"My heart hopes you're right, Hannah, but my mind isn't betting on it. I know Gates could possibly be a good father, but at this point, I'm not sure how to go about it." Sloane sat back and traced the wood grain on the arm of the chair thinking about Gates and her constant struggle with telling him the truth.

"Well, I still think you should tell him. Especially since you're keeping in touch with him. He's bound to find out one way or the other." Chase added, looking over at Sloane.

"I know. Every time I feel like I've gathered the strength to tell him, something comes up. I-"

Just then the doorbell rang and she got up to answer the door. "It's probably Liyah. Hannah, could you do me a favor and check on Brayden?" Chase followed her so he could get more drinks for them from the kitchen.

"Sure." Hannah followed them into the house and went to check on the sleeping baby.

"Thanks." She continued through the living room and opened the door; coming face to face with Gates. She could feel her lungs seize in her chest and her knees went weak. She tightened her grip on the doork.n.o.b to keep her steady as she looked in his smoldering eyes.

"Gates. What...what're you doing here?"

"You and I need to talk." She could tell he was none too pleased and she couldn't figure out what was going on or how he'd found her.

"This is a surprise." She stumbled aside to let him enter the house. She closed the door slowly and turned to face him, offering up a timid smile.

"I'm sure it is, like this was quite a surprise to me," he held up a picture of her and Brayden so she could see it. "Imagine my surprise to see this. Care to explain?" His icy tone and grim expression sent a chill through her.

"Where did you get that?" Sloane stammered, taking the newspaper from his hands. She stared at the beautiful face of her little boy and lowered her head. She could feel the knot in her stomach that had formed weeks ago when Gates walked back into her life, twist even more and suddenly she felt sick.

"Don't worry about where I got it. Great picture of you by the way. How old would you say Brayden is in this picture, Sloane? Hmm, the caption says nine months."

"I can explain." Sloane barely heard her own words escape her lips as she watched him pace back and forth. Clutching her hand to her chest, she searched for a heartbeat and wondered if all blood flow to it had stopped.

"Oh, I'm just sure you can. You know, my father always said people accuse you of the things they are guilty of. I never really knew what he meant until I saw that picture." He stopped and glared at her and she felt if she could evaporate into thin air, things would be okay.

"What? What're you talking about?" Before he could answer, Chase called out to her. She could see the recognition of the voice on Gates' face and she closed her eyes and silently prayed to dissolve into the floor.

"Sloane, was that Liyah at the door?" Chase walked out of the kitchen and stopped upon seeing Gates standing in the middle of the living room. "Oh, Gates, uh, this is-"

"A surprise? Yeah, well, I'm very sorry to barge in on your lovely 'family' time, or whatever this is, but there are some questions I need dear old Sloane here to answer for me. Beginning with how long were you two involved before you left me," he spun around, looking her dead in the face.

"Gates, wait a minute, Sloane and I-" She wanted to say something, anything, but she couldn't find her voice. It was like her throat had closed up on the truth of the situation. She could hear Chase defending her and she wanted to add her own defense but the words wouldn't come out.

"Chase, I was talking to Sloane. I really don't need to hear anything from you." Gates narrowed his eyes at Chase, who had walked to Sloane's side. "So, how long were you cheating on me before you got pregnant and decided to leave?"

"It wasn't like that, Gates." Finally regaining her equilibrium and her ability to speak, she could still feel the room spin; and it felt like a weight was pressing down on her chest. "I wouldn't do that to you."

"Oh really, well this picture says differently, Sloane. Do you really think I'm that stupid that I can't count? You accused me of cheating on you with women I could not care less about when you were sleeping around with this guy the whole time. Tell me, do you sit around and laugh about how much of a fool you made of me?" His glare was enough to freeze the entire Atlantic Ocean and she felt a shudder flow through her body.

"Now wait a minute, Sloane didn't cheat on you, Gates."

"I told you to stay out of this." Gates stood with his chest heaving and his hands tightened into fists as Chase stood protectively in front of Sloane.

"Oh, are you going to make me?" Sloane watched Chase take a step towards Gates with his chest puffing up as equally as Gates'. "You claim you know Sloane, but you don't know anything about her. If you did, you would understand how hard she fights for the things and the people she loves."

