"Aren't you going to greet me, little sister?" Emily said.
Chapter Three
Harrison
The single, bare bulb hanging from the ceiling flickered, casting a sickly yellow glow across the peeling wallpaper of the cheap efficiency apartment. It was a miserable, single room in the worst part of the city. A neighborhood where the sirens never really stopped, and the radiator hissed like a dying animal. It was all his delivery-driver wages could afford after he packed his duffel bag and finally walked out of Emily’s life.
He looked at the numbers on his cracked phone screen, resting on a stained laminate counter: 8:30 PM.
He knew exactly what was happening right now, three miles away in the heart of downtown. The cocktail hour was wrapping up. The chimes were sounding in the grand ballroom, signaling the guests to take their seats for the dinner service. For years, he had lived that schedule. He knew how the ballroom smelled—like roasted tenderloin, expensive floral centerpieces, and wealth. He knew how Sarah would subtly reach for his hand under the table when the keynote speaker went on too long.
He closed his eyes, sliding down the faded kitchen cabinets until he was sitting on the sticky linoleum floor.
He could see her. He could picture her standing in front of their old bedroom mirror, fastening a pair of silver earrings, the scent of jasmine trailing behind her. She had always beenthe most beautiful, elegant woman in the room. And he had belonged by her side.
Now, he belonged here. Sitting in the dark with a half-empty bottle of bottom-shelf, gut-rot whiskey between his knees.
He took a long, burning pull directly from the cheap glass neck. He was trying to drink himself into a blackout, trying to reach a level of numbness where the memories couldn't find him. But the cheap alcohol didn't blur the edges; it only sharpened the knives.
And the sharpest knife of all was the memory of the hospital room.
Harrison squeezed his eyes shut tighter, but he couldn't stop the flashback from pulling him under. The sterile smell of bleach and iodine rushed back into his lungs. The rhythmic beep-beep-beep of the heart monitor echoed in his skull.
The hospital door swung open.
Heavy, confident footsteps stepped into Room 412. The scent of expensive, imported cologne cut through the clinical air, entirely out of place.
Emily’s face had lit up with a brilliant, genuine smile—a smile she had never once directed at Harrison. "You made it," she cooed.
Harrison had turned his head slowly, his eyes tracking from the floor, up a pair of tailored suit pants, to the face of the man walking into the room.
His heart stopped dead in his chest. His jaw went slack, and his eyes widened in absolute, paralyzing disbelief.
"Ryan?" Harrison breathed.
It was Ryan. The senior partner at Sarah’s architecture firm. The wealthy, powerful man who had shaken Harrison'shand at firm dinners, the man who signed Sarah's paychecks, the man who commanded every room he walked into.
Ryan barely looked at Harrison. He gave him the kind of brief, dismissive glance one might give a cockroach on the floor before stepping around it. He walked straight to the side of the hospital bed, leaning down to press a kiss to Emily’s sweaty forehead.
"Traffic from the airport was hell," Ryan murmured smoothly, looking down at the bassinet. He smiled—a proud, proprietary smile. "He’s perfect, Em."
"He looks exactly like his daddy," Emily cooed softly, her gaze shifting to Ryan with pure, unadulterated adoration. "He even has your eyes."
Ryan’s smile widened with a fierce, unmistakable pride.
Harrison had stumbled backward until his shoulders hit the wall. The room was spinning violently. "Ryan? I... I don't understand. What are you doing here?"
Emily looked at Harrison, her eyes glittering with a malicious satisfaction she could no longer bother to hide.
"Oh, Harry. Don't look so heartbroken," she mocked, leaning back against her pillows. "You really thought I'd settle for a broke delivery driver in a beige apartment? I met Ryan a few months ago when I dropped by Sarah's office. We ran into each other in the lobby. He invited me out for a drink, and I saw no harm in accepting. It happened a few more times... until he had to leave the country and we lost contact."
Harrison felt like he was drowning. "But... the timeline. The pregnancy tests."
"Ryan had to go to London to oversee a corporate deal right when I found out I was late," Emily explained, relishing every syllable, watching Harrison shatter piece by piece. "He was entirely off the grid, dealing with lawyers and investors.I couldn't reach him. I panicked. I had no money, Michael had dumped me, and I needed a safety net."
She paused, a mocking lilt entering her voice. "The irony is, the conception timeline matched up perfectly with those weeks you and I weren't even sleeping together, Harry. You were too busy playing the guilty husband."
Emily shot a quick, apologetic look toward Ryan. "Though, to be fair, I had been sleeping with both of you at the same time for a while before that."
