my adoptive uncle, the man who took me in when I had nowh

secret, hidden behind the wal

was about to get a

trembling. A wave of nausea, completely unrelated to morning s

my chest. Maybe this baby would be the thing that finally m

his office, to see his face when I t

acing by the window, a phone pressed to his ear. He hadn't seen m

m when he spoke to me, wa

ust a kid. It was a fling,

old. He was ta

nd on the other end. Then Mark laughed, a

crazy? I can't have some un

u

y. It slammed into me with physical

he marble floor with a sickening crack, the scr

The casual cruelty on his face was instantly replaced by a

ent, a decision formed in the wrecka

d started toward me, hi

, what'

roken phone, and walked away, the pieces of my li

s Mark. I let it go to voicemail. He calle

ha

nothing had happened. "About our dinner toni

," I

He expected me to

iend is in town. Sarah.

l laugh. Sarah Jenkins. His ex-girlfriend. The one his frien

said, my vo

mise," he said quickly. "We'll

ithout sayi

three years had just dissolved into a night

te was about to put me in a foster home when Mark Thompson, my mother' s distant step-brother

ave me security. He was

tle too long. A goodbye hug became something more intimate. He was so charming, so persuasiv

id. I mistook his careful manipulation for genuine

oted, secret lover, blind to the fact t

ur baby was just