Total pages in book: 55
Estimated words: 50840 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 254(@200wpm)___ 203(@250wpm)___ 169(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 50840 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 254(@200wpm)___ 203(@250wpm)___ 169(@300wpm)
Crap.
I pull open the next door.
My heart slams against my ribcage, a sick sense of dread twisting through me as I gape around me.
Logan has a kid. No, Logan has a baby.
Kids don't sleep in cribs. They don't have changing tables and mobiles and baby toys and a year's supply of diapers, either.
He has a baby.
"Oh my god," I whisper, stumbling into the room. My eyes fall on a framed photo on the dresser. I snatch it from the top with shaking hands, and tears immediately spring to my eyes.
Logan Moreno has more than a baby. He has a freaking wife.
They're in the photo together, sitting beside each other under a Christmas tree. He has his arm over her shoulder. His wife is holding the baby. They're smiling, shiny, happy people.
I drop the photo, my stomach churning.
That's why he was on his phone at the bar last night. He was texting his wife. And I…
I slept with a married man.
"Oh my god." I slap my hand over my mouth, trying not to throw up or pass out. I slept with a married man. I'm a homewrecker. A cheater. "I'm just like my father."
My whole life, the only thing I've ever wanted was to be nothing like him. I was an affair baby. He lied to my mom, told her that he was single. And when she found out she was pregnant, he told her to get rid of me, like I was an inconvenience he couldn't be bothered with. The whole ugly truth came out then. He was married the whole time, with kids at home.
My mom had to prove paternity just to get him to sign away his rights. He never came around, never wanted anything to do with me. As far as he was concerned, once he signed his rights away, I never existed at all.
He cheated, and my mom was the one who suffered. I was the one who suffered. And he got to go on with his merry little life like nothing happened. Literally. People judged my mom for living in poverty as a single mom. She was the homewrecker for sleeping with a married man. You know what they did to my father? Patted him on the back for being a good Christian man who kept his family together even when the devil was trying to lead him astray.
He's the upstanding politician they applaud.
She was the homewrecking welfare queen.
I was twelve when she died. Child Protective Services called him. He told them that foster care would be the best place for me. He didn't even show up at her funeral. He never came to check on me. My whole life, I never existed to him. I was just an inconvenience, something he only acknowledged when it suited his narrative.
And in one single night, Logan turned me into a replica of him. He turned me into my mom. He has a wife and a baby, and he slept with me in their house. At least my father never did that. He kept my mom in an entirely different city than his family.
I stumble out of the nursery, my mind reeling. A tangle of emotions surge through me—fury and revulsion collide with guilt and regret. There's a heavy dose of betrayal in there, too. I liked him. I trusted him. And he deserves neither. He's just an asshole like my father. And just like my father, he pretends to be a hero when he's anything but. He didn't rescue me from a creep last night. He tangled me in his web.
I practically race through the living room into the kitchen. For a split second, I consider launching myself at his sleeping form and strangling the truth out of him, but what's the point?
He'll either deny it, or act like he did nothing wrong. The thought of him doing either makes me want to throw up all over again. So I completely ignore him and scurry into the kitchen in search of my phone and my clothes.
They're scattered around like the wreckage of some happier time. Seeing them makes me feel cheap as hell. This is as much my fault as it is his because I didn't ask. I didn't question. I just assumed that he was a decent person who wouldn't cheat.
I was naïve as hell.
"Stupid," I growl to myself, yanking my bra on before I snatch up my phone and request a car to pick me up. I don't even know the address so I have to drop a pin. "Never again, Peyton. You are never sleeping with a man like Logan Moreno ever again."
I pull my shirt on over my head before starting the search for my panties…only to remember that he destroyed those. I snatch my pants from the floor and quickly yank them up my legs before going in search of my shoes.