Prologue
"The Past - the dark unfathomed retrospect! The teeming gulf -the sleepers and the shadows! The past! the infinite greatness of the past! For what is the present after all but a growth out of the past?" - Walt Whitman
"Jasper, what about us?" the woman shrieked.
"There is no us!" he snarled his handsome face full of malice.
"What's come over you? Just last week you told me…"
"Told you what? That I'd take care of the bastard? Marry you?"
The young woman fell back against the tree, her body shuddering with violent sobs.
"You told me that you loved me!"
Grasping at his hair like a lunatic, Jasper said, "I was caught up in the moment! I didn't know what I was saying!"
"What am I going to do?" the woman asked, placing a hand over her lower abdomen.
"You're resourceful…figure it out!"
"Jasper," the woman cried hysterically. "My family will disown me!"
"That's not my problem anymore because that is not my child!" Jasper shouted, pointing an accusatory finger at the woman's slightly distended belly.
"You are in denial! It is your baby! I've never been with anyone else!"
"Except my best friend!"
"That's a figment of your imagination Jasper Swan!" the woman shouted outrage coloring her tone.
"Well, no one will believe you…" Jasper said his tone smooth. "…Because, at dinner tonight I'm making an announcement that will change everything."