Page 26 of Outlaw Heartstrings
As he reads the email exchange now, Easton’s head is slowly shaking back and forth. “Raya and I never had this conversation,” he croaks out hoarsely. “I never even knew she was pregnant. Let alone, pregnant by…me.”
“Don’t lie, Easton,” I spit out. “She reached out to you. You dodged responsibility. Simple as that.”
“No, Alba,” he insists. “I’ve never seen these messages before in my life.”
“Seriously,Easton?” I jab at the page in his hand. “This is your email address right here.”
His eyes scan the spot I’m pointing at. He blinks. He blinks again.
“No, it’s not. That’s not my email address.”
Shaking my head in disbelief, I take the sheet of paper from his grasp, eyeballing it.
“My name is misspelt.” His voice cracks. “It’s missing an ‘E’.”
I look more closely at the address.
R-A-I-N-S
The ‘E’ is missing.
Oh my god. He’s right.
There’s a spelling mistake in the email address.
A chill sweeps through me, shaking me to my bones.
Shock. Utter shock is what I feel. Because for nine whole years, this email thread has shaped my world view.
An ugly realization clicks in my head. “Raya fabricated this entire email exchange?!”
“Looks like it,” Easton says, his nostrils flaring as his face turns red.
I shake my head. “No. It can’t be.”
He stomps his foot. “Dammit, Alba. What other explanation could there be?”
I shake my head some more as I continue to stare at the thread of emails. “I don’t know. There has to be some kind of mistake.”
Because I remember the night Raya shared these emails with me. I remember the tears she’d cried as she lamented that Easton didn’t want their baby. I remember how her heart broke with each sob.
She has a heart. She does. I need to believe that right now.
Easton’s scratchy voice shakes my soul. “Mistake or not,all I know is, I’m a father, and I had no idea about my child for eight long years.”
When I finally brave a glance at him, dejection and hurt are imprinted on his face. He drops down on the nearest bench but says nothing for a long while.
I dare to sit beside him, afraid that I’ve broken Easton Raines. I’ve never seen him so quiet.
“Fine. Raya didn’t want to tell me. But why didn’tyou? You never reached out to me. As soon as I left town, you disappeared from social media. You just vanished and I was so fucking confused…We were friends, Alba.”
“I was so angry with you, Easton,” I confess. “I was angry with you, and protective of Jagger. I thought you didn’t want him, and I was hellbent on protecting him from your rejection. That’s why I never tried to reach out to you myself.” I close my burning eyes. “And every time I’d see you on TV living the good life, it just made me angrier. At first, there were videos of you on a red carpet with some pretty model all over you. Then there were pictures of you on the beach with a beauty pageant contestant. Then a fitness influencer. Then that actress from—”
“Fuck. I get it,” Easton cuts me off, tearing his cap off his head to tug at his messy hair. He looks so overwhelmed by all this information.
“So, yeah. You were living the good life, right in my face. And I took it as a sign from the Universe that I should just step up for Jagger and leave you alone.”
