Free The Certainty of Deception by Jeanne McDonald

crashed into mine.  My stomach lurched as she tried to slip her tongue into my mouth.  I jerked away, putting as much distance between us as I could.  My hand swiped across my lips in a vain attempted to expunge the putrid feeling of her mouth on mine.  There were no words to describe the amount of disgust I felt for her. 
    “You can’t tell me you didn’t feel anything just then?” she sobbed.  Huge crocodile tears trickled down her cheeks, commingling with her black mascara.  “You felt it.  I know you did.”
    “I felt nothing,” I spat.  “Don’t ever do that again.”
    “Drew, please.”
    “Please, what ?  I’m done.  I won’t keep going around and around with you like this.  Let me say this for you as slow as possible to see if sinks into your head.  We’re. Not. A. Couple.  We’re never going to be a couple.  Do you get it?”
    “Fine, but at least start treating me like the mother of your child and not a financial responsibility?”
    “Have the paternity test done!”
    “Treat me like I’m human.”
    Frustrated, I linked my fingers over the top of my head, growling out my anger.  “I can’t win for losing here.”  I walked over to the French doors that lead to my balcony and threw them open.  A warm breeze from the Gulf poured into my room, heating my already hot skin.  The rain had dissipated days earlier, leaving the air hot and muggy.  I sighed, staring out over the shoreline.  Soft waves brushed across the beach.  A cloudless sky reminded me that the rain was gone, yet there was no moon to brighten the night.  “What do you want from me?” I asked, defeated.
    “I want you treat me like you care.  You won’t touch me.  You only speak to me if I force you.  If I didn’t know better, I’d think you hated me and the baby.”
    Keeping my back turned to Olivia; I dropped my head and sighed.   Not that I would admit it, but I didn’t care about her beyond the child.  She was the bane of my existence.  I didn’t trust her and I certainly didn’t love her.  The only connections we had were the baby and McKenzie, and in my opinion, it would remain that way.  But the fact that I felt no connection to the child ripped me to shreds.  What kind of a bastard doesn’t feel a bond to their baby?  I loved the child.  I didn’t want anything to happen to it, but I didn’t have that drive or yearning to be near Olivia’s stomach every chance I could get. And I knew that yearning all too well.  It was a feeling that haunted my dreams.  Time and distance hadn’t killed that memory.  Alcohol only numbed it.  No matter how I dissected the situation, the only logical conclusion I could contrive was the disconnection had to be in conjunction with my feelings toward Olivia.
    “I don’t hate the baby.”
    “But you hate me.”
    I sighed.  There was nothing I could say.  I would never feel for Olivia the way she wanted.  The salty breeze caressed my face.  I closed my eyes, gripping the door frame. 
    “You hate me,” her breath hitched.  My eyes popped open and spun around.  Olivia’s shoulders hunched forward.  She wiped away the black mascara that ran down her angular face.  A piece of my frozen heart broke at the sight of her crying.  I might be a bastard, but I couldn’t stand seeing a woman cry.  Even one that had made my life miserable. “That’s why you keep harping about the paternity test.”
    Stepping over my suitcase and mangled clothes, I maneuvered to the foot of my bed and sat down.  “It’s not because I hate you.”  Pushing away a pile of clothes, I patted the space beside me.  A little reluctant at first, Olivia eventually sat down.  She placed her hands over her tiny stomach and sighed.  “You have to understand where I’m coming from.  I see this stuff every day at work.  I’m trying to protect us both.”
    “But the test can be dangerous for the baby.”
    “Morgan told us both that the test is non-invasive and