Page 100 of #Moonstruck

“What are you doing here?” Ryan asked.

“There’s no good way to say ‘Surprise, you’re a daddy,’ so surprise. You’re a daddy. This is Thomas. He’s a little over two years old.”

My whole body tensed as fingers of dread wrapped around my spine. My heart raced erratically. Ryan? A father?

I’d known the truth of it the second I saw Thomas. One night when we were in California at his house, his aunt had spent the evening showing me photo albums of Ryan as a baby and small boy.

Thomas was the spitting image of Ryan at the same age.

Some of his features were different. He had a small cleft in his chin, where Ryan didn’t. Thomas’s coloring didn’t match Ryan’s, either, but he must have taken after CeCe.

As if somebody had punched me hard in the gut, I realized Ryan was a dad. He had fathered a child he hadn’t even known about. An empty hollowness started in my chest and slowly spread until I felt completely numb. I wasn’t angry or sad.

There was just nothing.

Ryan’s face had gone pale. “I’m sorry for asking, but how do you know he’s mine? We were always so careful.”

“Nothing’s a hundred percent effective. And you were the only person I was dating at the time. I mean, if you don’t believe me, you can get a paternity test. But I’m not lying to you.”

“Of course he’s yours.” I spoke up without meaning to, especially since this was none of my business. “He looks just like you.”

“Why ...” Ryan seemed at a total loss for words. “Why tell me now? Why didn’t you tell me as soon as you knew you were pregnant?”

CeCe patted the top of Thomas’s head. “I wasn’t sure what I wanted to do. If I was going to keep him. And then I saw an ultrasound and fell head over heels in love. You weren’t exactly father material back then, and I thought Thomas would be better off without you. But everything I see and read about you now makes me think you’ve changed. That you’d be capable of being a good dad. I grew up without a father, and I don’t want that for my son. Our son.”

I’d played a part in this. My fake-then-real relationship with Ryan was meant to convince the record label about his growth and maturity. To show that he had changed from that silly party boy into a more serious, adult artist.

I heard CeCe say, “I want you to know this isn’t about money but about a relationship.”

My knees felt weak, and I collapsed into a nearby chair, feeling the blood draining from my head.

Ryan was a father.

That cute little boy clinging to his mother’s leg was physical proof of everything I’d feared about falling in love with Ryan. I saw myself in Thomas, with a musician father who would be in and out of his life, never really there. I couldn’t take it. I couldn’t live through this again.

My soul began to break, and it fractured from the pressure more and more until it shattered completely, scattering shards everywhere.

I couldn’t be here. I couldn’t be a part of this. I grabbed my purse off the counter and headed to the door.

“Maisy, wait!”

Ryan caught up with me in the hall, grabbing my arm and spinning me around. “Where are you going? I need you here.”

“I can’t do this. You had a baby with someone else. When I finally got to the point where I was ready to be the one to have—” I had to stop as my throat swelled, a knot of tears lodging inside it. “They were supposed to be our babies. Not your babies with someone else.”

“Let’s straighten everything out first. Let me get a paternity test and make sure he’s mine, and then we’ll figure out where we go from there. Together.”

Together? How could he say that to me, as if we still had a future? As if I could just get over the fact that he’d impregnated some random fan? Like that shouldn’t matter to me? I hit his shoulders out of frustration. “There is no more together. No more us. I told you and told you how I felt about this. You’re exactly like my father!”

Ryan looked stricken, as if I’d slapped him across the face. He knew that for me, it was the worst possible insult I could have given. “Maisy, that’s not true. You know me.”

Breaking free of his grasp, determined not to cry, I held up my head. “Stay with your baby mama, and work out whatever you have to work out. I’m done. I’m done with us. I’m done with you. Don’t call or text me ever again.”

Not wanting to wait for the elevator, I ran for the stairs. Ryan called after me at least three times that I heard, but there was no way he could follow me, given that CeCe and Thomas were waiting for him in his apartment.

Nausea roiled in my stomach as the doorman got me a taxi. The second he closed the door behind me, I dissolved into tears. My shoulders curled in, and I brought my knees up, wrapping my arms around them. My chest ached as I cried and cried so hard that I nearly hyperventilated. How could Ryan do this? Have a baby with some woman he’d never even mentioned?

In a single moment, my entire life had been totally destroyed. Just as I’d always feared it would.

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