Page 40 of Floodgates

“You know how come,” he answered woodenly.

“Tell me.”

“It didn’t mean anything,” he began haltingly. “It was a mistake.”

“That’s what you said the first time,” I reminded him.

“You forgave that; you can’t bring that up now.”

“I can, actually, but this one’s different anyway: she’s going to have your baby.”

“It’s her baby. You’re the only one I’m having a family with.”

For the first time I felt hot tears fill my eyes and then slowly slip down my cheeks. Not because we were really truly over—honestly, we had been since I’d walked through the door and caught him with his dick shoved up another guy’s ass—but because all of it, even what had been hopes and dreams, had gone too.

“Tracy, don’t—”

“It’s not just her baby,” I corrected him. “It’s your baby too. Make no mistake about that. It’s yours and hers.”

“I don’t love her,” he said flatly.

“That makes it even worse.”

“I told her I didn’t want it.”

“You need to do the right thing.”

“Which is what?”

“You know.”

We both went silent before I found my voice again. “When did you sleep with her?” I was interested. Was it before his indiscretion with Sean Granger, or after? Had we still been living together?

He took a deep breath before walking over to the chair on the other side of my bed. He picked it up by the back and then turned it around backward before he took a seat. I watched as he crossed his arms on the back before resting his chin on them. I saw all the pain in his eyes and that they were swollen from crying. “I slept with her in May when I was away at that conference in Florida.”

It was mid-October, still a couple of weeks until Halloween. So five months ago. Before Sean. Celia first, Sean second. I had to wonder about that. So instead of me thinking that only for four months he had not been mine alone, it was actually a month longer. And I’d had no idea about either of them; my first instinct had been to trust.

“So you slept with her at the conference where you presented your case about how you saved that little girl in the ER with the holes in her heart.”

He nodded.

“I wanted to go with you,” I said, my voice sounding hollow.

“I was only there for two days,” he returned quietly.

“So you didn’t want me there because—”

“No,” he interrupted, holding up his hand. “I had no idea when I left that something was going to happen. You have to believe me; I didn’t plan any of it. I swear to God, Trace, I had no idea.”

“So what did happen?”

“I cheated on you,” he conceded, raking his hands through his hair again. It was an unconscious gesture I knew, one he did whenever he felt trapped.

“Which made it easier to do the second time,” I said flatly.

“No.”

“Then why did it happen?”