“You don’t believe me?”

Colton whirls around in a flash, his gaze meeting mine and the void in his expressionless eyes startles me. Dead eyes look at me momentarily before he breaks our connection and strides back across the room to where Tawny still stands. “You’re goddamn right I don’t believe you. Quit the crap and get the fuck out with your bullshit lies.” He’s inches from her face, eyes glaring, and posture threatening.

“But I still love—”

“You don’t get to love me!” he bellows, fist slamming down on the sideboard next to him, vases rattling and noise resonating in the otherwise quiet of the house. Tawny lets out a sob and Colton remains completely unaffected by her outburst of emotion. “You don’t get to love me,” he repeats again so quietly that I can hear his pain beneath it, feel the desperation roll off of him in waves.

He reaches up and rubs his hands over his face. He looks out the window for a moment toward the tranquility of the ocean as I watch the storm rage inside of him. I’m rocked in the turbulence of his emotions without a lifeline to hold on to. When he looks back at Tawny, I can see so many emotions behind his slipping mask that I’m unsure which one he is going to grab and hold onto.

“I want a paternity test.”

Tawny gasps, her hand resting protectively over her belly, but when I look back up to her face, I watch the transformation happen. I see the damsel in distress morph into the vindictive vixen. “This baby is yours, Colton. I don’t sleep around.”

Colton snorts a laugh with a shake of his head. “Yeah, you’re a regular patron fuckin’ saint.” He stalks to the front door and turns back to look at her. “Go tell it to some other gullible son of a bitch who cares. My lawyer will be in touch.”

“You’re gonna have to come at me with something a hell of a lot bigger than threatening me with your attorney to get out of this one,” she says, straightening her spine. “Get your checkbook ready and your ego prepared for some serious damage, sweetheart!”

“Did you actually think you could just waltz in here, drop your bullshit bomb, and I’d take your word for it? Write you off with a hefty check or marry you and ride off into the motherfucking sunset?” His voice thunders. “It’s. Not. Mine!”

Tawny shrugs her shoulders and a smarmy expression transforms her features. “The press is going to have a field day with how I spin this one … a nice juicy scandal to sink their teeth into.”

She starts to walk toward the front door and just when I think I might be able to take a breath, Colton’s palm slams against the door, the sound assaulting the dead silence of the room. He turns and gets back within inches of her face, his voice trembling with rage. “Newsflash, sweetheart, you better hit me with something stronger than that threat if you think the press scares me. Two can play that game,” he says opening the door. “Make sure you tell them all the juicy details because I sure as fuck won’t hold back. It’s amazing how quick a promising career can be dashed in this town when rumors hit the papers about what a demanding diva one can be. No one wants to work with a fucking bitch, and you definitely fit that bill. Now get the fuck out.”

Tawny walks up to him, stares at him, although he refuses to meet her eyes, and then walks out the front door that shuts with a resounding slam behind her. Colton immediately grabs one of the vases on the sideboard he’d hit moments earlier and throws it against the wall. The shattering sound of glass followed by tinkling as it bounces off the tiled floor is such a contrast to the heaviness of the moment. Not getting the release he needed, he places his hand on the sideboard and braces his weight against it.

I step forward from the shadows of the foyer, still not sure what to do when he looks up and locks his eyes with mine. I try to get a read his emotions but I can’t—his guard is back up and locked in place. The knowledge of how much work it’s going to take to break that wall back down causes a little piece of me to die, to die and fall to rest beside the piece that broke off the day the doctor told me it’d be nothing short of a miracle for me to get pregnant again.

The emptiness of my womb hits me again as I walk toward him. He watches me, jaw ticking, body tense. “Colton … I—”

“Rylee,” he warns, “back the fuck off!”

“What if it’s true? What if you guys really did and you don’t remember?” It’s the only coherent thought I can verbalize, my mind spinning with what-ifs and never-going-to-bes.

“Why?” He turns to face me, and I swallow nervously. “So you can play house?” He takes a step toward me and the look in his eyes has me cringing. “Because you want a baby so bad that you can taste it? Would do anything to have one? Take one that might or might not be mine so you can sink your hooks in me too? Get the best of both worlds, huh? A hefty sum and a baby—every woman’s fucking dream.” His words whip out and slap me, rip apart the part of me that knows I would do anything to have the chance to have a baby. “It’s not true!” His voice thunders at me. “It’s not true,” he says again in too calm of a voice.

I’m stuck in place—wanting to run, wanting to stay, hurting for me, devastated for him—at a crossroads of uncertainty, and all I want to do is curl into a ball and shut the world out. Shut Colton out, and Tawny out, and the ache that will never go away, to feel a baby move within me. To create something out of love with someone I love. Bile threatens at the thought, and I cover my mouth as I gag audibly to prevent myself from puking.

“Yeah, the thought of me being a dad makes me want to puke too.” He sneers at me, so much more than contempt lacing his voice. And that’s not why I’m going to be sick, but I can’t tell him that because I’m too busy trying not to be. “Between the sheets.” He belts out a patronizing laugh, looking up at the ceiling before looking back at me. “How fucking ironic is it when it’s between the sheets with someone else that’s causing this little dilemma, huh, Ryles? How’s that phrase working for ya now?”

“Fuck you.” I say it more to myself than to him, a quiet voice laced with hurt. I’ve had it. He can be upset. His horrible past can be dredging through his mind, but that doesn’t give him the right to be a fucking asshole and take his shit out on me.

He turns to look at me, a picture of fury against the tranquility behind him. “Exactly.” He spits out. “Fuck me.”

And with those parting words, Colton yanks open the door to the deck. I don’t call out to him—don’t care to—and watch him jog down the stairs to the beach with a whistle beckoning Baxter.

The longer I sit and wait for him to come back the more nervous I become.

And more pissed.

I’m nervous because besides his swim earlier, Colton hasn’t exercised since being cleared … and he was only cleared yesterday. I know his anger will push him to run harder, faster, longer, and that only unnerves me because how much can the healing vessels in his brain withstand? It’s been almost an hour since he left, how much is too much?

And I’m pissed that after everything he said to me, I even care.

I shake my head, the words he said to me rattling around as I look down the stretch of beach. I get his anger, the inherent need to lash out over his rather fragile hold on his preconceptions, but I thought we were past that. Thought that after everything we’ve been through in our short time together that I’d proven otherwise to him. Proven that I am not like other women. That I need him. That I will never manipulate him to get what I want like so many other women in his life have. That I will not abandon him. And I so desperately want to leave right now—escape the argument and further hurt I fear will happen upon his return—but I can’t. More than ever I need to prove to him right now that I’m not going to run when he needs me the most, even if the thought of him having a child with someone else is killing me now.