Page 42 of Henhouse
“Not quite half . . .”
“You kept this huge thing from me and had the gall to callmea liar!” Hope cowered and he tried to steady his voice, but his blood boiled. He’d never been so angry in his life. Not even when Chloe had all but confessed she had married him for his money and would go quietly if he met her demands. That was a blip compared to this.
“You did lie!”
“That was my past! I omitted something I want to be free of. Something I am never going back to. Chloe doesn’t change who I am or what I want with you or anything that matters to our future! You omitted our baby, Hope. Our baby . . . Damn it, I would have been at every appointment! I would have done so many things and you took that from me.” He barely held himself together. This sucked. He wanted to go home and drink himself stupid.
Truthfully, what he wanted to do was go home and pin the sonogram in his pocket to the refrigerator before settling in on the couch with Hope to watch a movie while he rubbed her feet.
“I was on my way to tell you when I mether!”
“And believed I was a cheating loser. Glad you thought so highly of me.”
“She said she was your wife!”
“You should have come to me, asked me, given me a fucking chance!” This was not how Brayden imaginedI still love youwould turn out. Everything was going to shit.
“Oh, like you did here today?”
“I had to get back to work . . .”
“It could have waited and you know it.”
“All I know, Hope, is that if I didn’t walk by your house the otherday, if your grandmother hadn’t caught me, you never would have reached out. I still wouldn’t know about my baby . . . I would still think you hated me for no goddamn reason.”
“That’s not true—”
“Isn’t it? Effie telling you the truth about Chloe wasn’t enough to get you to talk to me. Why should I believe you ever had any intention of telling me about the baby?”
“Brayden, stop it.” He knew he was right. Hell, Effie all but confirmed it when she said Hope didn’t give second chances. Well, maybe he wouldn’t either.
“No. God, Hope. You must have known what this would feel like. To be treated like your fucking sperm donor.” There it was. The root of the rage that had been building since he saw her on that exam bench. If he was a different man, a less persistent one, then she would have kept his baby from him. He would be no different to his kid than his dad, sperm-donor-number-whatever, was to him. That was something he wasn’t sure he could ever forgive her for. Regardless of her change of heart, regardless of her email. That kernel of truth planted in the back of his mind like a cancer cell waiting to multiply. He’d never be able to be one hundred percent certain that Hope wanted him to be a true father to their baby. She’d said she loved him, but how could that be true? This wasn’t how you treated someone you loved. It just wasn’t.
“I’m sorry I kept my past from you, but you had no right to keep this from me.”
“I know,” Hope whispered, tears in her eyes. “I’m so sorry that I hurt you.”
Brayden wanted to believe her, but just as she’d once written that she couldn’t trust herself not to blindly accept apologies in light of histransgressions, he felt the same. He took a deep breath, scouring the parking lot.
“Where’s your car?”
“I walked.”
“That’s like five miles round trip.”
“So?” Brayden gestured to the swell of Hope’s stomach that looked much smaller beneath her baggy T-shirt. “I’m pregnant, not an invalid.”
Something about hearing her say it, confess it, put words to it—I’m pregnant—stirred a primal ache in his chest. His heart yearned to wrap her in his arms, put his hands on her belly, and feel his baby kick and squirm. It made him want to veto each other’s baby names and paint one of the extra bedrooms a gender-neutral green with woodland creatures. It made him want to be a dad, to be whole and happy. But listening to his heart brought him more pain than joy in the past.
He looked at the darkening sky. She wouldn’t make it home before sunset. “Get in,” he commanded before moving around to the driver’s side. Hope looked at him over the hood.
“Hope Lilac Thatcher get in the damn car, please.” She didn’t budge. Shame or guilt or pain wobbled her lip, but he couldn’t hold her hurt right now. He only had space for his own at the moment. “Just let me drive my baby home.”
Thankfully, Hope climbed into the passenger seat. She noted the manila folder that rested on the center console and looked at Brayden, eyes full of questions.
“My divorce was finalized yesterday.”
“How?” Hope’s voice was the softest he’d ever heard it.
