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My phone was already in my hand, Winter’s contact pulled up before I stepped away from the desk to stare at the automatic double doors leading back to where patients were treated. My first call went unanswered. Grinding my teeth, I texted her.

Jackson: I’m in the waiting room. I need to see you immediately.

I then paced, arms folded, waiting.

Would she come out?

I’d wait all night if I had to.

Instead, she kept me waiting no longer than a few minutes. Her scornful look burned holes into me from twenty paces. Crooking her finger, she marched to the sliding doors leading to the parking lot.

“I cannot believe you,” she muttered once we were outside, whirling on me. It hadn’t been more than half an hour since she left the hotel, but she could have been through a war between then and now. Hollow-eyed, red-nosed, bloodshot. “How dare you show up here?”

“I was concerned.” Now, looking at her, some of my fury cooled. She wasn’t the woman who left me hanging minutes after we’d both finished coming. She was a haunted, stressed mother who’d been crying since before she left for the hospital. “How is he?”

“He picked up the bug that’s going around.” She scrubbed her fists over her eyes, deepening the shadows left by her smudged makeup. “So stupid. I should’ve been more careful. I tried to be, I swear I did.”

My arms ached to wrap around her. I’d never seen her so broken, hurting, or lost. Would she let me if I tried? “These things happen. People get sick.”

“But he’s in there, and he needs me, and there I was…” She hung her head. “There I was with you. I have responsibilities.”

“I wish you had told me.”

A shuddering sigh rolled through her. She wrapped her arms around herself, hanging her head. “I didn’t feel it was necessary. Now I need to get back to him.”

When she pivoted on her heel, I took hold of her arm, making her groan.

“Wait,” I urged.

“Jackson, please? Just please let me go?” Her voice. Fuck, it was so small, so shaky, full of desperation. “Do I have to ask for security to come out and help me?”

“Is he mine?” Sliding my hand down her arm until reaching her wrist, I felt the way her pulse raced under my fingers. It only hardened my determination. “Tell me the truth. Is that my son in there?”

Staring at the ground, she gave her head a slight shake. “No. He’s not.”

“Look me in the eye and tell me that,” I gritted out. My pulse raced out of control, my head thumping. “Tell me.”

“I…” Her shoulders heaved in a silent sob before she looked me in the eye and blurted out, “I couldn’t tell you! All right? I couldn’t. Now, please, I have to be with him.”

My son.

My son was in there.

The son I never knew I had.

A piece of me had existed in the world for three years without my knowledge. She had kept him from me. I was reeling, swaying on my feet, my connection with her the only thing keeping me tethered to the earth.

“But why?” I demanded, still holding onto her arm. “Why the hell couldn’t you tell me I had a son? You were pregnant when you left, weren’t you? You had to be. Did you know? Did it ever occur to you to tell me so I could…” What? What would I have done? I could say whatever I wanted now, years later, but what would I have thought then?

She knew it, too, her head bobbing. “Right. Exactly right. We weren’t serious, Jackson. We were having fun. What would you have done if you knew I was pregnant?”

We weren’t serious? Her casual comment pulled me up short. Had I ever told her how I felt? Shit, had I ever admitted it to myself? No, I was a coward, a child wearing the body of a grown man, telling myself she understood what I didn’t have the courage to admit. I hadn’t understood what I lost until she was gone.

Okay, I couldn’t blame her for having the wrong idea, but there was plenty more to chew her out over. “For fuck’s sake, why didn’t you at least tell me? Would it have been that bad? No, you fled the fucking country instead. Was I ever cruel?”

“What?”

“Was I ever cruel to you, dammit?”