“Squeaky clean,” she said, settling onto the couch beside me with a contented sigh. “Nothing like your own shower and clean clothes.”
“Feel better?”
“Mmm. Much.” She curled up against the arm of the couch, pulling her feet up underneath her. “Okay. I’m ready. You said you needed to talk?”
This was it. No more delays, no more excuses. “Yeah.” I took a deep breath. “On your birthday, at the restaurant, when I got those text messages that upset me — do you remember?”
She nodded, her eyes on my face.
“It wasn’t a work emergency. I lied to you.” The words felt like pulling glass from a wound. “The messages were from someone I used to know.”
I watched Chloe’s expression carefully, but she didn’t react. Just kept watching me.
“Jenna and I had a brief relationship five years ago in Chicago. I haven’t heard from her since. Until your birthday.” I pulled out my phone, finding the photos I’d been staring at for three days. “She sent me these photos.”
I looked up to show her the screen.
Chloe’s eyes were closed. Her head had tilted slightly to the side against the couch cushion, her breathing deep and even.
“Chloe?”
Nothing.
“Chloe?” I said again, louder.
She didn’t stir. She’d fallen asleep, her body finally surrendering to the exhaustion of two nights with almost no rest and the emotional devastation of yesterday.
I stared at her peaceful face, her chest rising and falling in the steady rhythm of deep sleep. She hadn’t heard any of it. She had no idea that I’d been about to tell her I had a son.
I set my phone down on the coffee table and grabbed the teal throw from the back of the couch, carefully draping it over her. She made a small sound and shifted slightly, getting more comfortable, but didn’t wake.
This was the universe telling me something. Or maybe it was just bad timing.
Chapter 6
Chloe - Four Days After Chloe’s Birthday
I’d woken up this morning in our bed. I had no memory of coming upstairs. The last thing I remembered was sitting on the couch, Sam saying something about my birthday and a woman named Jenna, and then… nothing.
I must have fallen asleep mid-conversation. Sam must have carried me upstairs and tucked me into bed. I’d slept like the dead — all afternoon, through the night, and into the morning. When I’d finally opened my eyes, sunlight was streaming through the windows, and Sam’s side of the bed was cold.
There was a note on his pillow:Didn’t want to wake you. You needed the sleep. Call me when you wake up. Love, S.
I hadn’t called. Part of me knew I should have — he’d clearly wanted to talk yesterday, had something important to tell me. But after his attempt to start that conversation, after seeing how serious he’d looked, I felt oddly reassured. Whatever was going on, he was trying to tell me. It wasn’t like my birthday when he’d completely shut down. This felt different. Like maybe it was just a blip, something he’d explain soon.
Though I couldn’t quite shake the fragments I remembered from last night. Something about lying to me. Something about a woman named Jenna. My exhausted brain had barely registered the words before I’d fallen asleep, but now in the clear light of morning, they sat uneasily in my mind. Who was Jenna? What had he lied about? Part of me wanted to know immediately. But a larger part — the part that had just spent two emotionally devastating days dealing with alpaca births and cattle deaths — trusted that Sam would finish telling me when we were both ready.
I could admit, at least to myself, that I’d created some of this situation.
I could have confronted him at the restaurant. Could have asked him directly what was wrong when he got those text messages and went pale. Could have demanded answers instead of ignoring what I’d heard.
But I’d been scared. Scared that if I pushed, he’d tell me he’d changed his mind about us. Scared that my pushing would become the reason he didn’t want to marry me anymore. So I’d stayed quiet, hoping it would resolve itself, hoping that whatever was making him hesitate would just… disappear.
I’d never been the kind of woman who checked her partner’s phone or went through his things. But this morning, when I’d seen Sam’s laptop sitting open on his desk, the temptation had been overwhelming. I’d stood in the doorway of our home office for a full minute, arguing with myself. He didn’t have a password on his phone or laptop, never locked anything away from me, so it would have been so easy to walk over and look.
I trust him,I’d told myself firmly.Whatever’s going on, he’ll tell me when he’s ready. He was trying to tell me yesterday.
So I’d walked away. Made my coffee, gotten ready for work, and pushed down the nagging feeling that something wasn’t quite right.