"I wouldn't be so loyal to her, Chase. She wore my ring for about a year and you see how that ended." She felt the heat of Gates' glare on her and felt like she'd combust on the spot. "Plus, it's kind of funny; she doesn't seem to be fighting too hard for you. Especially, since she's talking to me just about every night of the week until the wee hours of the morning."

"You know, I've had about enough of your snide comments."

"Chase, I'm merely saying maybe you should be aware that Sloane has a tendency to walk away from the 'things and the people she loves'. Don't get too invested," he quipped, turning his glare from Sloane towards Chase. "I mean, h.e.l.l, she doesn't even wear your ring, so what does that say about her and her 'commitment' to you?"

"You have no right to say anything like that about her. You don't know her like I do." Sloane was grateful for the continued defense Chase was providing for her but she knew this was no one's fault but her own and she had to face up to the music.

"Oh, but I do know Sloane, in all ways. Even in the biblical sense, but I guess you know her that way as well, since you were lucky enough to get her pregnant." His deadly stare made her feel about ten times smaller and the tears rolled silently out of her eyes.

"You son of a-"

"Stop, both of you. Just stop it." Sloane stepped between the two. Every part of her was shaking and she knew she couldn't let them continue on the path they were on or it was going to turn physical soon.

"Sloane-"

"No, Chase, this has to stop."

"I'm not going to stand here and let him keep saying things about you that aren't true," Chase glared at Gates.

"Why, does the truth hurt, Chase?"

"No, but this is going to."

"Stop, Chase." Sloane pushed Chase in the chest to prevent his motion towards Gates before taking a deep breath and turning towards her son's father. "Chase isn't my fiance or boyfriend. I didn't even know him until I moved here."

"Yeah, right." Gates shook his head at Sloane's confession.

"It's true. He was a friend of Liyah's and I met him through her."

"Whatever, Sloane. You don't have to lie anymore about this. I wanted to let you know that I know everything." She watched helplessly as Gates headed towards the front door.

"No, you don't." Walking behind him, she stopped a few feet away. "Gates, if you knew everything, then you'd know Brayden is your son, not Chase's." Once the words were out, she stopped and hugged her arms to her sides waiting for the fallout from the truth she'd blurted. Like clockwork, Hannah emerged from the back carrying Brayden, who was awake from his nap, as Gates stopped in his tracks.

"Wow. Now you want me to believe-" Gates turned, stopping in mid-sentence and looked into the familiar eyes of the little boy that was undoubtedly his. The baby's face lit up the room and Sloane watched Gates' demeanor change in the realization she was finally telling the truth.

"It's true, Gates. I didn't know Sloane until Liyah introduced her to me when she moved here." Walking over to Sloane, Hannah handed her Brayden; who was reaching for her. "We'll just let you guys talk." Chase moved to usher Hannah out of the room.

"Wait a minute, what'd I miss? That's Gates?" Hannah murmured, lingering to watch the ensuing confrontation. "What's he doing here?"

"Let's go." Chase turned Hannah by the shoulders and steered her from the room; retreating to the deck. Waiting until they closed the sliding gla.s.s door behind them, Sloane turned to look at Gates; who hadn't removed his eyes from the sight of Brayden.

"He's mine?" His voice trembled and Sloane felt a simultaneous sense of relief and guilt.

"Yes." She knelt down to place the baby in his activity bouncer. Gates kneeled beside Brayden as the little boy looked up at him and Sloane felt the tremendous weight of guilt from keeping the two apart.

"I don't believe this. Why? Why didn't you tell me?" Gates timidly reached out and stroked the soft curls on Brayden's head. Sloane watched as father and son recognized their blood bond in one another's gaze.

"I was scared."

"Scared. What do you mean you were scared? Sloane if he's my child, why didn't you tell me? You knew when you left you were pregnant?" His expression darkened as he stood and shifted his focus from his son to her. "You weren't ever going to tell me, were you?"

"I didn't know I was pregnant until after I left. I was going to tell you, but I..." Tears coursed down her face and she quickly wiped them away as she watched him. "I was going to tell you at your father's funeral, but-"

"You left. You didn't even speak to me at the funeral, Sloane. You came to my father's funeral, with my child growing inside of you and you didn't tell me." With every word his voice became more even and cool and it scared her to see how even keeled he was. She knew him and she knew enough about him to know when he was like this, he was truly angry. She would have rather he yelled at her than speak in such an even tone.

