I pushed the phone toward him.
"Care to explain?"
Brad stared at the screen, at the civil registry that held no record of him and me.
The smile on his face stiffened.
Then slowly drained away.
He let out a long breath and released me.
"Yes. I lied to you."
"Why?"
My voice cracked before I could stop it.
"We had a deal. On the eighteenth anniversary of the day we met, we'd get married!"
Brad's shoulders sagged.
"I never planned to lie to you.
"But the girl has a fierce temper. She refused to be the other woman."
Those soft, heavy-lidded eyes turned to me, full of tenderness.
"I'm sorry, Desi. You've been wronged."
"I knew you first, didn't I?"
He said nothing.
"I was engaged to you first, wasn't I?"
Silence.
"Who is she?"
"Desi..."
"WHO IS SHE!"
Tears spilled down my face with the scream.
He gripped both my shoulders. "Easy. You're carrying a baby. Don't do this to yourself."
"Tell me who she is!"
I shoved him away, sobbing.
He faltered for a moment.
Then shook his head. "I can't."
"You want to protect her that badly?"
A bitter laugh tore out of me. "Afraid I'll show up at her door?"
"Desi."
Brad's voice went cold.
It was the tone he only used before stepping into a fight, a warning carved from ice.
"If you accept things the way they are, we can go on like this. The two of us.
"But if you insist on finding her...
"I'm sorry. Even you will pay the price for that."
I couldn't believe what I was hearing. "Brad!"
He picked up the jacket he'd just taken off.
"You're too worked up tonight. Cool down on your own. I'll come see you tomorrow."
"Are you going to your wife?"
His footsteps stopped.
He turned.
"Desi, you're crossing a line."
His Rolls-Royce pulled away without a backward glance.
I laughed.
Crossing a line.
I was the one whose line had been crossed.
Three months pregnant.
Which meant that girl had conceived at the same time I did.
The next morning I got dressed, put myself together, and walked into Brad's martial arts studio.
Two Rolls-Royces sat parked out front, one black, one pink.
One was Brad's.
The other had to be his wife's.
Inside, Brad was guiding a young woman through a form, adjusting her stance with both hands.
The instant I saw her face, every drop of blood in my body turned to ice.
How could it be her?
No wonder Brad had refused to let me find out.
My hand flew to my left arm, pressing the raised, ugly scar that would never fade.
That was the girl I had dragged out of a pack of thugs five years ago.
Back then, Margot Sullivan had been thin as a reed. Her family's martial arts studio had just been burned to the ground by their enemies.
Her parents had died in the fire, trapped in their sleep.
She was an orphan who hadn't yet learned her parents' craft.
Anyone could push her around.
That night, in a dark alley, I threw myself over a girl I'd never met.
I blocked the knife with my left arm.
I didn't know how to fight.
I'd only ever picked up a move or two from Brad.
By the time the struggle was over, I was covered in blood.
Margot had gotten away with scrapes.
When I woke up, she was kneeling beside my bed, crying, saying, "I'm so sorry, I'm so sorry."
In her, I saw the same defiance Brad had carried when he was young.
I gave her the money to reopen the studio.
Every day, I watched her train from her parents' old manuals until her body was mottled with bruises.
She said she would rebuild what her parents had built.
She said she would find the people who did it and make them pay.
