There’s a part of me that doesn’t want him to tell her, doesn’t want to hurt her any more than she obviously is already. But the alpha part of me that feels like he’s always been mine since the day we were born wants to pin her to the wall and growl that he was on loan, but he’s mine again and she will back the fuck down.

But it’s Ezra’s call.

“I knew it would be hard for you,” Ezra says, not addressing her question directly. “But we need to be civil and adult about this. How we handle the transition will affect how Noah adjusts. We’ll work out the details. You can have the house. I can stay nearby so Noah can—”

“You have it all figured out, huh?” Aiko interrupts.

“We have a child together,” Ezra says. “It would be irresponsible for me not to have considered how this will affect—”

“Two,” Aiko says, her smile dropping, her eyes hard and flat, a pane of glass over her emotions.

“Two?” Ezra frowns. “Two what?”

“You said we have a child together,” Aiko says. “But we have two.”

She turns to me, challenge and pain mixing in her expression. “I came home early because I’m pregnant.”

Chapter Forty-Two

Chapter Forty-Two

Ezra

“You’re what?”

I’ve been careful with my words, disciplined in my emotions since Aiko walked in, but her ridiculous statement pulls the pin on my control.

“Pregnant.” Aiko looks at me, hope rising in her eyes and lifting the corners of her mouth. “A baby, Ezra. You always wanted another one.”

Kimba flinches, and I see her face again last night, uncertain in the moonlight, hear her voice shaking as she told me she may never have a child.

“Years ago,” I remind Aiko. “I wanted another baby years ago. You didn’t. It was fine. It’s not something we’ve discussed in a long time and you know it. And if you’re pregnant, it’s not mine. We’ve barely had sex all year. Chaz would be—”

“Barely is not never,” Aiko says softly. “Once is enough. And you fucked me once.”

“No, I…”

Taco Tuesday. Margaritas.

I gulp back the bile of regret and force myself to meet Kimba’s questioning gaze. She knows before I say it, grabbing her purse from the bed and leaving the room. I bite off a growl, toss a frustrated glance at Aiko and start after her.

“Wait here,” I clip out.

“It’s my home,” she yells back. “Where else would I go?”

I take the stairs so fast I almost fall down the last two. Chaz is staked out by the door with Aiko’s bags. A muscle tics in his jaw and his hands are clenched into fists at his side.

Me, too, man. Me, too.