I could hear Jack and Harper talking quietly downstairs, their voices a comforting murmur in the otherwise silent house. They were still planning, still strategizing, refusing to leave me alone in this.
Jack and Harper, working together as a team, the way I should have worked with Chloe. The way I would work with her, if she gave me another chance.
Tomorrow I’d be the Sam they’d called me out for not being today. The one who showed up, spoke directly, confronted problems head-on. The Sam who deserved Chloe, not the panicked mess who’d driven her away.
I closed my eyes and tried to figure out where Chloe had run to. I hoped she was somewhere safe. Wherever she was, I knew she was heartbroken, convinced that the man she loved had been planning to abandon her for another woman and a ready-made family.
Tomorrow I’ll fix this mess.
Chapter 14
Sam - Seven Days After Chloe’s Birthday
Ididn’t sleep.
But instead of spending the night in a panic spiral, I’d used the time productively. By dawn, I had a clear plan: a list of contact numbers to call, notes on exactly what I needed to say to Jenna, and a strategy for how to handle things when Chloe was ready to talk.
Jack and Harper had stayed the night, taking the guest room. Jack had left for work early after getting a rundown of my plan and making me promise to call him with updates. Harper emerged from upstairs around six-thirty, took one look at me sitting at the kitchen table with my organized notes and a single cup of coffee, and smiled.
“That’s more like it,” she said. “You look like yourself again. Jack’s parents are going to keep Emma today.” She settled into the chair across from me. “So I can stay as long as you need me to.”
I nodded.
“Any luck?” she asked gently.
“Her parents aren’t picking up. Might be screening my calls.” I rubbed my eyes, feeling like I’d aged ten years overnight. “I left messages explaining there’s been a misunderstanding, but I don’t know if they’ll even listen to them.”
“They’ll listen.” Harper set a mug of tea in front of me. “But you need to prepare yourself for the possibility that they won’t tell you where she is, even if they know.”
“I know. But I have to try.” I pulled out the small velvet box I’d been carrying in my pocket. “I bought this ring months ago, Harper. Was going to propose on her birthday.”
Harper was quiet for a long moment, her expression shifting between sympathy for me and something that looked like painful recognition. I knew she was putting herself in Chloe’s shoes - the woman who’d been kept in the dark while the man she loved spent time with his ex. Her own experience with Jack’s secrets was written all over her face. “I know that. But Chloe doesn’t know that.”
“She doesn’t know any of it. She thinks I’ve been planning to leave her. She thinks Leo changes everything between us.”
“Doesn’t he?”
The question caught me off guard. “What do you mean?”
“Doesn’t having a son change things between you and Chloe?” Harper’s voice was careful, probing. “Not the way Jenna probably convinced her it does, but practically speaking? Your life is going to be different now. Chloe’s life would be different, too, if she chose to be part of it.”
I thought about Leo asking if I was his daddy, the way his face lit up when I pushed him on the swings, the protective instinct I felt every time I was around him. “Yes,” I said honestly. “Everything’s different now. I’m a father. I have responsibilities I didn’t have before, priorities that have shifted in ways I’m still figuring out.”
“And?”
I picked up the ring box, turning it over in my palm. “Having Leo doesn’t make me love her less. It makes me love her more because I can see what an amazing mother she’d be, what an incredible family we could have together.”
My phone rang, and I lunged for it, hoping it was Chloe. “Hello?”
“Is this Sam Mitchell?” The voice was female, and I recognized it immediately despite never having spoken to her directly. I’d walked in on the end of enough calls between Chloe and her mother to know that measured tone, the careful way she spoke.
“Yes.”
“This is Erin Parker, Chloe’s mom. I got your message.”
We’d been trying to arrange a meeting for months, but something always came up on one side or the other. We’d finally settled on the summer holidays as a sure thing. Now here I was, talking to her mother for the first time over a phone call in the middle of a crisis.
Despite the situation, relief flooded through me so suddenly that I felt dizzy. “Mrs. Parker, thank you for calling back. I need to find Chloe. There’s been a terrible misunderstanding–”
