When?
Where?
And most certainly, why?
But she also knew this world was pretty messed up, and all kinds of people were out there. People who didn’t give a crap and had ulterior motives, which also made her very suspicious of everything and everyone. Including him.
The bottom line was that this mess was not what she wanted in any way, shape, or form. She needed to find the answers, or she would never be safe. To have Terk so adamant about her baby’s paternity had sent her world into a tailspin.
She turned, left the dining room. She only stopped at the kitchen door, when, out of the corner of her eye, Alfred stepped out and handed her a cup of soothing tea. She smiled out of habit. “I’m really not an invalid. You know that, right?”
“I know you’re not an invalid,” Alfred stated, “but this meeting was always going to be stressful.”
“Right from the beginning.”
“So, if there’s anything we can do to make it easier, we should.”
“Why does everybody think it’s his child?” she murmured.
“I don’t know, but Terk is …” Alfred stopped abruptly, thinking about how much to tell her, then frowned, deciding it best to leave it to the others to tell her. “Let’s just say, … Terk knows stuff.”
She stared at him. “Knows what stuff? And why haven’t I heard about it?”
“You have. People have mentioned it, yet you’ve barely scratched the surface of the crazy. The details are not mine to tell you, and that’s probably how everyone feels around here.” He shrugged. “It’s just that nobody’s come out and said anything clearly yet. But that conversation where he knew about the neighbor having cancer and it being the right time to buy real estate? Well, that’s prime Terk for you.”
“Maybe,” she murmured, “but here I am, carrying a child, … six months’ pregnant. Yet everybody else seems to know something about it that I don’t. I didn’t even know I was pregnant, until I woke up here.”
Alfred immediately patted her shoulder gently. “Honestly, this has been something Terk has been trying to deal with during the same time as well.”
“Right.” Celia took a deep breath. “I just wish he didn’t think I was to blame.”
At that, his voice sounded from behind her. “As soon as I know you’re not to blame, then I’ll be fine with it. In the meantime, from my perspective, it looks very suspicious.”
She turned and glared at him. “Well, from my perspective, you don’t look that believable either.”
His eyebrows shot up. “What does that mean?”
“I don’t know you. I don’t know who the father of my child is. I wasn’t expecting to be pregnant, and believe me. I feel very leery of all males right now. To think that I’m in this position and have no conscious memory of how I got here is terrifying.”
“Yet earlier you said I was not the father.”
“What?”
“Right out in the hall, you very specifically said, I was not the father of this child. Why did you say that?”
“Because I don’t know you. It’s not possible. It can’t be. And, if it is possible, then I don’t trust you.”
“That I can understand,” he agreed. “I can tell you, however, I had nothing to do with it. I did not rape you. I didn’t force myself on you in any way. I haven’t donated to a sperm bank. Until all this started, I had no knowledge of the existence of a child—or of you for that matter.”
She sagged under his revelations. “Well, at least that’s plain talk.”
“I do find plain talk works the best,” he noted, “in my world anyway.”
She nodded slowly. “Nothing makes any sense right now.”
“That is often the way this kind of thing happens,” he murmured. “I’m very sorry that you’re in this situation. It’s definitely something I would not have wanted for anybody. It’s certainly not something I thought would happen personally in my own life,” he stated, sounding resigned. “Are you angry about the pregnancy?”
“I’m scared,” she stated bluntly. “I’m in an ugly scenario of having lost months of my life. You’re making claims that it’s your child, and, all the while, I don’t have the slightest idea how I even got into this situation. Yet at the same time, my maternal instincts have already kicked in, and I don’t want anything to happen to my child.”
He smiled, although it wasn’t enough to hide the jet lag.
And something about that tilt of his lips made her realize just how tired he was and how reasonable he was trying to be.
He added, “Believe me. I don’t want anything to happen to him either.”
“Him?”
“Him.” Terk nodded. “Male energy.”
“Are you ever wrong?”
A ghost of a smile crossed his lips. “Not that I can remember.”
She groaned, as she stared at him. Just because she had come to the same instinctive answer herself didn’t help. She also thought she knew something else that she had no intention of sharing at this time. “If, for the moment, we consider the fact that you aren’t wrong, I don’t even want to think about how?” she asked, scared and edging away from him. “Somehow we—you and I—produced a fetus that neither of us knew about?”
He nodded slowly, then that grin peeped out. “Not in the fun way either.”
She flushed brilliantly. “Great.”
He shrugged under a dark cloud of uncertainty. “Humor tends to make some of these situations a bit easier, reducing the stress.”
“Oh, I get it,” she muttered, “but, if we didn’t … hook up, and you didn’t rape me …”
Terk immediately interjected, “I assure you, I did neither. I was in Paris and England about the same time frames as you were,” he shared. “I was knocked unconscious, totally lights out, in an attack about seven months ago. I’m just wondering if that’s when my sperm was harvested. And believe me. That makes me feel very violated too.”
“Is that even possible?” she asked.
He shrugged. “I was unconscious for several days. I came out of it with some pretty ugly dreams that I never could explain. So I don’t have any explanation for that, but I wonder if that’s potentially what I was processing.”
“That would be …” She stopped and shook her head. “I’m not even sure what that would be.”
“Exactly,” he murmured. “The planning for this”—he pointed at her bump, as politely as he could without being offensive—“was obviously done a long time ago.” He paused. “Is it possible that you are an innocent victim?” he finally asked out loud.
“Possible?” she repeated, glaring at him. “Wow, thanks a lot for that.”
“What do you want me to say? I’ve just met you, and I’m having to take a look at who you are,” he explained. “It will obviously take me a little bit of time to adjust.”
“You and me both.” She stared past him. “Then add to that the fact that you consider this your child.”