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“Pregnant?”
Piper nodded. Her heart was pounding, and she could feel her hands shaking against her growing belly. She looked at a wide-eyed Erik. “Yes.”
“You’ve been to the doctor? It’s a baby, right? Not like cancer?”
She blinked a few times. Was he serious?
“Yes, a baby, not cancer. Why the heck would you think that? I’m twenty-three weeks.”
“Twenty-three weeks,” he whispered as his eyes fell back to where her hands rested. “With my baby.”
Piper looked up at him again; she could see that he was freaking out. She had been doing the same thing since she had found out. She had no clue what she’d expected from this conversation, but it sure wasn’t going the way she had hoped it would.
“Yes,” she answered.
“Are you sure?”
Piper looked up at Erik incredulously. How dare he ask that?
“Yes, you’re the only one I’ve been with. For months and even longer than that.”
He stood there, his hands holding his waist so tight that she could see the white of his knuckles. Not that she was really paying attention to his knuckles, since he was only wearing boxers, for goodness sakes! Even with the severity of the situation, she couldn’t help the fact that her body still sung for him. It didn’t make sense and she hated herself for it. This man had dumped her, then had not even answered her calls or acknowledged her existence for the last six months. How dare he steal her heart and run. Then, he has the gall to question her about the paternity of their child?
A-hole!
“I’m not a liar, Erik. I may be a lot of things, but a liar is not one of them,” she said, her body heating with anger.
“I never said you were. Excuse me for being a little freaked-out right now; it’s a little much for me to take. I mean, you pop in here and say, ‘Hey I’m pregnant. Oh, and by the way, it’s yours.’ “
“How do you think I feel? I’m freaked-out, too, but I’ve kept this quiet long enough. I’m starting to show. I’ve got decisions I need to make and I need to know if you want to be part of them.”
When she looked up, he was looking at where their child was growing. If he was to put his hand on her stomach, he would have been able to feel the baby move. Not that she was going to suggest that; she couldn’t even imagine him touching her right now, or ever again for that matter. She might be irritated, but there was no denying the sexual attraction she had for Erik Titov, even if he had broken her heart.
“I can’t believe this,” he muttered, running his hand through his hair. “Why did you wait so long to tell me?”
Piper held a finger up as she said, “I did try calling you, but you never called me back and I figured if you wanted to talk to me you’d call.”
“I’ve been busy. Leave me a message if it was that urgent! Also, I saw you like four months ago; you could have told me then.”
Piper said heatedly, “Oh, when I was puking my brains out? Yeah, I didn’t feel like talking.”
“There is no reason to be a pissy,” he deadpanned as he pinned her with a look.
“Oh, I’m sorry, let me be happy that I came here as you question the paternity of my child,” she said, crossing her arms.
This was going so bad. In a perfect world, Piper would have told him about the baby and Erik would have wrapped his arms around her, kissing the stuffing out of her, then ask her to marry him, and after this baby was born, they would have at least five more. It wasn’t as if she was truly expecting that, but she was expecting him to at least be a bit more compassionate. Nope, instead she gets Erik doubting if the baby is his.
“Um, excuse me, but for six months you’ve kept the fact that you are pregnant with my alleged child! How do I know that you didn’t get knocked up by some other guy and now you are trying to pin it on me because that guy ran out on you?”
Oh, she was going to kill him. She was going to murder her child’s father.
