Page 126 of Fierce-Baker

Shane laughed. As if she was going to give him a tongue-lashing and he decided not to stay around for it. He stood up. “I don’t have time for this shit.”

“Sit your ass down now,” she hissed. “Don’t you leave until I tell you to.”

The sound that came out now was impatience. “You’ve got two minutes to get it off your chest, then I’m out of here. I get it. You want to let me know what you really think of me being married. You refused to hear my side of it. I told you we were on the outs.”

Her hand came up. “Just stop. You’re not eating into my time. Two weeks after I left you I found out I was pregnant.”

Shane straightened from where he was slouched on the bench. Where he was trying to come off as casually granting her the time to unload her anger.

But he was upright and tense now. Ready to battle.

She wasn’t sure what she expected, but it wasn’t that.

She heard a cough and glanced around Shane, catching sight of Baker on the bench next to them, at her ex’s back.

There Baker was, right where she needed him to lend a hand if it came to that.

She just hoped it wouldn’t and had asked him to stay out of it unless she was in trouble.

She was nowhere near being in trouble and didn’t think Shane would be stupid enough to do anything other than put his foot in his mouth.

“Bullshit,” Shane snarled. “You would have told me.”

“No, I wouldn’t. I didn’t.”

Shane looked panicked. Scared. As if his world might come crashing down when it was only balancing on a few pebbles as it was.

Not her problem.

Well, it kind of was, but she was tired of the secrets. Of the lies. Of holding this all in.

She was ready to move on with her life.

Ready to face the judgment of her friends and her peers.

Those who mattered in her life, they’d be by her side. She knew that now.

“I don’t believe you,” Shane said. “We weren’t exclusive. We never said we were.”

As if the knife couldn’t be jammed into her chest more and then twisted.

“We never had that discussion because I thought it was a given. Obviously I was wrong on your end. Not that I thought you’d admit you were married.”

He didn’t reply to that. She hadn’t expected him to.

“So what?” Shane said finally. “You want me to believe you had my kid? It’s been years, Tasha. No fucking way. I don’t buy it.” His mouth twisted. “Or did you get an abortion and now you’re just trying to stir up drama? Let me guess, it messed you up and now you can’t have kids.”

The words hit her like multiple slaps to the cheek. One after another. Brutal. Careless. Cruel.

For a split second, she couldn’t breathe. She couldn’t focus. She couldn’t even think.

She stared at him, stunned, not by the accusation, but by the man standing in front of her. That she had ever loved someone capable of saying something so vile. So casually cruel. Soemptyinside.

It had always been about him.

His comfort. His ego. His version of suffering.Hisinjustice.

Never the damage he left behind.