The appointment. The messages. My call with his mother. Tessa’s furious phone call that morning.
I watched his expression change as the pieces came together.
“She came to your office?” he asked.
“Yes.”
He sat down heavily.
“Vanessa, I swear to you, I’ve never touched that woman.”
“Then why didn’t you tell me she was contacting you?”
He rubbed both hands over his face.
“She started messaging me several weeks ago. At first, I thought she’d confused me with somebody else. Then she mentioned Mom and said she’d been helping her. I told her to stop contacting me.”
“And when she claimed she was pregnant?”
“I told her the same thing. I didn’t know her. I couldn’t possibly be the father.”
“You could have told me.”
“I know.”
His answer was so quiet that it made my anger sharper.
“You let me walk into work yesterday without warning me that a stranger might come into my office and accuse you of fathering her child.”
