Page 47 of Daddy's Accidental Babies

He pointed a finger at my chest, hand trembling with rage. “You were my friend. You were supposed to protect my daughter, not drag her into this PR circus and into your bed.”

I swatted his hand away. “She’s not a child. She made her own choices.” I wasn’t sure if his accusation about my bed was because of the gossip mill talking or if Savannah had finally broken down and told him, but I wasn’t going to offer facts to fuel his rage.

“She doesn’t know what kind of man you are,” he hissed. “What you did.”

I reached into my top drawer, pulled out the stack of emails Graham had printed out and given me, and threw them down on the desk between us. “No, but she knows who you are. And so do I now.” With this evidence against David, I hoped he would back off, but his reaction surprised me.

His eyes flicked to the pages but didn’t waver. “This isn’t about politics. This is about you crossing a personal boundary I shouldn’t ever have had to worry about.” I could see the rage in his eyes toward me, and it burned hotter than any other argument we’d ever had.

“You’re mad because I didn’t ask your permission?” I said. “David, Savannah is an adult. You’re treating her like a child,manipulating her into fearing things that aren’t even true, to do what? Protect yourself?” The situation baffled me. I understood him being upset or angry about those boys being my children. I had my own thoughts about it, but I wasn’t going to take it out on her. She had it hard enough.

He stepped in close, breath hot with fury. “You think she’ll love you when she knows everything? You think she’ll still look at you the same after Montauk?”

I didn’t answer. My jaw was locked so tight I could barely breathe as I held back my own anger.

“You think she can forgive that?” he said, voice quieter now but lethal. “You hit a man and drove off, Dominic. If she finds out the truth, she’ll never come near you again.” His eyes grew darker as he leaned in and steepled his fingers on my desk as he glared at me.

“Better she knows it from me,” I said through gritted teeth. “Not from a man who raised her on guilt and political leverage.”

“You paraded her around like she was your trophy,” David snapped. “You put her in the headlines, Dominic. They’re mocking her out there, and when this all ties back to you, to what you did, the whole thing will blow up. What will that do to her career and her future?”

I stepped in until we were toe-to-toe, and he straightened and pushed his chest out at me. “I love her. Can you say the same without qualifying it?”

David’s eyes searched my face as he tried to formulate a reply to me, and I finally figured out what this was all about. It wasn’t me dating Savannah at all. It was Montauk and what happened. He was afraid someone was going to start digging into his past because of his political campaign. Too much digging would lead to unearthing that night and what we did—because it wouldn’t just blow back on me. He’d go down with the sinking ship too.

His mouth opened to reply, but the door burst open. Vanessa didn’t knock. She stormed in like the floor was on fire, her phone held up in front of her.

“We have a problem,” she said in a dramatic tone. She marched straight to the desk and thrust the phone between us. The glow of the screen lit up the headlines before either of us said a word. Her eyes never left mine, waiting for the fallout to start before she even opened her mouth. The headline glared at me like a warning flare:

DOMINIC KNIGHT’S SECRET CHILDREN? PR DIRECTOR TIED TO SHOCKING PATERNITY RUMOR

Under it was a photo of Savannah holding Cal. I recognized the apartment building. He was laughing, mid-wiggle in her arms. Next to it, the same photo from an old article I remembered—one of those puff pieces about my father’s company. I was younger, but it’s obviously me. The editor had cropped it to match the framing of Savannah’s photo. It wasn’t subtle. It was calculated.

“She saw it ten minutes ago,” Vanessa said, breath clipped. “And left the building. Didn’t say where she was going.”

David paled visibly, all the blood draining from his face.

I didn’t move. The air between us thickened until I felt my heart beating in my neck.

Vanessa turned her eyes to me. She lowered her voice. “Is it true?”

25

SAVANNAH

The twins had finally quieted after more than thirty minutes of fighting me. I heard their soft snoring drifting faintly from their bedroom down the hall. I stood at the sink, rinsing off the last of the dinner plates, letting the warm water run over my hands longer than necessary, but the sensation kept my mind from going off on a tangent.

I hadn’t heard from my father, though that didn’t surprise me. When Thea told me yesterday that he had called her, I knew he was avoiding me on purpose—choosing his silence over any confrontation. I dried my hands on the dish towel, then leaned forward, bracing my palms on the edge of the counter. Staring down at the kitchen counter, I rubbed a knot of tension at the base of my neck, wondering how long he’d pretend he hadn’t been crossing lines with me.

My reflection in the dark glass of the window stared back at me, tired and tight around the eyes. Everything replayed in a loop—Dad’s fury, Marla’s smug grin, and Dominic’s silence. That one hit the worst.

I kept waiting for something—even just a curt text or a one-line email. Anything that would give me closure or context. ButDominic didn’t confront pain the same way my father did. There was no shouting, no slammed doors. With him, it was silence. A deliberate absence that hurt more than anger ever could.

He withdrew without warning, closing himself off, and I kept wishing he’d at least told me why—why he was pulling away, why he’d decided to end the PR charade without so much as a conversation. I could have taken the hurt if he’d just given me the truth. But then, I had kept the truth from him, and I deserved this silence.

My phone had stayed on the counter all day. I didn’t hear a single buzz or ring. No calls came through. No texts appeared. I tried not to obsess, but the ache in my chest wouldn’t let up.

So when the sharp, unexpected knock came on my front door, it jolted me.

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