Denzel’s POV
She said it through tears, and the world seemed to tilt beneath my feet. It felt as though I had run headfirst into a brick wall hard, sudden, unforgiving. Shock rooted me in place, confusion and pain crashing over each other inside my chest. How was this even possible? How had my life unraveled so completely?
Jalisa stepped closer and pressed a paper into my hands.
“This is from the clinic,” she said softly. “But if you don’t trust it, we can go somewhere else. I’m four weeks pregnant, Denzel. We’re going to be parents.” Her voice trembled, hopeful and desperate all at once. “We may not love each other, but we can love our child. We can make this work.”
I blinked rapidly, fighting the burn in my eyes.
A trap. Permanent and unescapable.
I could never leave Jalisa now. An
