The Don’s Double Standard: She Vanished with His Child Chapter 05

I wasn’t surprised when Dante showed up with the DNA test results.

The night before, while I was giving Talia a bath, I noticed the way she kept chewing her lip, trying to work up the nerve to say something.

She had something on her mind but didn’t know how to say it.

I didn’t push. Just kept washing her hair.

Finally, in a small voice:

“Mommy, that man was at preschool again today. The one from the car.”

I kept my hands moving, said nothing.

She must have taken my silence for anger, because she started shaking her head and waving her hands frantically.

“He didn’t talk to me! He just looked at me and left, that’s all.”

“You’re not mad, right?”

The worry in her eyes made my chest ache. I let out a breath.

To a kid, parents are the whole world.

Talia’s first word was Mommy.

Her second was Daddy.

But no one ever answered that one.

At three, she started asking why everyone else had a mommy and a daddy, but she only had me.

I didn’t sugarcoat it. I didn’t make up a story about Daddy being far away on some trip. She deserved better than that.

“You have a daddy. He and I just didn’t end up together, and he probably doesn’t even know you’re here.”

“When you’re older, you can find him if you want. You can even live with him. But I can’t promise he’ll want that. Having you without telling him… that was my choice. That’s on me.”

I had shown her a photo of Dante once.

Talia was sharp. Kids remember more than we think.

One look at him outside the preschool, and she knew exactly who he was.

But she didn’t go to him.

…

“Answer me!”

Dante’s voice yanked me back to the present.

I met his eyes without flinching.

“Explain what?”

“How I ended up pregnant? Why I kept her? Or why I looked you in the face and told you she wasn’t yours?”

“If it’s the last one, I did it because I didn’t want the Moretti family breathing down my neck.”

“If it’s the first one, you know exactly how that works. Better than I do.”

The last time we slept together was right around graduation.

Before that night, we hadn’t seen each other in almost a month.
Hadn’t spoken a word.

Not since the car, when I’d asked if he loved me and he answered with a deadline.

Actually, no.

We ran into each other a few times.

Everyone was caught up in graduation, the parties, the drinking, the big talk about what came next.

There was a party every night, and Dante was at the center of all of them.

But he always made time for other things.

Three days before graduation, two weeks after the last time we’d spoken.

I was getting ready for another party with friends. Serena Voss was next to me, tilting a compact mirror, putting on lipstick.

And downstairs, parked right out front, sat the Aston Martin I knew by heart.

That was Dante. He never hid what he did, never worried about who saw or who it hurt.

Serena’s phone buzzed on the table. She snatched it up, and whatever was said on the other end made her smile, slow, sweet, victorious.

She turned away to take the call, but I could still hear his voice through the phone.

I tried not to listen. But the softness in his voice, the same softness he used to save for me, cut right through.

She hung up and turned around. Our eyes met. She caught the look on my face before I could hide it, and her smile widened.

On her way out, she stopped. “You had him to yourself for three years, Clara. You think I wasn’t jealous every single day?”

“Now that it’s over… oh wait, you can’t really call it a breakup, can you? He never claimed you. So don’t look at me like I took something that was yours.”

She clicked her way downstairs in her heels, and she was gone.

My thumb hovered over his name on the screen. I couldn’t make myself press it.

So it was true. We were done.

And me?

I didn’t even get the dignity of hearing it from him. I had to learn it from her.

Tears hit the screen before I even realized I was crying.

My hands were shaking so badly that when I tried to lock the screen, my thumb slipped and hit call instead.

My first instinct was to hang up.

But I didn’t.

Some pathetic, stubborn part of me still hoped.

What if he answered? What if this time was different?

But if he did pick up, then what? Ask if it was really over? Beg him to say it wasn’t?

My hand wouldn’t stop shaking. Every second stretched into something unbearable.

My heart was hammering and sinking at the same time.

I was terrified he’d answer. Even more terrified he wouldn’t.

Two rings later, the call was sent straight to voicemail.

A low ringing filled my ears.

Through the haze, I could hear my own heartbeat, each thud raw and heavy, like something inside me was coming apart.

That afternoon, I packed up my dorm room and was gone before sundown.