“Now, I know that it was my baby all along,” he continued. “Alice is my child. I am her father.” He paused a moment. His eyes were on me with aser focus, like he was daring me to deny it.

    I couldn’t.

    “Yes,” I said, lowering my gaze back to the paper. No wonder he had tracked me down all the way out here. “Yes, you are her father.”

    “You didn’t tell me.”

    “No.” I took a steadying breath. “We didn’t leave things in a good ce, you and me. With Olivia pregnant …” I looked everywhere but at his face as I said, “I didn’t think you had any care for me or our child.”

    Julian’s hard fa?ade cracked with surprise. “You really thought that?”

    I remembered being so excited to bring him the news of my pregnancy, but the entire day had turned into a disaster. That day he had chosen Olivia and their unborn child over me and ours.

    What had started with public humiliation had ended with a ne crash that I still had nightmares about.

    “You gave me no indication that you cared for me,” I said.

    It hurt to rehash old arguments, but if not now, then when? Things had been said back then, and those

    words had consequences. Julian should have to see what he’d done before he ced all of the me

    squarely on me.

    “Do you remember what you said?” I asked. “That we were nothing but sex and money? You know what? All the money I needed, I gave it to my grandma. She took care of me when I was just an orphan, and then she got seriously sick. I had nothing back then. But to keep her alive, I was willing to do whatever it took.”

    Julian paled slightly, but he didn’t deny it. He did, remember then. And possibly he still felt that way about our past.

    “I didn’t know that,” his jaw tightened.

    “So what are you here for?”

    “You have our child,” he said, “that’s different.”

    “I tried to tell you so many timesb, /bbut you pushed me away. You used me of trying to make things difficult for Olivia, and then you told me that. It was too much, Julian. Too far. Why would I think you would care for our child when you seemed to want nothing more than to have me out of your life?”

    “I didn’t want that,” he said. “I just told you to go home.”

    “You hid me away…”

    “Being an Alpha isn’t easy,” he said, “I have to think about my reputation–the pack’s reputation.”

    “That’s hypocrisy.”

    “No, this is my responsibility.”

    “Then why are you stilling to me? Just because I became a Healer? Because I have what you need?”

    “No, it’s because…” He ran a hand through his usually neat hair, the rare show of emotion making him uneasy. “Alice. I love Alice, and I don’t want her to be a bastard.”

    “She’s fine without a father.”

    With our voices raised, our emotions heightened, we both stopped and stared at each other.

    This conversation had been long overdue, but now that it was happening, I felt like I was cracking down

    the middle.

    I wasn’t ready for this. I didn’t think I’d ever be ready.

    I wanted him to leave. Leave my office, this town, this pack, my life.

    Yet he stood there stubbornly, just as he was still wedged inside of my heart.

    Damn him, and damn my feelings for him.

    “I want visitation with Alicei,/ii” /ihe said.

    I had no reason to deny him. Julian was the only thing Alice seemed to truly miss from our time in his pack. “Meet me at the dinner on Main Street at 6pm. I will bring Alice.”

    “Which dinner?” he asked, revealing his partiality to city life.

    “There’s only one diner,” I told him.

    He seemed puzzled by that and nodded. “I can trust you not to disappear?”