This is now how I imagined a reunion between us. Of course, those fantasies—when I was weak enough to allow them—were always fraught with unrealistic undertones. This is the real world, not a fairy tale.
But then, deep down, I’m the same naïve girl who ran from a place that had secluded itself from the real world. So what do I know about anything?
“Okay.”
“Okay?” I repeat, amazed that he is agreeing to this so easily.
“If the child is mine, I will provide for him,” Phoenix says quietly.
Wait. “If?”
He raises his eyebrows. “You claim the boy is mine. But I’m going to need more than your word.”
“You don’t believe me?”
I shouldn’t take that so personally. But I do.
“You’re a complete stranger to me,” he says, his eyes turning cold and distant. “I don’t even know your last name. I f**
