I really would kill him.

No, I thought again, remembering the way Heath spoke to me when he saw me last. He would never fuck me over like that. He promised me with everything inside of him. He was my brother – my blood.

My footsteps slowed when I looked up at the table Jacko took me to. Everything inside of me froze save for my heart. It beat harder, and an exhilarating rush travelled through me as I locked eyes with Allie.

I dreamed about this. Vivid dreams about her coming to see me to tell me that she made a mistake. That she didn’t mean what she said about breaking up. That it was just an emotional reaction. It had to be. Her being here was proof of that.

My lips quirked up as I finally moved forward. Her blue eyes dropped down to the table as I approached her. I was waiting for her to hug me and press those soft lips to mine, but her gaze was pinned on a random spot on the fucking table and she remained fixed in her place.

I didn’t let this strange shift in her behaviour get to me. We hadn’t seen each other in months. We’d never been apart this long. She might still be angry at me. That was alright. We could talk it out.

I took a seat across from her and Jacko stepped back to give us space. I extended my hand out and took hold of one of her clasped hands. Like I remembered, her skin was cool and soft. Touching her was surreal to me.

“Allie,” I whispered, “look at me, girl.”

She wouldn’t.

Frustration immediately bubbled to the surface. What the fuck was going on?

“Allie,” I repeated sternly, “look at me.”

She slowly lifted her gaze to me. Those blue eyes met mine. Her lips pursed as she scanned my face. She looked fuller and prettier than I remembered. No longer that scrawny girl from before. Her breasts were actually coming in. She had never been a sight for sore eyes, but she was definitely starting to own her looks.

“I missed you,” I told her, bringing her hand up to my mouth to place a kiss on it. The second I did, she cringed and pulled away. I sensed her conflict and anger, and I immediately tried to soothe it. “Don’t be upset with me. I’ve spent every day thinking about this. I don’t want you to waste time hating me. I know you. You melt when I speak to you. When I tell you how much I love you.”

Those words didn’t touch her like they used to. She stared hard at me. I read her well and saw that resentment from a mile away. She hated me for what I put her through. The irony was she really didn’t know what I’d been up to. My life was built on secrets and lies. I couldn’t tell her the truth. If I revealed one little lie it would create a chain reaction. All of them would come crashing down one after the other like a house of cards, and I couldn’t have that.

“Talk to me,” I pressed her, warmly regarding her the way I knew she liked. “Tell me what’s goin’ on in your pretty head.”

She leaned forward and quietly said, “You’ve sat here talking about how much you love me and missed me, and you’ve yet to bring up our baby.”

I tensed. Whatever warmth I felt was put out by the arctic chill the word “baby” gave me. I clenched my jaw and leaned back in my chair. This wasn’t going according to my dreams. This was turning into a nightmare.

“What do you want me to say?” I asked her vacantly.

“Aren’t you curious how it’s going? Don’t you want to know if it’s a healthy pregnancy?”

I shrugged. “Well, is it?”

She glared at me for a moment. “Yes,” she said in a hard voice. “It is.”

“Good, I’m glad to hear it,” was my robotic reply.

“Are you really though? Because you don’t seem like you give a fuck.”

My eyes widened. I’d never heard her actually swear before. Allie had always been soft spoken.

“Did Heath teach you to be a dirty mouth?” It was meant to be a question in good humour. A way to break the ice. But instead… the reaction I got disturbed me. She froze and looked away. Something strange passed over those features. It was an emotion I’d never seen from her before. Guilt? Worry?

Something wasn’t right.

“He been taking care of you?” I then asked, carefully watching her reaction.

She didn’t respond immediately, but her cheeks went a rosy pink. She clasped her hands and then unclasped them, and I recognized it as something she did when she was nervous. Question was, what was making her nervous?

“Allie,” I pressed calmly. I didn’t know how I wasn’t shouting. I felt that rage simmer below the surface. In my heart of hearts, I knew what was going on, but I was fighting to acknowledge it.

“Yeah,” she eventually whispered.

The silence continued to stretch on. Her discomfort grew by the second, and her worry far outweighed her nerves.

Matt’s words…

Were they just words?

Or were they…?

I could feel my heart splinter inside of me. Disbelief. I was facing a moment in my life I never thought I’d have to face. Allie had deceived me. I never thought she’d have it in her to hurt me like this.

With clenched teeth, I let out, “You fucked him, didn’t you?”

The slightest part of me hoped she’d be outraged by my question. Hell, if she wanted to deny it, I would have loved to hear it. I wanted to blind myself with the lie that she could do this to me. I already knew that she had, but I was pleading for her to deny it.

She licked her lips and blinked quickly. Her eyes watered as she looked up at me. That rage I felt before was a damn flame compared to what I was currently feeling.

“Yeah,” she rasped out. “Yeah, I did.”

“Once?” Why was I torturing myself like this?

She shook her head. “No.”

“Twice?”

Another shake of the head.

“Fuck, how many times?”

“You don’t want to know.”

I leaned forward, tilting my head as I growled out, “What the fuck does that mean, Allie?”

She didn’t shrink back like I thought she might. She stared back at me, fighting her own emotions as she retorted, “It means what you think it means.”

I balled my fists. I wanted to fucking kill her. “So what then? Is he going to play daddy to our kid? Is that how this is going to go? You’re going to have a fairy tale life while your guy is rotting in prison and you’re out there fucking his brother?”