He used every ounce of his strength. I wasn't braced for it. My feet left the ground and I hit the floor hard.
Kieran crouched down, seized my chin in a vise grip, and spoke in a voice so cold it barely sounded human.
"Harper, why are you still fighting this?"
"That test was done at the biggest hospital in Ridgeport. The deputy director performed it personally. Do you really think there's been a mistake?"
"Now tell me. On your way home with that ultrasound, what were you thinking?"
I looked up at him and saw tears streaming down his face, heavy and uncontrolled.
He didn't seem to notice. He just kept talking.
"Were you thinking you'd finally have a child of your own, even if it wasn't mine?"
"Or were you figuring out how to deceive me? How to slip this past me without my ever knowing?"
"Or maybe you were celebrating with your lover. The two of you finally have proof of your love!"
His fingers tightened on my chin, grinding into bone. A cry of pain tore from my throat.
When he heard it, a smile flickered across his face.
"Does that hurt? That pain is nothing. Not even a fraction of what I feel right now." His voice cracked. "I knew you wanted children. I told you we could adopt."
"So why? Why did you have to hurt me like this?"
Kieran had always held me like something precious. He'd never once looked at me with an expression this terrifying.
Tears streamed down my face as I tried to pull him back to reason.
"Kieran, you know me. I'm home all day, every day. I barely even leave the house."
"You know my entire social circle. My whole life revolves around you and no one else. How could there possibly be another man?"
Something in his expression wavered. He seemed to be turning it over in his mind.
Then a woman's voice cut in from the doorway.
"Is that so?"
"Then who's this walking into a hotel with a man?"
Kieran and I both looked up at the same time.
It was Paula James, his childhood friend.
She hurled a stack of photographs at my feet, her voice sharp and accusing.
"I was at that hotel two days ago for a business meeting, and I saw you going in with some man. I didn't know how to tell Kieran. I agonized over it for two days before finally coming here today."
"And now it turns out you're pregnant?"
Kieran let go of me. One by one, he picked the photos up off the floor.
His face darkened with every image. The hand gripping the photographs shook harder and harder.