“Just tell her already,” Sean said, his voice gentle. “Tell her how you feel. Stop torturing yourself with this fake relationship charade.”
“After the divorce hearing,” I said. “Two more days. I can wait two more days.”
“You’re an idiot,” Sean said, shaking his head. “But you’re my idiot. Don’t fuck this up.”
He left, and I was finally alone.
I went back to my office, closing the door. I should work and focus on the dozen cases demanding my attention. Instead, I pulled open my desk drawer and extracted my wallet from my briefcase.
The photo was tucked in the back, behind my credit cards and business cards, where I had kept it for over a decade. It had faded and yellowed on the edges, but it remained as precious as it was back then. Maybe even more now.
Teenage Paige stared back at me. Sixteen years old, braces just removed, long hair swept over her shoulders, wearing that yellow sundress she loved. She was laughing at something I had said off-camera, her eyes bright with joy.
I had taken this at her sixteenth birthday party and carried it with me ever since. Through college, law school and every failed relationship or meaningless hookup.
A constant reminder of what I wanted and couldn’t have.
Until now.
Where she was living in my penthouse, sleeping in the same bed, raising her daughter in the nursery, and smiling at me over morning coffee like it was the most natural thing in the world.
The divorce hearing was in two days, and then I could tell her everything. Could lay all my cards on the table and hope that she felt even a fraction of what I felt for her.
I had waited for decades so I could wait two more days.
My phone buzzed with a text from Cillian’s private investigator. The one I hired to keep tabs on Jack after that strange midnight visit.
The report was brief but concerning. Jack had been meeting with someone. The PI couldn’t get close enough to identify who, but the meetings were always in public places, always brief, always with Jack looking over his shoulder like he expected to be followed.
Which he was. But still.
Something was brewing and I could feel it in my bones, that lawyer instinct that had served me well over the years. Jack was planning something for the hearing. Some last-minute play that he thought would turn things in his favor.
Let him try. I had months of evidence, witness testimony, and thanks to Caleb’s technical skills, proof that those videos of Olivia had been permanently erased from every device and cloud storage Jack had access to.
She would be free of him soon, and so would Paige.
I tucked the photo back in my wallet and tried to focus on work for the rest of the afternoon.
When I finally made it home that evening, something felt off the moment I walked through the door.
Paige was in the kitchen, and she looked... awkward. As if she were forcing herself to appear casual.
“Hey,” I said, setting down my briefcase. “Everything okay?”
“Why wouldn’t everything be okay?” she asked, her voice too bright and high-pitched.
I tilted my head, studying her. I had known Paige for over twenty years. I knew every tell, every micro-expression, every tiny shift in her body language.
She was definitely hiding something.
But before I could press, she turned back to whatever she was doing at the counter, and I decided to let it go. If it were important, she would tell me. And if it wasn’t, I didn’t want to make her uncomfortable by pushing.
“Donna made soup, salad, and noodles for dinner,” Paige said, still not quite meeting my eyes. “It’s in the fridge if you’re hungry.”
An idea struck me to make her smile.
“Actually, I was thinking I could make you grilled cheese,” I said. “Your favorite.”
