Chương 4
I sat on the couch with Lily asleep against my shoulder.
“What strange?”
“The paperwork Chloe submitted does not match the original timeline.”
I looked down at my daughter.
“What does that mean?”
“It means either someone made a serious mistake, or someone changed the story.”
The second possibility sat between us without being spoken.
I hated how quickly my mind went there.
Because before all of this, I would have defended Julian.
I would have searched for another explanation.
I would have said there had to be a misunderstanding.
That version of me still existed somewhere.
She was just tired.
“You need to be careful,” Marcus continued.
“I know.”
“No.”
His voice softened.
“You know how to fight. You do not know how to stop caring about him yet.”
The honesty of it irritated me because it was true.
I looked around my parents’ living room.
The same room where I had built countless childhood memories.
The same room where my father used to sit in the corner reading financial newspapers and pretending not to listen to everyone else’s conversations.
The same room where Julian had once asked my parents for their blessing before proposing.
He had been nervous.
Actually nervous.
He had dropped the ring box twice while practicing.
My mother had laughed when she told me.
“He loves you,” she had said.
I remembered believing her.
Maybe he had.
Maybe people could love someone and still become someone capable of hurting them.
That was the part nobody wanted to admit.
Monsters were easy.
Humans were harder.
The next morning, I drove to New York for a meeting with Marcus.
I almost canceled three times.
Not because I was afraid.
Because leaving Lily for even a few hours felt wrong.
My mother insisted.
“She will survive without you for one afternoon,” she said while rocking Lily in the kitchen.
I looked offended.
“She’s three weeks old.”
“She is also surrounded by people who would fight a bear for her.”
“That is a very dramatic way to describe babysitting.”
My mother shrugged.
“I know my strengths.”
It was the first time I laughed in days.
Small.
Unexpected.
But real.
The drive into Manhattan felt strange.
Everything looked the same.
The traffic.
The people carrying coffee cups.
The crowded sidewalks.
The buildings that seemed to compete for attention.
Yet I felt like I was seeing the city from outside myself.
Like I had been living inside a glass box and someone had finally opened the door.
Marcus’s office was quieter than usual when I arrived.
He closed the door behind me.
“There is more.”
I sat down.
“What?”
He placed a folder on the table.
“Chloe’s prenatal records were transferred from another provider.”
“Okay.”
“She originally listed a different father.”
I stared at him.
“What?”
Marcus tapped the folder.
“The record was corrected two days later.”
“Corrected by who?”
“That is the problem.”
He slid another document toward me.
The correction request came from an account connected to Sterling Technologies.
Not Julian personally.
Someone using company access.
My stomach tightened.
“Why would someone at his company change medical information?”
Marcus shook his head.
“We do not know yet.”
The answer bothered me.
Because uncertainty was dangerous.
It gave people room to create their own explanations.
“Could it have been an administrative error?”
“Yes.”
I waited.
“But?”
Marcus looked at me.
“But it would be a very convenient administrative error.”
I leaned back.
For a moment, neither of us spoke.
The old version of me would have wanted the answer immediately.
A villain.
A reason.
A person to blame.
Now I understood that real life rarely offered clean lines.
There were people.
Choices.
Fear.
Self-interest.
Mistakes.
Sometimes the truth was not hidden because someone was brilliant.
Sometimes it was hidden because everyone involved was too afraid to admit what happened.
“Does Julian know?” I asked.
Marcus folded his hands.
“That is what we need to find out.”
Later that afternoon, I saw Julian’s name appear on the news feed.
A business magazine had published an interview.
He was sitting in his office, wearing the same kind of perfectly fitted suit he wore everywhere.
The headline described him as a visionary entrepreneur.
I almost closed it.
Then I saw the quote.
“I have always believed legacy is built through family and responsibility.”
I stared at the screen.
The irony was almost painful.
He spoke beautifully when strangers were listening.
That had always been one of his gifts.
Julian could make people believe in possibilities.
He could stand in front of a room of investors and make them feel like they were witnessing history.
The problem was that eventually he had started believing his own speeches.
That night, he called again.
I almost ignored it.
Almost.
“Did you see the interview?” he asked.
No hello.
No question about Lily.
Just himself.
“Yes.”
“I wanted you to know I am trying to handle this respectfully.”
I looked at the bottle I was preparing for Lily.
“Respectfully?”
“Yes.”
“You announced your engagement three days after leaving the hospital.”
“That was complicated.”
“It was fast.”
He sighed.
“You always focus on the worst interpretation.”
I stopped moving.
Because that sentence was familiar.
It was one of his favorites.
Whenever I pointed out something painful, he made the conversation about my reaction instead of his action.
“You called me because of the article?”
“No.”
A pause.
“I called because I heard Marcus was involved.”
There it was.
The real reason.
Fear.
“How did you hear that?”
Another pause.
Longer.
“People talk.”
“People always seem to talk when you are worried.”
His voice hardened.
“Do not turn this into a fight.”
I looked at the clock.
Lily was asleep.
The apartment was quiet.
And somehow Julian still had the ability to make my entire body tense.
“You left me with divorce papers and a newborn baby,” I said.
“I did what I thought was necessary.”
“For who?”
Silence.
May you like
The kind that answered without answering.
Then he said something I never expected.
