Seducing Simon(59)

“I don’t even know how to tell you this,” she said choking back a sob.

“Honey, you need to calm down. I had no idea this would upset you so badly. This isn’t how I pictured the evening going at all.” He paused a moment and ran a hand through his hair. “Would you prefer we talk about it another time?”

“No! I mean…no. I had planned to tell you tonight anyway. It’s why I invited you over.” She sucked in her breath until it made her feel lightheaded.

She was too close to him. She stood up, his hands dropping from her arms. A few steps away from the couch, she turned around, daring to look at him. His eyes were alight in confusion and intense curiosity.

“Do you remember the night you and Starla broke up?” she asked.

Surprise registered on his face. “Yes, of course.”

“You came home upset. You’d had something to drink. Then I sat up with you while you got drunker.”

“Yeah, I remember,” he said, looking away. “Not the proudest moment of my life.”

“Nor was it mine,” she whispered. “We had sex that night.” She watched disbelief then shock creep across his face. “Are you saying…are you saying I put a move on you?” he asked hoarsely. “Oh my God,” he whispered before she could answer. “Are you saying I took advantage of you when I was drunk?” Self-loathing clouded his voice, his anguish her undoing.

“No!” she sobbed out. “That isn’t the way it happened. Simon, I wanted it to happen. I encouraged you. I kissed you and it went from there. I knew you had no idea what you were doing. I had this fantasy built up in my mind. I knew exactly what I was doing, and I seduced you.”

He sat shaking his head in utter disbelief. Then he paled, all the color fading from his face in a rush. “The baby. It’s mine?” She shook her head miserably.

He stared at her in horror. “And you never told me? You let me go all these months and the baby is mine?”

Again she nodded, unable to speak. Her hands shook violently as she awaited the explosion.

“How could you?” Revulsion twisted his face. “Jesus. I can’t believe it.

Not you, Toni. I trusted you. Tell me you didn’t do this. Didn’t keep something so important from me.”

She pressed her knuckles to her mouth unable to hold back the sobs any longer.

He waved his hand in front of him. “This game. This charade you put on. The flirting. The effort to make me jealous. Was it real? Or did you just fear you wouldn’t have a father for you baby? Damn it, Toni. Why didn’t you tell me?” His voice rose and he stood up, his fists clenched by his side. “Has this all been just one gigantic joke to you? Have you been laughing at me behind my back all this time? You despise Starla so much, but you’re no better than her. My God, I trusted you.” The pain in his face, his eyes, his voice sliced through her like the sharpest blade. “Simon, it wasn’t like that,” she began.

“Then tell me, Toni. What was it like?” His bitter words rang across the room.

“I was afraid,” she admitted. “Afraid of messing things up between us, afraid of messing things up between all four of us.”

“I see, and keeping the fact that you slept with me, much less that you were pregnant with my child from me isn’t messing things up?”

“It was wrong,” she said softly.

“It wasn’t just wrong, Toni. It was despicable. I honestly never thought you were capable of such deceit. I am certainly not proud of the fact I had sex with a woman and apparently can’t remember it, much less that it was with my supposed best friend, but what you did was unthinkable. You should have told me. Immediately. There was no reason for you to have gone through any of it alone.” She turned away, her head aching from the tears she’d cried. She heard him walk across the floor, and she whirled around in time to see him walk out the front door. “Simon!” she called out, racing to the door.

“Don’t go. We need to talk.”

He paused on the porch and slowly turned around to face her. What she saw in his eyes made her flinch. “I don’t have anything to say to you, Toni.”

She froze at the anger, the hatred in his voice. As he walked away, her heart shattered into a million pieces. She watched in agony as he drove off. Out of her life.

She stood there for a long time, numb to the cold. Numb to anything but the searing pain in her chest. Then she slowly turned and walked back into the house.

Simon pounded the steering wheel in rage. Tears nearly blinded his vision as he tore down the road. How could she have betrayed him like this? Never would he have put her in the same category as Starla. But to allow him to go to the doctor’s visits with her, pursue a relationship with him, all the while pregnant with his child. His child.

He’d never felt so angry, so utterly pissed off in his life. Her deception was unthinkable. And it made him sick to his stomach that the woman he loved and wanted to spend the rest of his life with had lied to him from the beginning of their relationship.

He pulled into the driveway of his house and slammed out of the truck. His mood was black, and he’d never hurt as much as he did at this moment. His fingers curled around the box the engagement ring was nestled in. In an angry motion he sent it flying across the kitchen as he stepped in the door.