"I couldn't. When I looked up...you were staring at me as if you wanted me dead and I froze. I figured you didn't want anything more to do with me and I chickened out. Gates, you were so busy with work and you always said you liked the way we were. We did nothing but argue all the time, and I, I didn't want to live like that. And when I found out about Brayden, I didn't want him to have to grow up surrounded by that, or worse. I was afraid you would want to ship him off like your father did with you and Bailey."

He walked towards the window and looked out on the front yard. "You didn't love me or trust me enough to tell me the truth about my son? How could you, Sloane?"

"You were Victor McCall incarnate. You have no idea how hard it was for me to watch you go from the man I loved, to a man I barely knew. Your father was a tyrant and he hated me. I couldn't subject Brayden to that."

"So this is all my father's fault? Is that what you are so desperately trying to tell me?" She stood helpless under his glare. It was like a floodlight and she wanted to find somewhere to hide from the exposure.

"N, no. I..." She stammered trying to fend off his attack. "I know your father didn't like me at all, and he didn't want me 'sullying' the McCall-"

"Wait. Whoa, wait a minute. Are you seriously saying you left me because of my father? You listened to him instead of talking to me?"

"There was no talking to you. You were gone all of the time. You were always in meetings and always cancelling on me. Always in the papers with other women; namely Allie. I never got a moment with you. What was I supposed to do?"

"You were supposed to trust me." He pointed at her with eyes ablaze. "I never wanted anyone else but you. You knew none of those pictures or stories were true."

"I made a decision that I thought was best for our son."

"No, you made a decision for you." He cut her off and stared through her with eyes that shone so dark from his anger that she barely recognized him. "You decided what was best for you, no matter who got hurt."

It wasn't right. She made grave decisions that affected them all, but she thought she was doing it for the right reasons. Why couldn't he understand that? "Gates I wanted a life with you. The one we planned. Everything else seemed so much more important than our relationship, so I left. Then, when I found out I was having him, I panicked. I didn't want Brayden to be put last." She watched him shake his head before answering her.

"I told you why I did the things I did, Sloane."

"Yeah, and I didn't want that for me, or our son."

"So, tell me this. Were you going to keep it a secret for the rest of his life? What were you going to tell him about me? Or were you going to let him believe Chase was his father?"

"No. I had every intention of telling you. When I was in New York this last time I was going to tell you. I almost told you after the awards ceremony, but Allie interrupted us." She stood hugging her arms to her chest and watching him and the emotions he was usually so good at hiding travel across his face.

"Seems like so many things get in the way of you telling the truth. Dammit, Sloane, he's my son. I had a right to know about him. How could you do this? How could you keep him from me all of this time?" Her guilt wouldn't let her look him in the eye. Every moment she'd worried about, every agonizing minute she'd thought about telling him about his son had culminated in this one moment and she was flailing worse than she ever thought possible.

"Gates, you didn't want to be a dad."

"How the h.e.l.l do you know what I wanted? You never gave me the chance. You left and made the decision that I wouldn't be Brayden's father. You pa.s.sed him off as someone else's. You made me believe you found the family you always wanted."

"I want you in his life more than anything." Sloane walked closer to him and looked him in the eye. She wanted him to believe her and know she never meant to hurt him.

"Oh, now you do because I found out about him. If I had never seen the picture in the paper, then you would've never told me. So now, you want me to be in his life because you can't keep the secret anymore?"

"That's not true."

"Oh, but isn't it? You can't lie about this anymore, so now, you want me to be a part of Brayden's life."

"No. That's not...I just didn't know how to tell you." She cried, shaking her head, knowing she had hurt him and that he may never forgive her. And she couldn't blame him. All of this was her fault.

"Whatever, Sloane. Come up with whatever excuses you want to and whatever makes you feel better about this, but the fact remains, you kept my son from me. You did this." His eyes bored into her soul and she felt like curling up and crying in the middle of the floor. "How am I supposed to deal with that?"

"Gates, I'm sorry."

