I stood up.  I wasn’t sure how.  I made my way slowly, unsteadily, to the bar.  I didn’t look back at Mona again.  I would have done a great deal to never have to set eyes on her again for the rest of my life.

Stephan met me halfway, and just swooped in and picked me up.  I studied the chiseled line of his jaw.

“You look like a blond superman,” I told him.

He smiled.  “You don’t look well, Danika.  I’m driving you home, unless you have an objection.”

I shut my eyes.  “Will you take me to your place?  I need to keep away from my life for a bit.”

“Of course.  We have lots of room.  You can stay for as long as you need to.  I’ll take you, and Javier will bring your car, later, so you aren’t stranded.”

“Thank you.  Absolutely everyone on the planet should have their own Stephan.”

“I think you might be a little bit in shock, Danika.”

I only wished.  Shock smacked of numbness, and I wasn’t that.

To say I didn’t handle the news well was a gross understatement.

I lost it.  Just lost my mind.

The first stage was avoidance.  It was pure cowardice.

And utterly necessary.

I avoided him with skill.  With talent.  I not only antic.i.p.ated where he would be, I antic.i.p.ated where he’d think I would be, and steered clear of it all.

At one point, he camped out in his car on the curb in front of my house.

That night, I got a hotel room.

The next stage was worse.  It was anger.

Rage, fury, outrage, utter devastation.  I stopped avoiding him because I wanted him to feel my wrath, needed it.

I went to his house and strode up to his door.  He opened it before I could knock.  I had no clue how he’d known I was coming.  What, had he just been watching for me out the window?

No matter.

I walked in, not even looking directly at him.

I took a deep breath and turned to face him, raising my trembling chin to meet him in the eye.

“Sweetheart,” he said, his voice so, so soft, his golden eyes softer.

My arm jerked back and swung forward.  There was no tangible communication between my brain and my arm as I slapped him as hard as I could, hard enough to leave my arm sore and my palm numb.

I staggered back, eyes wide on his face.  I suppose I expected some sort of an angry reaction from him, something volatile, or perhaps mean.  Some normal response to being struck in the face.

His eyes were wild, but not with anger, not with rage.  Something else moved there, something more worrisome, though I could not put my finger on what, precisely.  At least, not right at first.

He followed me as I took jerky steps backwards, still with that light in his eyes that was trying to break me.  It was unholy.

“I’m sorry,” I gasped out.  I wasn’t even sure if I meant it.  It just seemed like the appropriate thing to say.

“Don’t be.  Not for that.  In fact, you do that again, if you want to.”

That sent a jolt of a shock through my body.  “What is wrong with you?  You want me to slap you again?”

“I’ll take it.  I’ll take any reaction you need to give me, as long as you’re not walking away.”

“What were you thinking?  How could you get her pregnant?  How could you?”

“I didn’t.”

It happened again.  One minute my arm was at my side, and the next it was whipping across his face hard enough to sting my palm and send a shock through my arm.  “Don’t you lie to me.  Don’t you dare.  You might not know if it’s yours, but you were sleeping with her, so you cannot tell me that you’re sure it’s not!”

“Yes, I can.  I am not lying.  She knows it’s not mine.  It is a matter of days before this lie of hers comes clean.  But go on, do what you need to, say what you need to, to vent your feelings about this.  As long as you don’t leave.”

I felt all semblance of control slipping away from me.  I felt myself getting hysterical.  I backed away from him, step by step, sobbing uncontrollably.

He followed me, step by step, a world of sympathy in his unholy eyes, and I did not want it.  All I wanted on earth in that moment was to go back in time, and get the picture out of my head of some other woman pregnant with his child.

“If you’re lying to me,” I warned him, voice shaking, knees shaking, hands shaking, “I don’t ever want to see you again.  Not ever.  If you’re lying about this, I want you out of my life forever.”

That made his mouth twist down, and my mind instantly latched onto that as a sign of his guilt.  “Oh my G.o.d!  You liar!  It is yours.  You-you got-got her pregnant?”

He shook his head, but I was past the point of all reason.  He was standing so close now that I slapped him again, and again, and again, then clutched at his shirt with both hands.  I gripped it so furiously that it ripped, and I raked my nails into his chest, scoring deeply into his flesh.

Lashing out like a wounded animal.

I glared up at him, barely seeing past the tears, but seeing enough.

Enough to make me shake.  Enough to break me.

It was as though every blow I landed only softened him, tenderized him, and with each abuse I inflicted, more love would pour out of his eyes.

“Shh, Danika, shh.  Listen to me.  Calm down and listen.  I did not get her pregnant.  The only woman I have ever gotten pregnant is you.  The only woman I would ever get pregnant is you.”

I sobbed harder at that, though he couldn’t have known why.

“Look at me.  Look me in the eye and see the truth.  I have not touched that woman in well over a year.  I have not been with anyone but you since I saw you with Andrew on that red carpet.  I was celibate for a full year before the ranch.”

Slowly, gradually, the sobbing stopped and his words sank in.  I began to study him, looking for the truth, or G.o.d forbid, the lie.

If he was lying to me now, if he could make his eyes do what they were doing right now with artifice, then I was done for.  There was no limit to what he could get away with, if he could fake a thing like that.

Because I was incapable of cutting him off when he looked at me like that.

My entire body froze.

“Excuse me?” I finally asked him, not processing all of it right away.  He’d given me too much information all at once.