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“Liar,” I said softly, the word filled with venom. “You looked scared every time she and I exchanged words.” The words seemed to come together in my mind even as I spoke them. “You always suspected she’d try to hurt me.”

He still couldn’t look at me. “I was worried she’d do something malicious, something to fuck with your head, but please believe me when I say that I never knew she was capable of this.” He sounded like he was choking on the words when he added, “My father was always right about her.”

I had no reason to trust him or my reactions where he was concerned, but somehow I could taste his sincerity in the pain etched all over him and I did believe. It help eased at least some of my pain. Enough that I could catch my breath enough to say, “I guess that’s why she’s been leaving your place at all hours lately.” I paused. “To discuss my attack?”

He looked like he was about to be ill. “In part. Listen, she won’t hurt you again. I have a lot of dirt on her, things she’d never want to get out. And if there’s one thing I know about her, it’s that she’s self-obsessed enough to keep quiet when her vanity’s on the line.”

Well, that, coupled with my doubled security, was at least somewhat reassuring. The fact that she’d never face real justice? Less so.

“There’s more,” he said suddenly in a stricken voice.

I felt the blow coming like a shift in the air. It was heavier with his grief. Even so, I still wasn’t braced for what he said next.

“She’s pregnant.”

“She’s what?” My mind couldn’t deal with what had just come out of his mouth. It took a while for me to grasp it, for my brain to absorb it.

I studied him, feeling a little numb.

As with any fresh, deep wound, there was too much blood to see the cut.

He looked so wretched that I almost wanted to comfort him. Almost. That instinct battled with something building inside of me, something stronger than the urge to nurture.

It was the urge to hurt.

No. I didn’t want to comfort him.

I wanted to hurt him.

And I never wanted to touch him again.

I took three steps back.

He stood, and took one step forward, but the look on my face stopped him there. He took a very deep breath. “Fatima’s pregnant,” he said the words like a sickness being purged out of him.

“Is it yours?” I barely choked the question out.

He flinched and shrugged. “We don’t know yet. There’s a chance that it’s mine, and a chance it’s her husband’s. Either way, he’s left her. God, I don’t know why she wasn’t on the fucking pill. She’s never wanted kids. It makes no sense.”

My hands were tingling, but my body felt a little numb. My mind was following suit. “It makes perfect sense. She did it to keep you.”

He blinked rapidly, like he wanted to weep.

“How far along?” I asked.

“Three months.”

I hadn’t realized until just that moment what a fool I was. I’d always been aware that it was very unlikely he was faithful to our sham wedding vows, but right then, I realized that I’d always had some kind of pitiful, ridiculous, hopeless wish that I was wrong. I’d been shooting for the moon with that one.

“How likely do you think it is that it’s yours?” My voice came out surprisingly composed for that bit of desperation.

“Frankly not very. I always used condoms. She claims that one of them broke. I don’t remember it, but I was very drunk that time, so it isn’t impossible.”

All my mind snagged on was the fact that it had happened more than once, had happened so often that he’d forgotten the time in question.

I took another step back.

I never wanted look at him again.