I used my key because the penthouse was still in my name and I was still paying the mortgage. The place looked the same—floor-to-ceiling windows, open floor plan, the kind of space that architects put in magazines. But it smelled different. Lyric had filled it with those Bath and Body Works candles that she bought in bulk and the whole apartment smelled like Mahogany Teakwood, which was fine, but it wasn’t mine anymore.
I heard voices coming from the dining room and my jaw tightened before I even turned the corner.
Lyric was at the table with a glass of wine. And across from her, eating takeout with chopsticks like she still lived here, was Camille.
Camille. Seven months pregnant, belly round under a cream sweater, looking healthy and glowing and completely at ease in my dining room like she hadn’t been thrown out of this apartment eight months ago for trying to pass another man’s baby off as mine.
I turned the corner into the dining room and there they were.
Lyric was at the table with a glass of wine. And across from her, eating takeout with chopsticks, was Camille. Seven months pregnant, belly round under a cream sweater, looking healthy and glowing and completely at ease like she’d never left.
“Hey, Quest,” Lyric said, not looking up from her plate.
I nodded and kept it moving toward the bedroom. I wasn’t here for conversation. I was here for the Audemars.
“So you’re not even going to speak to me?” Camille’s voice caught me before I made it down the hallway.
I stopped but I didn’t turn around. “I said what I had to say the last time we talked. Nothing’s changed.”
“You told Lyric I could move back in. Doesn’t that count for something?”
“That was for Lyric. She wanted you here, so I said fine. That has nothing to do with me and you.”
Lyric stood up. “See, this is exactly what I’m talking about. You do shit like that, let her move back in but then act like she doesn’t exist. You want to be generous without being human. It’s cold, Quest.”
“I am cold. You knew that when you met me.”
“You know what I think?” Lyric crossed her arms. “I think you’ve got another woman. That’s the real reason you dropped both of us. Not because of Camille’s pregnancy, not becauseyou needed space—because you found somebody new and didn’t have the balls to say it.”
“Lyric, if I had another woman, I would’ve brought her into this penthouse and moved her in. I ain’t never lied to either of you about shit. I was upfront about being poly and not wanting kids. So if I had someone else, you’d know about this too. I just don’t fuckin’ want you. I’m honest about that right now!”
“This isn’t over, Quest.” She pointed at me with her wine glass. “You don’t just get to walk away from these years like it was nothing. I gave you everything.”
“You gave me headaches and credit card bills. I’m going to get my things.”
I walked past them toward the bedroom. The watch case was on the dresser where I’d left it. I opened it and checked—the Royal Oak was there, along with my Cartier Santos and a Patek Philippe that Justice had given me last Christmas. I closed the case and tucked it under my arm, then grabbed the garment bag with my remaining suits from the closet.
When I came back through the dining room, Lyric had disappeared—I could hear her slamming cabinet doors in the kitchen, which was her preferred method of communication when she was angry. Camille was still at the table, chopsticks set down, hands folded over her belly.
“For what it’s worth, I’m sorry, Quest,” she said quietly.
“It ain’t worth shit.”
She flinched but didn’t look away. “I know.”
I should’ve kept walking. Should’ve taken my watches and my suits and gone back to the hotel and poured myself a drink and let the night end there. But something about the way she was sitting—hands on her belly, no wine in front of her, that look on her face that was more exhaustion than regret—made me stop.
“Who’s the father?” I asked. Not because I cared. Because I wanted to hear her say it.
“Someone from the firm. A colleague. It was a one-night thing.” She paused and her eyes dropped to the table. “It was late one night after a case. We went out for drinks to celebrate and I had too much. I barely remember most of it. I think I blacked out and he…” She trailed off. Her hand pressed against her belly. “He took advantage of the situation.”
The room shifted. I set the garment bag down on the back of a chair because the conversation had just gone somewhere I wasn’t expecting.
“If that’s true, I’m sorry. Nobody deserves that.” I meant it. Whatever Camille had done to me, whatever lies she told, nobody deserved to be violated while they were unconscious. “But you still took out your IUD without telling me. That was before whatever happened with him. You were already trying to trap me into a pregnancy I told you I didn’t want.”
“I know. I know I did that. And I’m not trying to excuse it. I wanted a baby so badly and you were so final about it—the vasectomy, the conversations, the ‘never ever’ of it all. I made a terrible choice.” She wiped her eyes. “But I want to rule out paternity. I want you to take a test.”
“For what? I had a vasectomy, Camille.”
