You still care. I can’t go to jail. I will do anything. Please, you are a good man. Someone I want to spend my life with. Have a family with. We can have that, you and I.”
“You never wanted to have kids before.” Something deep down curdled in my stomach. “I wanted to build us a house to raise a family in… .and you said no. You didn’t want kids; you said your job was your focus. Loved living right in the middle of the scene.”
“I want it with you now. Please, help me. We can have that home, a family.”
My teeth clamped together, my intuition screeching in alarm. She had been dead set against kids or even having a pet. She liked clean, expensive things and being prominent in her social Hollywood circle, with no responsibilities coming outside work and being the next top interior designer. This wouldn’t flip overnight.
For some reason, my gaze rolled over her slim, bony figure. Becca worked her ass off to be runway thin, but today I noticed her figure was a little puffier.
“I can’t go to jail, Smith.” She tracked my eyes, her hand going to her belly, cupping it tenderly.
Oh. Holy. Shit. “You’re pregnant.” The accusation shot out like bullets. The revelation hit me with such force it stumbled me back. “It’s Bryan’s, isn’t it?”
“Smith! Please!” She grabbed for me, desperation shrieking her vocal cords. “I want it to be our baby. To raise a family in the house you build, and live the life I know we both want and deserve.”
Flinging her hand off me, a huff tearing through my nose, rage stacked up my ribs like building blocks.
“Let me get this straight. You, me, and Bryan start a business while you two are fucking each other behind my back while we are married. You plan to embezzle and launder money, changing the books so all the evidence points to me. I go to jail, only being released because of my lawyer. You two proceed to swindle the next shmuck, but oh no, he wasn’t as gullible as me and catches Bryan… and let me guess, Bryan tosses your name out as his accomplice. All the while you destroy my life again, ruining the one thing good in my fucked-up life.” I stepped into her space, vibrating with rage. “And on top of that, you get knocked up by the guy I used to think of as a best friend, the very guy who you helped swindle money from me? And now you come running to me to protect you? Pretending like you love me, and really it was all a mistake, and we can raise his baby as ours… live happily ever after? Did I get it all?”
“Smith…”
“You are FUCKING unbelievable!” I roared, my arms flailing out.
“Smith, please. I will do anything.”
“You knew this was coming, didn’t you? Knew Bryan had been caught, and that’s why you were so intent on getting me back. You wanted to suck me back in and save you. Protect you from your own decisions and mistakes. Well, you reap what you sow, Becca.” My wrath flamed inside, moving me around in sharp paces.
“PLEASE!” Her knees dipped; her pleas were so frantic they curled her over. “I will tell Kinsley everything I told her in the bathroom was wrong, but—”
“What do you mean all you told her in the bathroom?” My chest heaved with blustering rage, a thin thread of sanity keeping me from tearing the world apart. It would take so little to push me fully over.
“I—I…” Tears gushed down her face.
“What. Did. You. Say. To. Her?” My tone was low and terrifying, and she stumbled back again in fear. “Becca…” Her name came out a warning.
“I told her it was you who embezzled money from the company, that you cut off your father, why he died, and… and…” She hiccupped. I loomed over her, my body pulsating with wrath and violence. “Tha—that the baby was yours.”
As if a fist punched my gut, I staggered back, disbelief overwhelming me, my brain trying to wrap around what she just said.
“How is that possible? I hadn’t seen you since right after I got out, and it was with our lawyers…”
“I might have suggested we met for a drink, that our connection still too intense to fight our attraction.”
I had seen her for ten minutes before I walked out and hadn’t seen her since the night she showed up in New Orleans. I shook my head in