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This party, full of his stupid drunk friends, reinforces the fact we’re not compatible. I’m not interested in getting drunk andpartying. I’ve worked damned hard to win a place at Juilliard and there’s no way I’m throwing it all away. My parents would be so disappointed if that happened.
“Here, drink this.” Landon shoves a plastic cup of what looks like beer at me. I drink some and grimace. Nope, not beer. It tastes like some kind of spirit, possibly bourbon. I don’t like it much but Landon is smiling at me and stroking my hair so I swallow it all down and try not to cough like an amateur.
“Loving this dress, baby,” Landon croons in my ear. His hand slides down my back, ending up on my ass. The drink is making me feel a bit woozy so I lean into him. Fuck, this shit is strong. Or maybe I’m just a lightweight. Landon says something to me but when I open my mouth, the words won’t come. I try again and my voice is slurred. I stumble when we move away from the wall, and he catches me. The noise of the party slowly fades and my eyes flutter shut.
?
Landon stares at Joel. I can almost hear the gears turning in his head as he joins the dots.
“What’s your name?” he asks Joel with a friendly smile. Only the smile doesn’t reach his eyes and the panic I’m feeling has me seeing spots across my vision, despite the bright sunshine and crowds of other beach-goers a few feet away.
“I’m Joel!” My son is a happy soul. Always has been. He loves people and unlike some kids, he’s not shy at all.
“And how old are you Joel?”
I want to yank Joel away, slap my hand over his mouth to prevent the inevitable outflow of information, but it’s too late. He has no idea who this man is and why he’s asking such an innocuous question.
“I’m four in October!”
Landon isn’t stupid. He majored in business at Columbia, for fuck’s sake. He can do the math. I see the moment the penny drops and he realizes exactly who - and what - Joel is.
“Rory,” he starts to stay, his cheeks flushing with anger. “Is there something you’d like to tell me?”
My heart stops beating and for a moment, the world shrinks to a tiny pinprick where I’m standing in the middle of a raging vortex. I want to protect Joel, who’s happily chattering away, oblivious to all the tension in the air. I want to whisk him away before this evil bastard can steal him from me. Landon’s family is richer than fucking Elon Musk, and with all that money at their disposal, it doesn’t matter that the law says I was entitled to keep my pregnancy secret.
I know Landon will find a way to make me pay. A son is something he can use to his advantage, irrespective of whether he wants a child. I met Landon’s mother once. She was an ice-cold bitch dressed head to toe in Versace, who had the audacity to accuse me of lying about the fact her son date raped me. Even though I had physical evidence in the form of a police report, text messages from him admitting what he did, and a dress stained with his semen.
It’s why I walked away from him and my dreams of becoming a star on Broadway. I knew that if push came to shove, his family would either force me to have a termination or take my baby from me. Neither was acceptable. I wasn’t strong enough to fight them back then but I’ve grown up a lot in the last four years.
“No Landon, there isn’t. Now if you’ll excuse me, my son and I have somewhere to be.” I take Joel’s hand in mind, pick up the rucksack, and start walking away.
“Who’s that man?” Joel asks curiously. “He has hair the same color as mine, Mommy.”
“He’s a nobody.”
“Rory! Don’t you dare fucking walk away from me again!”
I speed up, praying there’s a cab idling nearby. My phone is in the rucksack and I don’t want to stop long enough to retrieve it.
“Rory!” Fuck, I can hear him following us. This is bad!
“Joel, baby, I need you to run, can you do that for me?”
“Why, Mommy?” His voice cracks. Shit, I’m scaring him. Tears prick my eyes but I push them away. I don’t have time to be a mouse. I need to get Joel away from Landon. If I can get home and pack, we can go to the hospital and thrash out a plan with Mom.
“It’s a race, let’s see how fast we can run until we reach that busy cafe on the corner, OK?”
His little face brightens and we run like the wind down the street, our feet pounding as Landon yells at me to stop. Just aswe reach the corner, a flash matt-black Mercedes G Wagon pulls up and a familiar figure steps out, his eyes shielded by aviator shades.
“Mommy look! It’s the man with the watch!” Joel tears free from my grasp and runs into Romano’s arms. I watch as Romano scoops him up and my son climbs him like a monkey. A sense of calmness settles over me just as Landon catches us up.
“You fucking bitch,” he snarls. “I can’t believe you hid a kid from me!”
I spin around in anger. “You raped me, you asshole! Why would I want to tell you about a child conceived in such a way? He’s not your son and he never will be!”
“That’s not true,” he splutters. “You wanted it.”
“I was a fucking virgin and you spiked my drink. I woke up to find you on top of me, inside me!” Tears stream down my face as the memory of that awful night comes flooding back. The pain I felt when I realized what he’d done. And the shame of being abandoned in a stranger’s bed, my thighs streaked with blood and cum.
