Chapter 31 #2
Poppy felt herself starting to hyperventilate. She wasn’t sure why her breathing was suddenly unregulated, it just was. She stood and tried to slow it down, inhaling through her nose and exhaling through her mouth as she paced back and forth.
She tried to breathe. Her lungs weren’t cooperating.
It was like she’d forgotten how to do it, like her body’s autopilot had suddenly switched off and she had to remember each step.
Inhale through the nose. Exhale through the mouth.
She paced back and forth, wearing a groove in the rug.
She tried to slow the rising panic with facts, but the facts were a mess: her name, Deacon, “the others,” AJ’s discretion, and a baby about to enter the world with more secrets than a cold war defector.
Was “the others” a code for someone watching them?
She replayed every conversation she’d ever had with both men, searching for a clue she’d missed, a tone of voice, or a slip of the tongue that would explain any of this.
Every time, she came up empty. She began to imagine worst-case scenarios with the relentless creativity of the truly anxious.
Was Deacon blackmailing AJ? No. Was AJ blackmailing Deacon? No.
She wasn’t sure how long she’d been walking back and forth gasping for air when AJ appeared.
“What’s wrong?” he rushed to her. “Do I need to call an ambulance?” He grabbed his phone from the end table. “Do I need to take you to the hospital?”
“No.” She shook her head back and forth and pointed to his phone. “I saw it. The text. What identity? Who is he? What others?” She managed to get out between pants.
AJ looked down at his device and then back up at her. “Are you okay?” he asked, ignoring her question.
“No!” she shouted. “Who is he?!”
“Your brother,” AJ stated flatly.
“My…” Her knees went weak, and she lowered herself down onto the couch. “…what?”
AJ sat beside her. “Your brother.”
“No. What? How? His parents are the St. Claires, they’re…” Poppy was trying to articulate what she wanted to say, but she wasn’t sure how to put it into words.
“Rich. Affluent,” AJ offered.
“Yes and yes.” Poppy waited for AJ to say more, when he didn’t, she said, “So they’re not his parents, or did Rachel St. Claire…?”
Poppy’s dad had a very specific type, her own mom, Celeste, and Teresa all looked like they could be related, sisters even.
They had dark hair, large blue eyes, and very delicate features.
Rachel St. Claire was blonde, had fair skin, with sharp features, and she was…
well, old. But who knows, maybe her dad found the money attractive.
It’s not like Poppy actually knew her father all that well.
“Rachel is not Deacon’s mother. Not his biological mother.”
“Who is?”
“Selma Montez. She worked for the St. Claires.”
“Let me guess: attractive, petite, dark hair, and light eyes?”
AJ didn’t respond to her question, but she could see that she’d nailed it.
“But…why didn’t he say anything?”
“He said he wanted to get to know you all first, before he told you all who he was.”
Poppy wasn’t sure if it was the pregnancy hormones or if she was just emotional because of the situation with her and AJ, but she didn’t feel like she had the emotional stamina to deal with this right now.
All she could think about was poor Teresa.
First she and her mom showed up at her dad’s funeral.
Then a couple years after that, Liam emailed.
And now this. How many more bastards did Michael Davies have roaming the country, or maybe it was an international thing?
Did she have half-siblings around the globe?
“So Tabitha is my…”
“Your niece. Yes.”
Poppy felt her fingertips go numb. The world was moving around her, but everything inside her stilled, like her blood had flashed over to ice.
“How long have you known?” she asked, not able to hide the feeling of betrayal that was sinking into her bones.
“I found out on Thanksgiving.”
She shot off the couch like she was ejected from a booster seat. “You’ve known who he was for a week, and you haven’t told me?”
He remained silent.
“How? How did you find out?!”
“When I met Deacon at your door the night he checked on you after your emergency room visit something felt off to me. So I had asked a friend to check him out. I could have done it myself, in less than an hour I could have known everything, but that felt wrong to me because it was personal. I was only looking into him because of you. So, I told Alex to only share his information with me if whatever was off with him pertained to you. He got busy, and it took him a few weeks to get the job done.”
“So you’ve known for a week?!” She still couldn’t believe he hadn’t told her.
“Yes.”
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
“It wasn’t my place to tell you,” he stated flatly, coldly, like it was a legal disclaimer.
Hearing him say those words was a literal punch in the gut.
She felt her stomach drop, her chest cave in, and her body contract around the ache like she’d been hit with blunt force.
Her eyes stung with emotion. “Not your place to tell me? I’m the…
” the mother of your child. She couldn’t finish those words, not to him.
For once she thought she had the special relationship, that she would be the person someone would be loyal to.
That she would be the person someone else prioritized, the one who came first, not the afterthought.
But here it was again, even the man who shared her bed and her unborn child’s DNA was more loyal to a stranger than to her.
She could feel the old bitterness swelling up, like a childhood fever.
Her throat clogged with emotion, she swallowed it down.
Don’t cry. Don’t give him the power of seeing you cry.
She turned on her heel and stalked to the door, every step a rebuke.
Her body was clenched and rigid, running on stubbornness and adrenaline.
She yanked open the door, ready to slam it behind her, but AJ was there, moving faster than she’d expected, blocking her escape route with a suddenness that made her flinch.
“Where are you going?” he asked.
“I told Frankie I’d help her set up for the wedding tomorrow. I’m staying at Liam’s tonight.”
“No,” he said, his voice soft and hoarse, like the word cost him something.
She glared at him, but he didn’t back down.
“What?” she demanded, arms folded over her chest, as if she could physically shield herself from the next blow.
“You said we need to talk.”
“I don’t want to talk now.” Her voice came out clipped and curt.
“I’m going to Frankie’s. I told her I’d help set up for the wedding tomorrow.
I’m staying at Liam’s tonight,” she repeated, hearing how petulant she sounded and hating herself for it, but also not caring.
She was tired of being the one who was fine being left out, who let things slide.
He reached for her arm—not rough, just enough to keep her from leaving—and she felt a flare of panic at the contact, as if she were being handcuffed to the moment. His hand was warm, his grip gentle but unyielding. “Please. Stay.”
They were two simple words, but she could hear how foreign they were to him, how close to pleading.
AJ didn’t beg. He didn’t even ask. But still, she couldn’t do it.
Couldn’t trust herself to not say something she’d regret forever or to keep the tears from falling.
Maybe she was overreacting. There was a very good chance her ‘daddy issues’ and the void being the child of the ‘other woman’ had left in her were sabotaging this moment. Still, she had to leave.
“I can’t.” Her voice was small and final. She pulled out of his grasp and left, her footsteps echoing on the porch, each step hammering the decision in place.
When the door clicked shut behind her, it was like a punctuation mark on something irreversible. It felt like a metaphor of the door shutting on them.