This tiny little boy knew French and he was mine. At least I really, really thought he was. I couldn’t be sure why I felt that way. Maybe it was his eyes or the way he kept looking at me, suspicious as fuck but also like he knew something. Like we were bonded somehow. I watched Tessa kiss him on both cheeks for the fifth time in a row and hike his little backpack up. He looked at me from over her shoulder and gave a little wave as he walked away.

“He’s smart,” I said when she was next to me again.

“They want to promote him a grade, but I’m scared it’ll hurt him in the long run.”

“How so?” We started walking in the opposite direction, back to her apartment for those books I could’ve cared less about.

“You know how older kids are. I don’t want him to get picked on because he’d be younger, smaller, smarter.”

“What does his father say?” I eyed her closely.

She was shaking. Her hands, her body, even her smile. She was definitely keeping something from me. The awful thought that maybe Sam was his father crossed my mind, but if that were the case, he wouldn’t have kept it from me. As much as he knew it would hurt me, he would have told me. I didn’t think my brother would do that to me, not after everything.

I crossed my arms. I’d just ask her straight out. I mean, I’d ask if the kid was mine, she’d say no, I’d deal with it. It wasn’t as if I’d ever considered having children, but the thought had been there and gone. Camryn and I sure as hell never spoke about it. I couldn’t even imagine having a child with her, but a child with Tessa? The idea didn’t really seem all that terrible. I summoned the question and allowed myself to ask it, keeping my eyes on hers.

“Is he mine?”

“What?” She stumbled back slightly but then caught herself and straightened.

“Is he mine?”

“Why would you ask that?” Her voice was hoarse.

Holy shit.

He was mine. I felt my own throat closing up. If he wasn’t, she would have laughed, said no quickly, and then told me to go fuck myself. Instead, she looked to be at a loss for words. I swallowed thickly and asked again. All this time I’d held out hope that maybe someday I could go after this woman and make things between us work, despite thinking she had a child with someone else, despite thinking she’d moved on quickly after me, and the entire time she’d been keeping this secret from me? Keeping him from me? I needed to hear her say it.

“Is he?”

She brought her hands up and pressed her face into them, nodding. I reached out and grabbed her arm, pulling her off to the side, away from the crowd walking the street. She kept her face in her hands. I stared at the top of her head, wondering why I wasn’t full of rage or overflowing with anger because she’d kept him from me.

What I felt was an intense pressure in my breastbone, something akin to sadness, longing. Things I couldn’t quite place. After years of feeling like I was on top of the world, I suddenly felt small and lost.

Funny how another person’s actions could make you feel that way. A son. My son. I thought about her pregnant, about Cody Maverick’s hands all over her stomach when it should have been mine. My chest squeezed tighter with each passing second.

“Why would you keep this from me?”

“You’d just gotten married,” she whispered. “What were you going to do? Give it all up because I was pregnant?”

“Yes.”

She shot me a disbelieving look. I didn’t blame her. Thinking back, I probably wouldn’t have given any of it up. Not because I didn’t want to. Deep down, I was just looking for an excuse, something to make me throw in the towel and walk away, chase after her.

“You would have been miserable,” she said. “And you would have blamed your son for it.”

She might as well have slapped me; that was how much her words stung. She thought I’d blame a child for my failures? For not being able to keep my end of the bargain and doing what I’d been molded to do? Maybe she was right. Maybe I was that person, like my father, unable to take responsibility for my own actions without blaming those around me. We continued to stare at each other. She looked cagey, as if she would take out the claws I knew she hid well and strike at any given moment. Despite the pain I felt, I wasn’t about to stand down.

“Am I that horrible?” I whispered. “That you wouldn’t think I’d at least want to know that I fathered a child?”

“This isn’t about you.” She wiped the tears that continuously streamed down her face. “I swear it isn’t.”

“Then who is it about?” I shouted. “You’ve kept this secret for three fucking years. Does my brother know?”

“He just found out,” she whispered. “He didn’t know.”

“Bullshit!”

“I swear he didn’t know. No one knows.”

My eyes narrowed. Bullshit. The kid looked just like me. I didn’t believe for one second my brother didn’t know. He’d obviously been in the child’s life all this time. I wondered if he’d been there for his first cry and his first laugh. His first word. I wondered how many firsts he’d accomplished. The kid knew French, so it was clear he’d accomplished a lot more than I could conjure in two seconds. It wasn’t as if I knew anything about toddlers, but that kid was clearly brilliant.

I had a son. A smart, adorable, son named Miles. And the woman I had dreamed of every night since the day I let her go had kept him from me. I pinched the bridge of my nose.

