But I forgot about him just as easily because she’s my daughter?

I wasn’t going to waste my time responding to stupid questions.

Then the man who was clinging to a chair and watching me with glassy eyes, went there, softly, but he still fucking went there. “Are you sure?”

I’d taken four different pregnancy tests when I missed my period because I hadn’t wanted to believe it was possible, that this was happening to me. I’d asked the doctor to test me twice when I had gotten around to going to a physician in France. Since I’d been fifteen, my period had been like clockwork. It was more reliable than my first car had been.

Hadn’t I told this fucker multiple times I could count the number of times I’d had sex on two hands?

“You can say I’m sure that you and I were together a lot exactly nine months before Mo was born. And I’m sure that she has the same eyes and hair as you do,” I told him coolly, but really stabbing him in the throat in my head.

He didn’t say anything. What he did do was squeeze his eyes closed. Gulp.

I felt myself sneer. “Why are you looking like you’re going to be sick?” I demanded, even though I didn’t want to, but I was pissed, and him looking like that just made me even madder. He had no right.

Jonah lowered his forehead until it was back to resting on the chair in front of him, and I could barely hear him as he mumbled, “Because it feels like I am.”

I narrowed my eyes and started to lift Mo up to wobble on feet that weren’t yet ready to walk, when her squirming got worse. She was going to need to go in the playpen sooner than later, but I was feeling real damn clingy right then.

The Fucker tipped his face back up to the ceiling, eyes closed, and took so many deep breaths in through his nose and out of his mouth that I lost count.

“She’s really…. She’s mine?” Jonah Hema Collins stammered at some point.

I glared the fuck out of him, annoyed he was asking the same damn questions again. But I saw the same things that I’d been seeing. The white-knuckled grip. The unsteady body. I could hear what might have sounded like anguish in that voice that had pulled an Ariel in The Little Mermaid on me.

And I had to fucking think about it.

If anyone else was trying to claim this bullshit to someone I knew, I would tell them they were full of it. That there was no way it was possible for someone to just disconnect like that. And I wanted to believe that, I really did. But Jonah didn’t look right.

The fact was, his hands had been shaking. His mouth and skin were pale again. Unless he’d been practicing in the mirror for the last year and a half, what were the chances he could make himself look like he’d been kicked in the balls repeatedly?

But still… if something seemed too good to be true, it’s because it was.

Like he had been.

Too nice. Too easygoing. Too humble. Too good-looking. Too perfect.

Too interested in me.

The fact was… it didn’t matter who he had seemed to be and who he hadn’t. It was this man in front of me I was going to have to deal with… potentially for the rest of my life if I didn’t kill him first. And all it took was a quiet stream of gibberish from the kid in my hands to remind me I’d do anything for her.

Even put up with and get past this asshole. Set aside all the shit and just… deal. Handle it.

“I don’t want to talk in circles around this; if you knew, if you didn’t know, it doesn’t matter anymore.” I was mostly lying, but not totally. “I thought that’s why you were here. To see her. To talk about her. The only thing that matters now is if you’re going to stay. If you’re going to be part of her life or not. Like I said, I don’t actually give a fuck about your excuses anymore, Jonah. I just want to know what you plan on doing.”

I stopped talking because he dropped his hands.

And because it almost made me feel sick that I was going to have to put up with his dumbass for who knew how long.

This massive, intimidating man who tackled men just as big as him for a living without pads, with just the sheer size and strength of himself, lifted his head and eyed the kid I was bouncing up and down on my lap… and me. And I couldn’t miss how he looked more like a popped balloon than ever. How… defeated or something. Sick.

His shoulders went up, and I’d swear he sniffed.

He fucking sniffed and my arms bubbled up with goose bumps.

And I hated myself for how my heart dropped as I watched him. Maybe because I’d seen grown men in all stages of despair before: after lost fights when they were disappointed in themselves, after fights when they thought their lives and worlds were over. I’d seen men and women when life was just taking a massive shit on them and they weren’t sure how the hell to get out from under the weight of all that crap.

But I had never, ever seen someone so big look so small.

And I didn’t like it. I didn’t like that I felt bad. It wasn’t my fault.

Mostly though, I was pretty sure I didn’t like the way he looked or that it affected me.

“Are you about to cry?” I asked him, hearing the horror in my voice, but it was only because I didn’t know what the fuck to do with it. With him.

His answer was another sniff.

And then his fucking eyes went and got glassy.

I narrowed mine even more, ignoring the tightening in my chest as his tanned hand went up to his temple. And in that way that reminded me of the man I thought I had gotten to know, he answered, “I may, Len.”

Did he have to answer that honestly? Goddamn it. Was I that annoying too when I told people the truth even when they didn’t want to hear it?

“Her name is Mo?” that voice with its New Zealand tones to it, asked on the end of another sniff that made the hair on the back of my neck prickle.

I pressed my lips together, ignoring those fucking sniffs and the way they made my head, and other parts of my body, feel. “Did you think I was going to name her Jonah?” I griped, still watching him, trying to pick up on his body language. “Her name is Madeline. I saw it was popular in New Zealand,” I explained honestly, because that was exactly why I had done it. “But we call her Mo.”

That first-base-sized hand went to his chest just as his eyes closed, and he took in this breath that seemed so rattled, it might have hurt me if I still gave a single fuck about him.

Jonah’s head tipped toward the ceiling, and he wiped at his cheek with one of his tan fingers as his Adam’s apple bobbed—and nope, I didn’t feel shit. I didn’t feel a thing while he wiped at his olive cheek, leaving behind just the slightest glitter behind. “I… need a minute, Lenny. I came back to apologize. To try and talk to you again after this morning. I wasn’t expecting…,” he said so quietly I had to strain to hear. I blinked. “I need more than a minute to think about this. Is that all right with you?”

No. I wanted to give him a middle finger and a kick to the fucking balls, that would be all right with me. But what he actually got was silence. He could do with that whatever he wanted.

Dickface.

I didn’t say anything as he opened his eyes, cast another long look at Mo’s back… glanced at me for another moment, and then seemed to nod to himself. I was pretty positive his eyes were even glassier too. I watched him turn around and walk right out after another exhale, shoulders slumped, everything about his arms and shoulders and even his neck and chest were just… suspicious.

I wasn’t sure what to think about what the hell he’d just said and done. Wasn’t sure how I felt because obviously I was confused because I’d felt bad at how upset he seemed to be. And that irritated me.

With a sigh, I looked down at Mo and blew out a breath. Her bright brown eyes were zeroed in on me, like she wasn’t sure how I was feeling. Then she smiled and grabbed the collar of my shirt and tried to tug it toward her, choking me a little in the process.

It was then I remembered why I was here. Why I’d just gone through this conversation. How the hell this child made me a weak bitch and a stronger bitch at the same time was beyond me.

“Well, that didn’t go the way I thought it would,” I told her quietly as I peeled her fingers off my shirt before she really did choke me out.

I didn’t think she cared about how it had gone down, honestly, because she just kept on smiling at me… and clinging to my collar for dear life.

With another kiss and finally succeeding in extracting myself from her grip, I opened up her playpen while she sat on the floor and then set her in it. I pulled out a few toys from the cabinet beside my desk and set them in there too. Then I picked up my phone from the top of my desk and opened my messages so I could shoot one off to Luna, who was the only reasonable person I could bring this up to right then.

Me: My baby daddy was just here.