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Still, I didn’t go after her.
I was listening to a different set of instincts now. The ones that demanded I protect her—even from me.
So, I drank.
I drank until the river of alcohol washed away the sound of Jada screaming those fateful words at my back and taking away the one good thing it turned out I never really had.
Icouldn’thave.
I’d already had.
Jesus.
I’d looked into Jada’s eyes that night and knew she wasn’t lying.
Of course, there was no way for her to know from one meeting that Atlas was even her daughter, much less mine, but I knew she believed it to be true. She wasn’t just telling me some wild shit out of jealousy or spite.
Jada truly believed Atlas was the daughter she’d given away twenty years ago.
I’d taken her to a bar on the other side of town in East End, where I knew there was no chance of running into anyone we knew, and I made her tell me everything.
Jada confessed to getting pregnant at fifteen and how her parents had sent her to live with her aunt—Demi’s mother—before she started showing.
She’d given birth to a baby girl and had put her up for adoption while in Ossella before returning home like nothing had ever happened.
Jada and Joren’s relationship had been so toxic even then that the news had reached their parents’ ears, so when Jada returned to Idlewild, she simply told Joren that her parents had sent her away in hopes that the distance would make her forget about him.
Since Joren had been well aware of her parents’ dislike for him, he’d bought every word, and the two had picked up where they left off.
Three years later, they were married.
It had been twenty years, but I still remembered those months she’d left to live with her aunt out of the blue, only to return less than a year later. It was the only time I’d been able to look Joren in the eye after fucking his girl behind his back.
Of course, Joren hadn’t noticed because he’d been too busy screwing every girl but Jada behindherback.
It was heartbreak that had driven Jada to look my way in the first place. Whether for comfort or revenge, I didn’t know and cared even less. I’d been no better than Joren.
Worse actually.
I was a selfish asshole willing to fuck anything thrown my way, including my best friend’s girl.
And now, twenty years later, karma had finally come for me.
“Assuming the baby you gave away is even Atlas, how do you know she’s mine? You were Joren’s girl.”
“Joren and I were barely having sex around the time I got pregnant.”
“Neither were we.”
“Yes, but I always made him wear a condom. I couldn’t risk it after everything he’d done to me.”
“So did I, Jada.”
“Yes, Owen, but yours broke once, remember?”
“You’re seriously expecting me to give up the only girl I’ve ever loved on ahunch? Who the fuck does that?”
“It’s not a hunch,” Jada snapped back.
