Page 71 of Crashed (Driven 3)
The certainty I felt before that this couldn’t be true, doesn’t feel so fucking certain anymore. I blow out a breath, pound a fist on the console, grab a figurative hold of my balls, and pick up the phone.
Each ring destroys me. It’s like waiting for the chair to be kicked out from beneath my feet with a noose looped harmlessly around my neck.
“Donavan.”
It takes me a minute to respond. “Hey, CJ.” My voice sounds so fucking foreign, like a little kid waiting for his punishment to be decided.
“You ready?”
“Fucking Christ, tell me already, will you?” I bark.
He chuckles as I hear the paper tear. Easy for him to fucking laugh right now when my heart’s hammering, fucking head is pounding, and foot is bouncing on the floorboard. And then I hear CJ exhale.
“You’re good.”
There’s no way I heard him right. “What?”
“She lied. The baby’s not yours.”
I pump my fist out into the air and shout. I squeeze my head in both of my hands as the adrenaline hits me at full force, hands tremble and fucking tears well. I can’t even process a thought. I know CJ is talking but I can’t hear him because my heart is pounding in my ears from the adrenaline hitting me like it does at the start of a race. I raise a hand to run it through my hair but stop midair to pound on the steering wheel before scrubbing at my face because I’m so overwhelmed … so inundated with fucking relief I can’t keep a single thought straight, except for one.
It’s not mine.
I didn’t fuck up a poor soul’s life by tainting it with my blood.
By being born to a manipulative bitch like Tawny.
“You okay, Wood?”
It takes me a minute to swallow and find my voice. “Yeah,” I sigh. “Better than okay. Thanks.”
“I’ll have Chase issue a press release for—”
“I’ll cover that,” I tell him, wanting nothing more to than to feed the vultures a taste of crow and get their fucking obtrusive cameras out of our lives for a bit. Let Rylee adjust to my fucking crazy life while we find our footing.
There I go again. Thinking about finding our fucking footing and the future and shit with her. My fucking kryptonite.
Motherfucker.
And it hits me.
Rylee.
I need to tell her.
“Thanks again, CJ, I gotta call—I gotta go.”
I hang up and immediately start to dial Rylee but my hands are shaking so badly from the adrenaline racing through my blood, I stop for a second.
And then I realize I want to end this once and for all before I talk to Ry. I want to call her with the slate clean so I can tell her this is all behind us. Baby, Tawny, lies—everything is over and fucking done with.
I take a deep breath as I dial the number that used to be so familiar but now just makes my blood boil.
“Colton?” I like the fact she’s surprised, that I’ve caught her off guard.
Time to play ball.
“Tawny.” My voice is flat, unemotional. I don’t say anything else. I want her to squirm. I want her to wonder if I know or not. She’s ballsy enough to lie to my face, let’s see if she’s gonna keep up the fucking charade or lay her cards on the table.
