The words landed hard. “Jack—”
“No, he’s right.” Harper’s voice was gentle but firm. “Sam, when Jack was with Madison, you were the one who stayed calm. You were the voice of reason. You told him exactly what he needed to hear, even when it was hard. You showed up for me when he couldn’t. You were clear-headed and rational and strong.” She paused. “So why didn’t you tell Chloe about Leo the minute you found out?”
I opened my mouth, but nothing came out. Why hadn’t I? It seemed so obvious now, so simple. Of course, I should have told her immediately. “I…” My voice broke. “I panicked. When Jenna texted me that photo at the restaurant, when I saw Leo’s face and knew immediately he was mine, I just… I couldn’t think straight.”
“So you lied to Chloe instead?” Jack’s tone wasn’t accusatory, just genuinely confused. “You, who lectured me about honesty for months?”
I thought about all those conversations with Jack. How clear everything had seemed when it was his marriage on the line, not mine. How easily I’d seen the path forward when I wasn’t the one standing in the wreckage. I’d given him advice like I was reading from a textbook on relationships, confident and certain, never imagining I’d end up in the same position — except worse, because I’d known better and still fucked it up anyway.
“It’s different when it’s happening to you!” The words burst out of me, raw and desperate. “When it’s someone else’s crisis, you can see everything clearly. You can give good advice because you’re not the one terrified of losing everything. But when it’s your own life falling apart? When you’re standing there thinking about how to tell the woman you love that you have a four-year-old son you didn’t know about?” I ran my hands through my hair. “I couldn’t see anything clearly. All I could think was that I needed to have answers before I told her. That if I could just figure everything out first, I could present it to her in a way that wouldn’t destroy us.”
Harper’s expression softened with understanding. “Like how I negotiate million-dollar deals on behalf of clients, but I can’t negotiate anything for myself because I’m emotionally invested in the outcome?”
“Exactly.” I looked at her gratefully. “At work, you have time to strategize, to plan, to think through every angle. But this? Jenna showed up out of nowhere. Every day there was a new crisis - Leo needed things, Jenna was running out of money, the paternity test was pending. I had no time to think, no space to plan. I just kept reacting.”
“And lying,” Jack said quietly. “To the woman you were planning to marry.”
“I wasn’t trying to lie.” My voice cracked. “I was trying to protect her. Trying to shield her from the chaos until I could make sense of it myself. You know what she gets like when she’s overwhelmed. How could I dump this on her when she was already barely holding it together?”
“By trusting her,” Harper said simply.
The truth of it settled over me like a weight. I’d spent six days trying to protect Chloe from the chaos, and in doing so, I’d made her live through the worst kind of torture — knowing something was wrong but being told everything was fine. I’d turned her into a woman who questioned her own instincts, who felt crazy for noticing the distance between us. I’d made her relive Sean all over again, and I’d done it while telling myself I was being noble.
“I know that now. I can see it so clearly now. But when I was in it? All I could see was how much I loved her and how terrified I was of losing her. Every instinct I had was screaming at meto fix it first, handle it alone, don’t burden her with my mess.” I looked at Jack. “You get it, don’t you? When you were with Madison, could you see clearly what you were doing to Harper?”
Jack’s face went pale. “No. God, no. I thought I was helping someone in crisis. I thought I was being a good person. I couldn’t see that I was destroying my marriage until it was almost too late.”
“That’s what fear does,” I said. “It makes you stupid. It makes you do the exact opposite of what you know is right because you’re so terrified of the outcome that you can’t think rationally.” I buried my face in my hands. “And now she’s gone, and I have no idea how to fix what I broke.”
There was a long silence.
I could feel them watching me, waiting to see if their words had broken through the panic or if I was going to keep spiraling. Part of me wanted to keep arguing, to defend myself, to explain all the reasons why I’d made the choices I had. But the larger part — the part that had been sitting alone for six hours staring at Chloe’s note — knew they were right. I’d lost myself somewhere in the chaos. The Sam who’d given Jack advice about honesty, who’d shown up for Harper when she needed him, who’d built a successful business and a good life — that Sam wouldn’t have handled this crisis the way I had.
Then Harper spoke, her voice soft but certain. “You fix it by stopping the panic. By being the Sam we know - the one who shows up, speaks directly, and fights for what matters.”
I looked up at her.
“You were there for me when Jack couldn’t be,” Harper continued. “You drove me to appointments, you sat with me in the hospital, you were present and calm and exactly what I needed. That’s who you are, Sam. Not this panicked, secretive version who’s been running around trying to control everything.”
“She’s right,” Jack said. “You need to take a breath, clear your head, and start acting like yourself again. The Sam who would have told Jenna to back off the minute she tried to manipulate the situation. The Sam who would have sat Chloe down immediately and said, ‘We have a complicated situation, and we’re going to figure it out together.’”
“I don’t know if I can,” I admitted. “I’m terrified, Jack. What if she doesn’t come back? What if I’ve destroyed this so completely that there’s no fixing it?”
“You deal with that if it happens,” Jack said firmly. “But right now? Right now, you stop spiraling and start thinking. You get your facts straight. And when Chloe is ready to hear from you, you show up as the man she fell in love with, not this panicked mess.”
I took a shaky breath. They were asking me to do the hardest thing in the world — to stop trying to control the outcome, to stop managing every variable, to accept that I’d made catastrophic mistakes and trust that there might still be a path forward. But what choice did I have? I’d tried handling everything alone, and look where it had gotten me. Chloe was gone. And I was sitting here in the wreckage of what should have been a simple conversation about becoming a father.
“Okay. You’re right. You’re both right.” I looked at them. “I need to stop panicking and start thinking clearly.”
“That’s the Sam we know,” Harper said with a small smile.
“Okay,” I said again, feeling something settle in my chest. “But I still need to talk to Jenna today. Soon. I need to know what lies she told Chloe so I can figure out how to counter them.”
“Tomorrow,” Harper agreed. “We’ll figure out how to get your family back.”
Your family. The words hit me square in the chest. That’s what Chloe was - my family. The woman I wanted to wake up next to for the rest of my life, the person I trusted with mydeepest fears and biggest dreams. And I’d lost her because I’d been too afraid to trust her with the truth.
Later that evening, I stood in our bedroom, staring at the bed I’d shared with Chloe for eight months. I pulled her pillow against my chest, breathing in the scent of her shampoo.
