Gypsy King (Tin Gypsy, #1)(84)

“It didn’t seem important?” I gaped at him, sliding off my stool. “You promised that you’d tell me everything. You pretended not to know your mom and Amina were friends. I asked you, straight up, if you knew and you lied to me. What else have you lied about?”

“Nothing.”

“I trusted you. How could you do this to me? After everything? I trusted you.” Against my better judgment, I’d believed Dash. I’d believed in him.

“Bryce, come on.” Dash took a step toward me. “It’s not that big of a deal.”

“No. It is a big deal.” I backed away. “Is this why you called the cops that day? So I wouldn’t find out you tore the page from the yearbook?”

“Yes. And I’m sorry. But we were in a different place then. We weren’t together.”

“No, we were only fucking, right? I was just another woman to use until you had your fill. Do you still feel like that?”

His jaw clenched as it tightened. “You know I don’t.”

I closed my eyes, fighting the urge to cry. How could I trust him? After all our time together, he could have told me, but he’d kept the secret.

It was a nothing secret too. Nothing. Something so small that, by keeping it from me, he’d actually made it worse. Bigger than it had to be.

Or maybe I was blowing this out of proportion. Maybe this pregnancy was making me overthink everything. How were we ever going to be together if he didn’t confide in me? How were we going to have a child?

He crossed the distance between us. “Baby, you’re overreacting.”

“Maybe I am,” I whispered. “But something about this feels . . . off. Like we have a fundamental problem here.”

“A fundamental problem? It’s a goddamn picture. Yeah, I should have told you, but it stopped being important.”

“You promised no secrets. You wouldn’t hide anything from me. Otherwise I’d write it all.”

“Wait.” His eyes narrowed. “Is that what this is about? Your story?”

My story? What was he talking about? “Huh?”

“It is, isn’t it? Fuck. I’m so fucking stupid. I actually thought we had something here. But you’ve just been playing me from the start. Waiting until I did something that would justify you writing the tell-all you’ve been dying to write.”

“That’s not true.”

“You’ve already got it written, haven’t you?” He pointed to my laptop still in the tote on the counter. “It’s all done, isn’t it?”

“Yes, I wrote it,” I admitted. “In case you betrayed me. But it was only for backup. I’m not going to print it.”

“How do I know that?”

I threw up my hands. “Because I’m telling you this isn’t about the story. And I haven’t made it a habit of lying to you.”

“It’s always been the story. From the beginning. And I was stupid enough to think you didn’t want it anymore because you wanted me instead.”

“I do want—wait. How am I now the villain? You’re the one who held something back. You’re the one who lied about that stupid picture.” Why did I feel guilty?

“That picture means nothing. We both know that. You have a story written that could ruin the lives of people I love. Not an apples-to-apples deal here, babe.”

I opened my mouth to argue but closed it shut. My shoulders fell, weighed down by a hopelessness that might topple me to the floor.

“It’s not about the photo or the story,” I whispered. “We don’t trust each other. How can this work if we don’t trust each other?”

Dash’s anger evaporated and he shook his head. “Hell if I know. When you figure it out, do me a favor and clue me in. Because right now, it’s looking to me like this is over before it really got started. I’m gonna take off.”

He swiped up his wallet, shoving it into his jeans. And then without another word, he stalked out of the kitchen.

“Wait.” While we were dealing with the heavy stuff, I had to add on one more thing. He deserved to know before he walked out the door. “I have to tell you something.”

Dash turned, putting his hands on his hips. “Can it wait?”

“No.” I swallowed the burn in my throat. Tell him. “I’m pregnant.”

A terrifying silence filled the room. Seconds ticked by like hours. A minute felt like a day. Dash stood so still, it looked like he wasn’t even breathing.

It was how I knew he’d heard me.

My heart thudded, painfully so, as I waited and waited and waited. Until finally, he blinked, shaking his head just slightly. “Not possible. I always use a condom.”

His precious condoms.

“One of them didn’t work.”

It was hard to tell when, but the timing suggested it was soon after we got together. Maybe on the Mustang. But guessing was futile. Other than our two-week hiatus after Draven had threatened me, Dash and I had been having sex constantly.

The silence returned. Tears welled in my eyes and no amount of blinking could keep my vision from turning glassy.

I’d had a friend at the TV station in Seattle who’d made a big deal out of telling her husband she was pregnant by staging baby foods at home next to a onesie with Daddy stamped on the front. The morning after her announcement, she’d come to work and reported that he’d been overjoyed.