"That doesn't really make up for time lost now does it, and the fact that you had me believing he was someone else's." Shaking his head, Gates watched Brayden play and he grew quiet. At that moment, Sloane realized the magnitude of what she'd done and she could see the hurt and anger on Gates' handsomely chiseled face. "You deprived me of knowing my own son. Of being there when he was born and missing out on nine months of his life." He turned to face her with the coldest eyes she'd ever seen. "My father knew I was his and he chose not to be in my life. He sent me away so he didn't have to deal with me, but you never even let me know I had a son. I didn't get a choice in the matter." She could see the disgust in his eyes before he strode past her to the front door.

"Gates, please, don't go like this." Tears flowed wildly down her face as she followed him to the door. "Please say something? Please?"

She stopped and watched him as he paused in the doorway with his back to her. Placing his sungla.s.ses on his eyes, he refused to look at her and she wished she'd never asked him to say anything as she listened to his next words. "Get a lawyer." With that, he walked out without so much as a glance back at his son or her.

"Sloane, you have to come out of there." Hannah banged on the bathroom door. Liyah had arrived shortly after the confrontation and Sloane dissolved into tears and locked herself in her bathroom. She was so upset with the confrontation with Gates that she got sick to her stomach. He was so mad at her and she knew it would take an act of G.o.d to get him to forgive her. "She's going to get dehydrated. I told Chase we should've stayed in there."

"Sloane, sweetie, come on, you have to open the door." Liyah stood next to Hannah, pounding on the door and trying to persuade their friend to come out. She'd left the office as soon as she listened to the voicemail from Evan and rushed over to Sloane's only to cross paths with Gates in the driveway. "Sloane?" The m.u.f.fled cries had stopped and they couldn't hear any movement behind the door. As Liyah was about to knock on the door again, the k.n.o.b turned and Sloane emerged from the room. Her eyes were red and puffy and she looked like she had been crying for days.

"Mi dulce, it's going to be okay."

"No it's not. He wouldn't even look at me." She walked to the sofa with Hannah and Liyah flanked on each side. "I'm going to lose my son."

"It's going to be okay, I promise you it will."

"Sloane I'm sure Liyah's right. Brayden won't have to go with him, I'm sure of it." Hannah added, trying to give some kind of comfort to her. She glanced at Chase, who was comforting Brayden. The little boy had burst into tears as soon as he'd seen his mother cry.

"Thanks guys, but what Gates wants, Gates gets. It's been that way his entire life." She pushed herself up from the sofa and walked into the kitchen.

"Sloane, you have to be positive about this." Liyah watched her friend absentmindedly pick up a dishtowel and clean the already clean counter. "He's just mad right now. Once he gets a chance to cool down, things will look different to him and you can work it out, you'll see."

"I wish I could believe that, Liyah, but I've never seen him that angry before. He'll never forgive me." And she couldn't blame him. He was right. She did this and she was going to have to pay the price for it.

"Look, Liyah's right, he'll calm down and it'll be okay." Chase walked over and handed a now quiet Brayden to his mom.

Kissing the little boy on the head and hugging him close to her chest, she smiled weakly, closing her eyes. "I wish I could believe that Chase. I really wish I could."

"So wait a minute, let me get this straight." Angelica stood in Gates' office as he sat looking at the picture of his son. "She gets pregnant with your kid, leaves, pa.s.ses it off as someone else's child and lies to you about being in a relationship to keep you from your son. And now, she expects you not to do something about it?"

"Gel, you don't know the whole situation." Gates still had not said a word. He could hear Evan and Angelica talking back and forth about the situation above his head.

"Evan, I know enough. How could she do this to Gates, and then think he wouldn't fight for custody of him? That's crazy. I can't believe she did this. What woman in her right mind does something like that?"

"She had her reasons Gel. Look Gates, I know you're mad. h.e.l.l, I would be too, but let's be reasonable about this whole thing. Is it really a good idea to sue her for full custody of Brayden? She's all he's ever known. She's his mother for crying out loud. Is it right to take him from her?"

Breaking his silence, Gates slowly shifted his cool level eyes to meet Evan's. "How would you feel if Kelsie did something like this to you, Evan? Would you be so willing to look the other way?"

Angelica huffed as Evan ignored her and focused in on Gates.

"Look, I don't know exactly what you're going through Gates, but you have to look at this in the long run. What will Brayden think about you if you go in with guns blazing and you take him away from his mother? What happens once he grows up and finds out the truth?"