One Secret Night, One Secret Baby(27)

“Oh? Isn’t that a good thing, Dylan? It’s what you’ve been hoping for.”

“Sit down, Emma,” he said, his voice ice-cold. He pointed to the sofa and she sat. He poured another shot of alcohol and took a seat opposite her, as if...as if he needed to keep his distance. Her heart pounded now as a sense of dread threatened to overwhelm her. Something was very wrong.

“I remember it all, Emma. The night of the blackout, the call you made to me.”

She nodded and blinked her eyes several times. Dylan’s teeth were gnashing. He had a grip on his temper, but just barely. “I didn’t come for you that night,” he said, looking down at his whiskey glass. “It wasn’t me. It was Roy.”

“What do you mean it was Roy? You came for me. I called you looking for Brooke and you...you—”

He was shaking his head adamantly. “I was drinking with Roy that night. Roy didn’t think I was sober enough to drive. He took my keys out of my hand and picked you up.”

“No, he didn’t.” Emma’s voice registered a higher pitch.

“Yes, he did.”

“But...but...that would mean—” Emma bounced up from the sofa. This wasn’t right. This wasn’t the truth. Dylan had it wrong. It was all wrong. “Dylan, that can’t be true. It can’t be.”

Dylan rose, too, his blue eyes hard and dark as midnight. “It is true. Are you denying it? Are you going to tell me you don’t remember sleeping with Roy?”

“That’s exactly what I’m saying. I didn’t sleep with Roy. I wouldn’t do that.”

Dylan stood firm, poured whiskey down his gullet and swallowed. “But that’s exactly what you did. You slept with Roy, and after he died, you told me the baby was mine.”

“I...uh, oh no! I didn’t. I mean, if I did, I didn’t know it was him. I wouldn’t do that, Dylan. I didn’t lo—”

“Which is it, Emma?” Dylan asked, in a voice she didn’t recognize. He sounded harsh and bitter. “You knew you were screwing Roy, or you didn’t?”

Tears welled in her eyes, the truth slapping her hard in the face, but it was Dylan’s mean-spirited words that hurt the most. How could she come to terms with what Dylan was implying? She thought she was making love to Dylan that night. Even in her drunken state, even as scared as she was, she would’ve never knowingly slept with Roy.

Yet he looked enough like Dylan to fool his fans. And he’d come for her in Dylan’s car. Because of the blackout and her blurry head, it could have been Roy after all. But she never once thought he wasn’t Dylan coming to her rescue.

But Dylan didn’t believe that. And he probably never would.

Her memory sharpened to that night and all the things the man she thought was Dylan had said to dissuade her. You’ve got this wrong. It’s a mistake. Those pleas made sense now, because she wasn’t imploring Dylan to stay with her, it had been Roy all along. Roy who had held her tight and comforted her, Roy who had finally given in when she pressed him to make love to her. No wonder there were differences in Dylan’s lovemaking since that first night. She couldn’t put her finger on it before and blamed it on her drunken state. But now she knew why it had felt different making love to blackout Dylan versus the real deal.

The truth pounded her head. The truth hammered her heart. The truth made her stomach ache.

“I’m carrying Roy’s baby,” she said, her voice flat, monotone, as if saying it out loud would make it sink in. She trembled visibly, her arms going limp, her legs weakening. She wanted so badly to sit back down and pretend this wasn’t happening. But she couldn’t. She mustered her strength, though she bled inside for the life she might have had with Dylan. The bright future she’d only just come to believe in had been snuffed out forever.

She should’ve known her happiness wouldn’t last. When had she really been happy? Only lately, working with Brooke and starting their business. “I can hardly believe this.”

When she lifted her eyes, wondering if there was a way around this, a way to make this right, a way to preserve the goodness that had come from marrying Dylan, she met his hard, glowering stare. He blamed her for all this. He didn’t believe her. He thought she’d betrayed him.

Like Renee.

Nothing was further from the truth, but it didn’t matter. She saw it in the firm set of his jaw. Ice flowed in his veins now. He was convinced she had deceived him.

