But a child? A child wasn't a scar. A child was a living, breathing monument to his betrayal.
Every time Sarah looked at him, she wouldn't just see a cheater. She would see a father who built a family with her sister.
"She will never forgive me," he whispered, his breath fogging up the cold glass. "Never."
"Harrison?" Emily asked, her voice tentative behind him. "Are you okay?"
He didn't turn around. He couldn't look at her without seeing the wreckage.
I can’t leave, the voice in his head—the voice of his father, the voice of the "good man" he desperately pretended to be—whispered. You broke the vows. You broke the wife. But you cannot break the child.
If he walked out that door, if he blocked Emily’s number and moved to another state, he would be a deadbeat. He would be the villain in a story that an innocent boy—or girl—would be told for the rest of their life. Your daddy didn't want you. Your daddy ran away.
He couldn't be that man. He could be a liar. He could be an adulterer. But he couldn't be a monster who abandoned his own son.
And that was the trap. His own conscience was the bars of the cell.
"Harrison, come sit down," Emily said, the mattress creaking as she sat. "We need to talk about logistics. My insurance is gone since the agency dropped me. We need to get me on your plan. And this apartment... it’s okay for now, but there’s no elevator. For the stroller, we’ll need—"
Her words washed over him like acid. Insurance. Strollers. Elevators.
She was planning a life. She was nesting in the ruins.
He turned slowly. Emily was glowing. There was a terrifying radiance to her. She looked at him not with shame, but with pride. She had won. She had secured the asset.
"I need a drink," Harrison said, his voice unrecognizable.
"You can't," Emily chirped. "I mean, I can't. And you should probably stop too, right? In solidarity? We should start eating healthy. For the baby."
Harrison looked at the divorce papers on the table. Then he looked at Emily’s flat stomach.
He felt a wave of nausea so strong he had to grip the windowsill. He was going to miss Sarah’s birthday. He was going to miss their anniversary. Instead, he would be here, in this beige apartment, discussing prenatal vitamins with the woman who had handed him the match to burn his life down.
"Harrison?"
"I'm here," he said, the resignation settling onto his shoulders like a shroud. "I'm not going anywhere."
He walked over to the cheap laminate table and pulled out a chair. He sat down opposite the divorce papers.
He was a father. And it felt like a death sentence.
Chapter Ten
Harrison
The conference room at Vance & Keating was a glass cage suspended in the sky. It smelled of lemon polish and expensive coffee—the scent of legitimate business. Harrison smelled like stress sweat and the motel soap he couldn't scrub off his skin.
He sat on one side of the mahogany table. His lawyer, a court-appointed junior associate who looked bored, sat next to him.
Then, the door opened.
Sarah walked in.
The air left Harrison’s lungs as if he’d been punched. She was... breathtaking. She wore a navy blue sheath dress that hugged her frame, professional yet devastatingly elegant. Her hair was blown out straight, shining under the recessed lighting. She looked sharp, focused, and utterly untouchable.
She didn't look at him. She pulled out the high-backed leather chair opposite him and sat down, placing her hands on the table. No wedding ring. Just bare, manicured fingers.
God, I miss her, Harrison thought, a physical ache spreading through his chest. He missed the way she tapped her pen when she was thinking. He missed the faint scent of jasmine she wore. He missed the person he used to be when he was reflected in her eyes.
