“I have to get out of here,” Addison insisted.
Colt and Reed exchanged glances. “She needs to give us a statement about what happened,” Colt reminded him.
Reed hadn’t forgotten that, but he also didn’t think Addison was in any shape to do it right now. Except he rethought that when he looked at her. She was still pale. Still well past the shaky stage, but she met him eye to eye.
“What can I do to stop them?” she asked.
That was a good question, but it wasn’t the foremost one in Reed’s mind. “We’ll be the ones doing the stopping. You need to be in protective custody.”
She blinked. “Yours?”
Reed went through the options. There weren’t that many.
Either Addison would have to be with him or she’d have to stay with one of Jewell’s sons—sons who disliked Addison because of her friendship with their murdering, abandoning mother. With the trial bearing down on them, that would breach all sorts of legal issues because Addison would no doubt be called as a character witness for Jewell.
“I’ll stay with you for now,” Reed said. But he’d remedy that soon even if he had to call in the Rangers or the marshals.
“Take her statement, Reed,” Colt added over his shoulder as he left.
He intended to do just that, but something wasn’t right here. Something he couldn’t quite put his finger on. That something wasn’t right feeling only got worse when Addison dodged his gaze again.
“Who was involved in the adoption?” he asked Addison, and that was when Reed noticed she’d gone pale again.
Hell.
“You did cut corners,” he spat out.
She swallowed hard. “Not like you’re thinking. I went through a private agency called Dearborn, but they don’t only do adoptions.” She paused, gathered her breath. “They have surrogates.”
“Surrogates,” he repeated. Reed gave that a moment to sink in.
It didn’t sink in well.
Oh, man.
“I hired a surrogate to carry her,” she said. Addison’s gaze came to his. “Emily is our baby.”
The only thing Addison could do now was wait for the fallout. And there would be fallout. She was certain of it. She’d just delivered a bombshell to Reed. One that was going to make him hate her even more than he already did.
If that was possible.
Reed’s gaze rifled from her. To Emily. And back again.
“Oh, man,” he said, and Reed just kept repeating it while he got up and went to the other side of the stall. As far away from Addison as he could get.
“I’m sorry,” Addison said.
That covered a multitude of things but not Emily herself. Addison wasn’t sorry at all that she had her precious little girl, but she’d made mistakes to get the baby.
Well, one big mistake anyway.
Reed groaned, put his hands on the sides of his head and turned away from her. For several long moments he stood there, repeating that “Oh, man” before he swung back around to face her.
“It’s true,” Reed said. Not a question exactly, but Addison nodded. “How? Why?” he asked.
His questions no doubt covered a multitude of things, too, so Addison started from the beginning. Well, the beginning after the end of their marriage, that is. The past year had been eventful to say the least.
“Six weeks after we separated, I got the divorce papers your lawyer sent. Even though I’d known they were coming, I was still shaken up.” A massive understatement, but it wasn’t something Reed would want to hear now.
Maybe not ever.
He’d washed his hands of their marriage and wasn’t the sort to take treks down memory lane.
“As you know, I’d already had two miscarriages and three failed in vitro procedures, and there was only one of our embryos left in storage,” she continued. “I figured I stood a better chance of having it work with a surrogate than me trying again.”
His jaw muscles seemed to freeze. Not his eyes, though. He glared at her. “And you didn’t think you should include me in a decision like that?”
“Of course I did, but I knew you’d say no. And at that point, I knew I couldn’t live with a no. I wanted a baby, and I was desperate and willing to do whatever it took to make that happen.”
Even if what she’d done was wrong.
“My doctor told me I couldn’t have any more eggs harvested for at least a year. Maybe not ever because I’d had a bad reaction to the fertility drugs.” A reaction that’d almost killed her. “I figured one fertilized embryo was a long shot, but it was the only shot I had. So I hired a surrogate, Cissy Blanco, to carry Emily for me.”
Reed cursed, groaned again. He opened his mouth, closed it and with his back against the wall, sank down onto the floor.
“I didn’t tell you, because I knew how you felt about becoming a father,” Addison added.
“You knew it, and yet you went through with this.” His voice was raw and clipped, each one of his words punching into her like fists.
“I never expected you to be a father to the baby,” she went on.
“But I fathered her!” he practically shouted. It was so loud that it startled Emily, and she started to whimper.
Addison pulled the baby closer to her and rocked her, hoping it would help, but it was possible that Emily was picking up on the tension in the room. There was certainly plenty enough of it to pick up on.
The door flew open again, and just like that, Reed was back in lawman mode. He pulled his gun and got to his feet. But it was just the nurse again. This time there was plenty of concern in her eyes.
“Is everything okay?” she asked. “I heard someone shouting.”
“Everything’s fine,” Addison lied.
A burst of air left Reed’s mouth. A laugh, but definitely not from humor. “My ex-wife and I were just having a little talk,” he grumbled.
The nurse gave Addison a long look, no doubt silently asking if it was okay for her to leave, and Addison finally nodded. There was no need for an audience for the argument that Reed and she were about to continue having.
Once the nurse had left, Reed walked closer, staring down at Emily. Every muscle in his body was tight, the pulse in his throat throbbing.
“Are you going to ask if she’s really yours?” Addison tossed out there.
The staring went on for several more long moments. “No.”
Maybe he could see the resemblance. Emily had his dark brown hair, and even though Emily’s eyes were closed now, they were the same shade of deep blue as Reed’s. There were times, like now, when Emily had that same intensity in her expression as Reed.
“I went to the storage facility with the nurse to pick up our embryo, and I was with the surrogate when it was implanted. If I’d thought I could harvest more eggs,” Addison continued, “I wouldn’t have used our embryo.”
She would have used donor sperm with newly harvested eggs so that Reed wouldn’t have been included in this process. Of course, her intentions meant nothing to him now. He’d just learned he was something