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“And what mistake would that be?” He lifts my chin with two of his fingers.
“Well, you don’t think we’re getting married now, do you?”
“You’re carrying my child.”
“This is not the Gilded Age. I can raise a baby on my own.”
“Not my baby.”
“Watch me.”
“Megan, you’ve misunderstood the situation. You can’t just bail every time we disagree. That’s not how this works. We’re committed to each other, and we’re bringing another human being into the world based on that commitment.”
“I will not marry and raise a child with a man who doesn’t trust me.”
“Trust goes both ways, and I never said I thought you were fucking Parker, but you are holding back something from me. That I know.”
“What do you want to know!” I exclaim, angry tears streaming down my face. “For fuck’s sake, let’s just get it over with.”
“Did Parker hurt you?”
“No! Never.”
“Was he there in Arizona to help you?”
My eyes immediately drop.
“Not exactly.”
Hunter runs a few paper towels underneath some warm water from the kitchen faucet and uses them to tenderly wipe my face clean.
“Then why?”
We sit on the couch, and I calm down long enough to explain how I wiggled out of the motel bathroom window, away from Mr. Fabre's henchman, and ran into Parker during my escape. I tell him the deal Parker supposedly made with Mr. Fabre and how it momentarily impaired his judgment.
“He was never going to take me back to them. He was going to call you and tell you where to come and get me. He was just mustering up the courage to do it when you miraculously walked inside that rest stop.”
“This could have ended much differently,” Hunter says with a tinge of regret in his voice.
“What do you mean?”
“All he had to do was tell me that he needed the money.”
“He didn’t know he could ask you that. He’s your driver, not your friend.”
“He could have asked Lars.”
“I don’t think it was a thought-out plan. I think he saw an opportunity and, in the heat of the moment, said yes. He didn’t know that I was going to be involved.”
“But, Megan, he knew I would be.”
I pause for a moment to consider Hunter’s words and I have no logical response to them. Anything else I say at this point would be an excuse, so I simply say, “Just forgive him.”
“It’s too late.”
“What does that mean?”
“It means we’re past the point of forgiveness.”