluctantly glanced up at Sean, then quickly away. She bit her lip, then sighed. She knew what she had to do, even if her wounded feelings didn’t want her to follow that path.

Looking down at her son, she groaned, then asked, “Why don’t you come over to my place after I get off work? He’s very active around five o’clock in the evening and you can feed him, then help me get him ready for bed.” Then she thought of a small bit of retribution for the terror that had gripped her so often over the past year. Unconsciously, a slow, malicious grin spread over her face. “He absolutely loves his bath time.”

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