The Billionaire's Secret Mistress

Three months after my ex-boyfriend and I broke up, I posted a pregnancy test on social media, set so only he could see it.

The next second, his call came right behind it. "Whose is it?"

"Not yours, that's for sure." I played it light.

I hung up without mercy and blocked him.

That night, the man crossed more than four hundred miles, travel-worn, and showed up at my door.

His eyes were bloodshot, like he wanted to tear me apart and swallow me whole.

In bed, he was worse, driving into me like a man gone mad.

"Whose is it? Who gave you the right to have another man's baby?"

"Does he know you used to be mine?"

My eyes stung, the hurt rising in my chest, and I was secretly savoring it, this loss of control, this jealousy of his, when Dennis Farley calmly pulled back.

Every trace of feeling drained out of his eyes.

"Barbara Winfield, we're done here."

"I'm getting married."

1

"Who is she?"

Resentment, humiliation, hurt...

Every emotion surged up at once. My face went white, the cold climbing from the soles of my feet.

The only answer was the click of Dennis's lighter.

In that flicker of light and dark, I stared at the wrecked bed, my nose aching.

Back then, the reason we broke up was because I pushed him to marry me.

To avoid marrying me, Dennis had chosen to break up instead.

How laughable, that now he was telling me he was going to marry someone else.

My mouth opened, but the words I'd prepared wouldn't come, not one of them.

That pregnancy test was only my way of knocking on his door, of testing him.

There was no baby. I'd gone to the hospital and bought a doctored one off another pregnant woman.

I'd thought, as long as he still cared, as long as he came, we still had a chance.

And he came, all right. But not to get back together.

"Go wash up. It's still early, you can sleep a while more."

I don't know how the man in front of me got those words out.

"If we're done, then there's no reason to stay together." I made it plain I wanted him gone.

Dennis's brow drew together, something dark moving through his deep eyes.

He said nothing. He just lifted me up against my will, carried me into the bathroom, and washed me down with practiced ease.

Before, when I was tired, I used to nuzzle up to him and get him to wash me.

Back then Dennis was as easy about it as he was in bed, grumbling that he didn't want to, and every time washing me clean anyway.

"Congratulations." Through the patter of the water, I heard my own near-choked, false congratulations.

"What?"

The water drowned it out. Dennis hadn't caught it.

I only felt the humiliation, and I didn't want to say it again. I just shoved him out of the bathroom.

When I came out, I'd thought he would already be gone, but he was standing by the window, smoking.

Dennis watched me come out, reached over to put the cigarette out, and waved the smell of smoke from the room.

"I'll watch you fall asleep. Once you're out, I'll go." He got the words out before I could send him away.