Julian took a step back. Not far. Just enough. The kind of step a man takes when something hits him somewhere he wasn't expecting, and he needs a second to stay upright.
"Amara." His voice was different now. Lower. Something in it that wasn't anger exactly but was close enough to it that she went still. "I can't believe you would even think that of me."
She opened her mouth.
"No." He shook his head once. "Just… let me say this." He looked at her directly, and she could see it in his face, the hurt. Not performed, not exaggerated. Just real and sitting right there on the surface where he couldn't quite hide it.
"You know me. I thought you knew me by now." The room was very quiet.
"That baby is not my child." He said it plainly, without flinching from it, without dressing it up in softer words.
"I know that. I have always known that. But she is a baby, Amara. A month old. She is a baby, and that is the only fact that matters to me." His jaw tightened slightly.
