“This will be fine.” She sipped hers, then set the glass on the table.

Dare sat on the chair across from them.

“Just before I came here, Helen dropped by my apartment to talk.”

Dare frowned. He didn’t know what trouble Helen had tried to stir up, but clearly it had had a profound effect on Ash.

“Well, she’s afraid to tell you this, but … she needs help.”

“She’s needed help for a long time.” He shook his head in confusion. “Why would she go to you about it?”

“To be honest, she came to me to ask me to break up with you.”

“You’re not going to listen to her, are you? You know she’ll do anything to get attention from me. She’s insecure and sees you as a threat to her relationship with me.”

“I know. And I was ready to assume anything she said was a lie, but…” She locked her gaze with his. “Dare, she’s pregnant.”

The announcement took him totally by surprise.

“How do you know she’s telling the truth?” Dare asked.

“I could feel her fear. She doesn’t think she can do this on her own and she’s afraid you won’t be there for her. Especially when she tells you that … you’re the father.”

Shock spiked through Dare, striking him speechless.

“What the fuck?” Adam’s glance bolted to Dare.

“Ash, you’ve got to know she’s lying. You can’t believe I’d do that.”

“I know. Not on purpose, but … You remember that time I left in the middle of the night? She said she heard me go and slipped into your room a little while later, after you’d fallen asleep. She said that you thought it was me coming back in and…”

Horror shot through him as he remembered waking up with a feminine body snuggled against him.

“Oh, fuck. But … how…” He raked his hand through his hair. “When I woke up…” He snarled. “God damn it.”

She’d been so soft and warm, and he’d assumed she was Ash. His body had done what was natural and hardened with need. Something had niggled at his brain that Ash shouldn’t still be there, but his hazy brain had decided she’d come back. Then he’d fallen asleep again. In the morning, when Ash wasn’t in his arms, he’d assumed he’d been dreaming.

“You mean, this could have really happened?” Adam asked.

“Fuck, I didn’t … I mean, there’s no way I could have…”

Ash rested her hand on Dare’s arm. “Can you be absolutely sure? If you thought it was me…”

Could he have done something when she climbed into bed with him? While he was half asleep?

“No, it can’t be true. It can’t.” But doubt spiked through him.

“If you did, it wasn’t your fault,” Adam said, understanding in his warm brown eyes. “She tricked you.”

But even the thought that he could have done that with Helen … his own stepdaughter … made him feel ill.