Page 21

I needed to grab another test. What if I did it wrong?

Wait.

No.

But what if it was right… that would mean I was…

Could he have… Had he really gotten me pregnant?

An awful thought crossed my mind. A dark cloud that I couldn’t shake. I felt like I was ruining everything before it had the chance to even begin. But I had to say it. Jax deserved the truth.

“I know you want this baby, but…”

I couldn’t even finish my sentence. I wanted this so bad. A part of me wanted to just ignore the ugly truth, let it just crawl into a hole to wither and be forgotten.

Jax’s jaw tensed as his gaze locked on me.

I had to be honest with him.

“I was sleeping with your father before everything started with us. There’s a chance that this baby’s his.”

Yes, Jax and I had been sleeping together for weeks now, but I’d thrown out my birth control long before that.

How did it come to this? How did the thought that having a baby with my lawful spouse make me feel like my world was falling apart? Everything with Jax was new, but already it felt more real than anything else that had happened in my entire life.

Then… if the baby was my husband’s child… would that force things between me and my lover to end?

Jax reached for me, cradling my face in the palm of his hands, forcing me to look into his eyes. “Whether you got my son growing here, or my brother… this baby is mine.”

“Yeah?” I sniffed.

“Yeah. Because you’re my woman.” Jax looked into my eyes like he was staring straight into my soul. His gaze was all heat and possession. He stared at me like wanting me hard enough would be enough to force the baby in my belly to take on his DNA.

“We’re going to have a baby,” I whispered the words, like saying them too loudly would scare them away… words that I had wanted to say for so long. Words that were still so out of this world I could barely believe that they were true.

How could this be happening? This was crazy.

Yet at the same time… why did I want crazy? Why did I want this brand of crazy so bad?

If the right thing to want was my husband’s baby and to be that loyal doormat that I had been for years… maybe I didn’t want that anymore.

I was done being used.

For the first time in my life, I wanted something for me, and who gave a shit if it was right or if it was wrong.

NINETEEN

JAX

For one horrible moment, it seemed like Delila didn’t want our child. It had completely thrown me off—that wasn’t like her.

My stepmother was the sweetest woman I’ve ever met, and I know she wants a baby—so how could she not want mine?

“I know you want this baby, but…”

But what?

Would she really rather stoop to getting impregnated by that man-child who sired me?