Page 12 of Reconcile
“No.” Piper is blunt but not harsh as she drags her hand over the little girl’s hair. “Please go. I’ll be in soon.”
The little girl looks curiously at me and then takes off as Piper pushes me away from the door and follows me out, closing the door.
“Leave.”
I’m frozen in place, unable to move or speak, and I can’t remember a time that’s ever happened to me. My gaze locks on Piper. “Did she call you ‘Mommy’?”
This can’t be happening.Piper looks furious, but there’s something else lingering in those light brown eyes of hers. Fear. “Leave.”
“How old is she, Piper?”
I know the answer. I don’t know how to explain it, but I feel it in my gut. “Sawyer, I don’t know how the hell you found out where we live, but you have no right to be here.”
We.
Piper and her daughter.
Our daughter.
“How old?”
Her throat is pulled tight with emotion as she shakes her head. “Just leave. Please.”
“No.” I step closer to her, re-taking the space I’d put between us and swallowing it as my shoes touch hers. “Tell me.”
She shakes her head and glances back over her shoulder. I gently grasp her chin between my thumb and finger with just enough pressure to make her look at me.
“How old, Piper?”
She jerks her chin out of my hold but doesn’t look away. “She’s six.”
Six. Almost definitely conceived around the last times we had sex. “Six?”
She nods and then crosses her arms over her stomach. “You need to go. She needs dinner and to get to bed. It’s a school night.”
“You really think I’m going to just walk away?”
“You’re really good at that, Sawyer,” she counters, but it doesn’t sting. I know she’s right.
Still, there’s no way in hell I’m leaving. “She’s my kid.”
She drops her arms now and pokes her finger into my chest, hard and unyielding. “No.”
“No?” I raise my eyebrow. “You were fucking someone else in high school?”
Her glare momentarily makes me frightened for my balls, but I don’t back away. I need answers. “Maybe.” She shrugs, trying to play it cool but clearly lying.
I take another step closer, dragging my finger over her cheek and down her neck. “No, you weren’t.”
She swats my hand away from her. “It doesn’t matter. She’s not yours.”
Her chin is held high as I study her. “If you weren’t fucking anyone else, she is.”
She shakes her head defiantly. “No, Sawyer. She’s mine. I gave birth to her alone. I raised her alone. I was the one up with her every two hours feeding her when she was a newborn. I was the one who cradled her when she was sick. It was me.”
Unmitigated fury runs through me as I place a heavy hand over my heart. “Because you didn’t fucking tell me about her! I had no idea any of that was even happening.” I point at her, angry and in shock. “How the fuck could you do that to me?”
“You’re kidding, right?” Now her fury matches mine as she steps back toward the door. “You didn’t want to be a boyfriend, let alone a father. And there’s no way in hell I’m going to apologize for protecting my kid.”