“I can’t believe this.”

“Sam just found out, and I asked him not to tell you,” she whispered.

“Why?”

“Because I needed time to figure out how I would do it,” she said, her voice shaking with each word she spoke. She shut her eyes as if looking at me while saying this was becoming unbearable for her.

“Why didn’t you tell me, Tessa?”

“You made it pretty clear you wanted nothing to do with me the day we saw each other in the courthouse. I gave you my heart on a platter and you tossed it out the window.”

“That doesn’t mean—”

“You changed your phone number!” She continued, her voice breaking with each word. “I called and you’d changed it.”

I had. I’d changed it because I didn’t want the temptation of her voice to lure me away from my goals and in turn mess up hers. Still. She had a fucking son. My son. And kept him from me.

“I saw you,” I argued. “I saw you twice. You had the chance to tell me in person.”

“When? Before or after you stopped holding your wife’s hand and parading her around the building like she was made of glass? Should I have told you in front of her? Made a family meeting out of it?”

“So instead of trying to find the right time you shut me out of his life?”

“What difference would it have made? You married the devil your mother hates me—” She exhaled shakily. “Do you really think I’d trust either of those women in a room with Miles unless I was there?”

“What about me?” I asked loudly. “You could have trusted me.”

“How?” she whispered. I swallowed the blow the word brought with it.

“We could have—” I breathed out, running a hand through my hair. “Jesus, Tessa.”

“I know it’s a lot to take in, but this is my son, and I need to do what’s best for him.”

“Meaning leaving me out of his life.”

“Meaning leaving anyone who isn’t good for him out of his life. It isn’t about you! It’s about people around you, like your wife, who posts pictures of herself on Instagram that clearly show lines of coke in the background. That isn’t the kind of environment I want my son around.”

My jaw clenched. “She is not my wife.”

“You said you’re in the process of getting a divorce, which means she still is.”

“She won’t be my wife much longer and you have known all along that it has been a marriage of convenience.”

“It doesn’t matter what it was or what it wasn’t. She lives with you. She shares a bed with you. A life with you. I don’t want her anywhere near my son.”

I didn’t bother to tell her that she was wrong, that we didn’t live together and hadn’t shared a bed for the majority of our marriage. “So, what am I supposed to do? Forget this conversation happened and move on?”

“Until the divorce is final, yes.”

“You can’t be serious.” I stared at her. Her expression was set and unwavering. She was being dead serious. “That can take months.”

She shrugged, looking away as if to say it wasn’t her problem. Beneath the sadness and self-loathing, rage finally simmered.

“I can file for custody,” I said. “He’s my son.”

“Is he?” Her eyes flared. “You’d have to prove that he is, which would mean convincing a court to grant you a paternity test. Is that what you want to do to your son?”

“If it’s what it takes.”

“What it takes for what, Rowan?” she raised her voice. “You’re on top of the world. You have it all. What could you possibly want from us?”

A family.

It was the first thought that came to mind. I wasn’t even sure what a family entailed, but I wanted one—a real one, and I wanted it with her. I couldn’t say that because it wasn’t the time and definitely not the place. Tessa was on the defense as it was.

“I want my son.”

Her bottom lip trembled. She bit it and glanced away. “I need time.”

“Time? You’ve had nothing but time. I have time to make up for.”

“I can’t just spring this on him.” Her bewildered gaze met mine. “You can’t just waltz up here and claim him as yours. Why do you think I didn’t show up at your doorstep?”

“Because the thought of seeing another woman holding his hand blinded you from reality.”

Her hand came up in a quick thunderous move I didn’t see coming until the sting of the slap made my face turn. I brought my hand up and glared at her, taking a deep breath to calm myself.

“Don’t you dare accuse me of being jealous. You don’t have a clue what I’ve been through and given up in order to keep Miles safe.”

“I saw you when you were pregnant. I saw Cody Maverick rubbing your stomach like Miles was his.” My throat closed again. My face stung beneath the palm of my hand, and I continued to glare at her. “Do you know how it feels to know that all of these men have been in my son’s life? All this time?”

“I’m sorry,” she whispered, blinking away tears.

“Sorry?” I squeezed my eyes shut. “I hurt you when I sent you away. I hurt myself that day, too, trust me. But this, Tess?” I looked at her again. “This is the worst kind of pain I’ve ever felt.”

I closed my eyes again and focused on my breathing.

“I need to calm down and I can’t do that with you standing in front of me.” I needed to get away from her, from this street, from wandering eyes . . . and everything. I said as much and walked away.