She faced facts. She wouldn’t be Dylan’s wife much longer. She’d file for an annulment and wouldn’t take a dime of the prenup Dylan’s lawyer insisted she sign. She didn’t want his money. She had only hoped one day to earn his love.

“I’ll pack my things and be gone in the morning, Dylan. Have your attorney contact me. I don’t want anything from you. I’m sorry about this. More than you could ever know.”

“Emma?”

“Don’t worry about me, Dylan,” she said, biting her lip, holding back tears. This news crushed her, but she didn’t want his pity. She’d never wanted anyone’s pity. “I’ll land on my feet, as usual. We both know you only married me because of the baby and now that we know the b-baby isn’t y-yours...” She couldn’t finish her thought. She’d been robbed of the joy of carrying Dylan’s child. She’d love her baby, but now her child would never know its father and never have the love of both parents.

Dylan was quiet for a long time, staring at her. His anger seemed to have disappeared, replaced by something in his eyes looking very much like pain. This wasn’t easy for him, either, but she had no sympathy for him right now. She was in shock, devastated beyond anything she could ever imagine.

“I’ll make sure the baby wants for nothing,” he said.

She shook her head stubbornly. “Please, Dylan...don’t. I really don’t need anything from you. I’ll manage on my own. Goodbye.” She turned away and kept her head high as she made for the door.

“Emma, wait!”

She stopped, her tears flooding her face. She didn’t pivot around. “W-what?”

“I’m...sorry for the way things turned out.”

“I know. I am, too.”

Then she dashed out of the room.

* * *

Dylan sat in his dressing trailer, on the studio lot, feeling uncomfortable in his customized honey wagon, staring at his lines for this evening’s scenes and repeating the words over and over in his mind. Nothing stuck. It was as if he was reading hieroglyphics. He hadn’t been able to concentrate since Emma had packed her bags and left home two days ago. Brooke had told him that Emma had returned to her apartment. She still had time left on her lease. And his ears still burned from his sister’s brutal tongue-lashing that had followed. Brooke had defended Emma and basically called him a jerk for letting her leave that way.

He’d been hard on her. But how on earth could a woman make love to a man and not know who he was? The idea seemed ludicrous to him and yet Brooke had believed her without question and insisted that a man worthy of Emma should have, too. Which told him maybe they weren’t meant to be together. Maybe the marriage had been a mistake all along.

Keep telling yourself that, pal.

He’d tried to convince himself he’d done the right thing in letting her go. He didn’t love Emma. She was a friend, a bed partner and his wife for a little while longer, but he couldn’t deny the reason he’d married her. The only reason he’d married her. He thought she’d been carrying his child and he’d wanted to provide for both of them.

Now the loss seemed monumental. He’d fallen in love with the baby he presumed was his and the notion of fatherhood. He’d begun to see his life differently. Having a family had always been a dream, something he’d wanted sometime in the future.

Now that future was obscure. He was more confused than ever.

He missed Emma. And not just in his bed, though that was pretty spectacular. He missed coming home to her at night, seeing her pretty green eyes and smiles when he walked through the door. He missed the infectious joy on her face when they’d talked about the baby and fixing up the nursery.

All of that was lost to him now.

Someone pounded on the trailer door. He rose from his black leather lounger and peered out the window. It was Jeff, one of his bodyguards. Opening the door, he took a look at the guy’s face and the hand he held over his stomach. “Hey, Jeff. What’s up? You’re not looking too good.”

Which was an understatement. His skin had turned a lovely shade of avocado. “Must’ve been something I ate. I’m sorry, Mr. McKay. I’ve put in for my replacement. He’ll be here in an hour.”

“Don’t worry about it, Jeff. Go home. Do you think you can drive?”

He nodded and the slight movement turned him grass green. “I’ll wait for Dan to get here.”

“No, you won’t. You can barely stand up. You go home and take care of yourself. There’s plenty of security around here. I’ll be fine and the replacement will be here soon. You said so yourself.”

“I shouldn’t.”

“Go. That’s an order.”

Jeff finally nodded. Gripping his stomach, he walked off and then made a mad dash for the studio bathroom. Poor guy.