Not a bloody clue. That child—oh God, my child— is sleeping upstairs right this minute, unaware of the chaos that her arrival is causing. It sounds horrible, but I sort of resent the timing. Why now, when I’ve just managed to get things the way I want them, when Ash has finally stopped giving me vacant smiles and is looking at me the way she used to? One more week, four days max, and I would have had my baby eating out of my hand and telling me she loves me. Now, she’s looking at me with a mix of dark suspicion and a contempt so thick I can almost taste it. “I didn’t know.” It’s not a lie, not fully at least. It’s why I’d dropped everything seven years ago and rushed to the airport instead of staying and confronting Ashley the way I’d wanted to. One phone call had totally changed the entire course of my life. And now it’s come back to fuck up what little progress I’ve made with my woman.
