Page 75 of Malicious Marriage
Should I tell him? Will it make everything else I’ve lied about forgivable?
Shaking my head, I try to clear my thoughts. Hailey first. Dean and the baby later. That’s my plan. I just have to find one thing, one tiny detail or lead about Hailey, and everything else will fall into place. I run through every tidbit of dead info we’ve collected over the past month, in case I’ve missed anything, while wandering slowly through the manor.
Which immediately derails into silence when I walk into the kitchen.
Dean sits next to the island counter shrouded in darkness, illuminated by the light from the glass-fronted fridge. His head is low, his shoulders bunched in a tight arc, and he clasps a glass half-filled with amber liquid.
Something is wrong.
“Dean?”
He doesn’t react to my voice. His head remains down and his arm moves rigidly as he slowly takes a drink and drains the glass.
The last time we spoke was yesterday when Trisha went into labor, but I heard nothing since. Not that I expected to.I can’t imagine how scary labor is, never mind worrying about that on top of all the things with the Russians. I think back to Jack, trying to decide if how he was acting was a clue to what happened, but Jack seemed normal.
Or he was hiding it.
I slowly step into the kitchen and approach, despite my instinct telling me to leave him alone. He’s a quiet man who seems to process things himself, but it just doesn’t feel right to leave without showing him I’m here to listen.
“Dean?” I say again, stopping next to the stool beside Dean. “Is everything alright?”
He lifts his glass to drink but it’s empty, so all he does is grunt. As his arm moves, I spot the nearly empty bottle of scotch next to him.
Shit.
“Did something happen to the baby?” My mind immediately runs away with itself, concocting all sorts of horror scenarios about what could have gone wrong with the birth. I’m about to lose myself in a spiral ofwhat-ifswhen Dean finally speaks.
“The baby…”
“Yeah… Trisha’s baby. Is everything… okay?”
“Sure,” he mutters. “Sure. Mom and baby are fine.”
I sense a but coming. “But?”
“It was a little girl,” he continues, and his voice breaks faintly. “An adorable little girl, actually. All wide blue eyes and a mop of dark hair. Nurse told me babies born with hair often lose it not long after, but it was nice to see.”
I’ve never known Dean to dance around a topic, but there’s something he can’t say and I have a growing realization of what it might be.
“The—” He chokes briefly and clears his throat with a cough. “The baby isn’t mine.”
Shit.
“Are you sure?” Feels like a dumb thing to say, but knowing what Trisha has pulled in the past, I need to make sure this isn’t a trick.
He nods. “She might have fucking dodged all my demands for a paternity test when she was still pregnant, claiming she didn’t want to harm the baby and shit. But as soon as she was born, it was easy, and I know how to expedite these things. I paid for my own fucking bad news.”
I expect him to be angry, but Dean sounds painfully deflated. Despite all the pain and cruelty Trisha put him through, he was genuine about his care for that child. A child that isn’t even his. My lips part to speak, but Dean carries on.
“She knew from the beginning. You know, she told me she fell pregnant with me after we were out drinking and celebrating. I didn’t remember drinking much but I got so drunk I blacked out. Turns out she put something in my drink so she could claim we slept together because sheknewI would never touch her again.”
“Oh, my God…”
“But she always knew the baby belonged to Conor. Apparently, he has a thing for crazy chicks and didn’t mind that she threatened to skin him alive if he looked at another woman. He dug it, actually. Until she fell pregnant and she remembered what her father would do if he found out she’d had a baby with abodyguard. His precious heir who is his key to strengthening the family, knocked up by a nobody.” Dean scoffs dryly. “So I was the fucking fool she roped in instead. An easy target, given our history and how desperate every wretched fucker is for a piece of the Savoy estate.”
My heart breaks for him. There’s not an ounce of anger in his words, just painful defeat and sad understanding that the past nine months with Trisha were nothing but a game for her to save face.
Holy shit.