“That’s where we differ. Even knowing what happened after that, I still wouldn’t take it back. Ayla saved my life. I went to the hospital because I suffered from hyperemesis gravidarum. I couldn’t even keep water down, and I became incredibly dehydrated. Without that, I may have never found the right time to tell anyone about my mother’s abuse. I would’ve never gotten out from beneath her and come to live with my dad. So regardless of what happened or how…she saved me. And she’s a part of you. So in some tiny way, you fulfilled that promise. I have not one single part of me that would take that back if given the opportunity.”

“That’s fantastic, Bree. I’m really fucking happy that it all worked out for you. My daughter saved your life, while mine fell apart. But that’s neither here nor there. Once again, we were fucked by circumstance. However, none of that excuses your lies—I’m sorry…omission of the truth. You had so many chances to tell me. Yet you chose not to. You chose to keep her from me.”

“I needed time to work it out!” she screamed in my face, clearly out of patience. “I never thought I’d see you again, Axel. How was I supposed to know you’d show up in the same town I’ve lived in for six years? How was I supposed to know you’d wind up a kindergarten teacher? How could I have possibly guessed that Ayla’s teacher would’ve had a heart attack and you’d fill in for her? These things don’t happen in real life! I never needed to figure out how to tell you because I never thought I’d have the chance. So fucking forgive me for not knowing how to handle it!”

“But at some point, Bree”—I drew my face dangerously close to hers, lowing my voice—“you were going to tell me. Once you worked it out. Once you figured out how to let me know that I have a kid. Did you happen to think about my reaction then? Do you honestly think that had Ayla not spilled the beans, and I heard it from your mouth instead, it would’ve made this better?”

“I don’t know!” She shoved at my chest, knocking me back a few steps, and stormed across the room. “I was completely caught off guard, Axel. I mean, I woke up in your freaking living room for crying out loud. I was hung over and in shock of seeing you again. I didn’t think the salad dressing aisle at the super market made a good place to confess that sort of thing. And the next time I saw you, you were sitting with her! What do you expect?”

“Okay, fine. I admit you were taken by surprise. But what about at the hospital? What about after we came back here? We sat on your bed and talked about her. I asked you about her father. We made love. Why not then?”

“You mean when I was worried about my dad?”

I let out a frustrated grunt. “You didn’t seem so worried about him when you were naked beneath me.”

“Fuck you!”

Another thought shot to the forefront of my mind, causing me to ask it before giving it much thought. “You were more than okay having sex without a condom, letting me come inside you. How sure are you that I’m her father? Her last name is Bailey. Where did that come from?”

“Are you fucking kidding me right now? I’ve had sex twice in my life…both times have been with you. I wasn’t lying when I said I hadn’t slept with anyone since the time I got pregnant with Ayla. You were inside me…how loose was I, Axel?”

The room began to spin, causing me to sit on the couch before falling over. Just the thought of her remaining innocent for six years, while I went out in search of that feeling again with other women, made me sick to my stomach. She’d truly only given herself to me. And I couldn’t help but feel as though I’d let her down in some way, regardless if it had been unintentional.

“You didn’t seem to mind fucking me without a condom, either. So don’t you dare point your hypocritical finger at me and call me a slut.” Her voice was loud, anger and offense burning hot in her words.

I sat on the couch, my head turned toward her, needing to see her eyes. “Then explain her last name. Why isn’t it Jacobs…or Taylor?”

“I told my dad that I couldn’t get ahold of her father. I knew who he was, but he moved shortly after I got pregnant, and I didn’t know how to find him. He told me to put his name down on the birth certificate anyway. That way, if he ever showed up, it would be less of a fight to get him to contribute. I didn’t want to list your name, because I didn’t want you to get in trouble. I’d told the school that we were never intimate, and I worried what would happen if they found out. I was trying to protect you.”

“So what name did you use?” I don’t think I blinked the entire time she spoke.

“I just made one up. I told the nurses that I knew his name but none of his information. And that I couldn’t get ahold of him to find out his birthplace or any of the stuff I needed. They said to just put down what I knew.”

Numbly, I stood up and stalked toward her. “So your family doesn’t know?”

She shook her head slowly. “My dad has no idea. He found out about you after he came to get me, and didn’t have anything nice to say. He didn’t get it. He thought you were some pervert preying on a child, so I couldn’t tell him the baby was yours. He asked me when he found out, but I told him no. Sarah, on the other hand, she knows. We had to share a room since we’re almost the same age, and so we talked a lot. I told her all about you, about what we had, and how it all ended. She’s the one that told me to make up a name. So I did.”

“Your lies have no bounds, do they?”

Her eyes widened, burning bright with shock and indignation. “I did it to protect you!”

“You did it to protect yourself!” My outburst stunned me, realizing that protecting her had been my number one goal all those years ago. All I wanted was for her to be safe, and she’d done just that. But the resentment took hold, overpowering logic in my mind, and wouldn’t let me fully process it all.

“Are you kidding me? What did I possibly have to lose by naming you the father? Nothing! The school and my dad already viewed me as a victim. Knowing you had sex with me and impregnated me would only justify that claim.”

Back when she was my student, I’d always had a fear that I would be seen as the monster. That no one would understand how I felt about her. I wasn’t some middle-aged man, looking for a teenager fresh out of puberty. In fact, I wasn’t looking for anyone. I’d just started my career, happy to be doing what I loved—teaching. I’d never even dated a girl more than two years younger than me before meeting Bree. Hell, I was young myself. I was only twenty-four. Yet I knew, no matter how old I was, how old Aubrey was, and regardless of our relationship, I’d be deemed the bad guy. Having the school view me in such a manner was one thing, but to be seen as a pervert by her father bothered me. I had my own opinions of the man after learning how he’d skipped out on her when she was younger, and it only recently got better when she told me how he came after her, and the life he’d given her since…but I didn’t like knowing that he’d condemned me before knowing anything about me.

“Did you think of me at all? Did you wonder for even one second how having a kid would affect me? How having a child—with you of all people—and not knowing about her…how that would’ve affected me?”

“Every damn day,” she said, nearly breathless. “But there was nothing I could’ve done about it. Think about it for a second, Axel. You thought I ratted you out to the school. I thought you didn’t come back for me because you’d gotten what you wanted. I thought you turned your back on me, and you thought I stabbed you in yours. You disappeared, and so did I. How in the world do you expect things to be different when you put all of that against us?”

She had a point, and I had to concede. “Fine. I get it. Once again, circumstances ripped us apart. It’s never going to end, Bree. I fell in love with a seventeen-year-old student, and because of that, everything fell to pieces. We were doomed from the beginning. But that doesn’t take away the fact that I have a daughter. We may never be together, we may never get our shit straight when it comes to us…but I have a kid. And you won’t take that away from me again.”