Chương 8
“You blocked me,” he said.
“Yes.”
“I brought your things.”
He held out the box.
Claire did not take it.
“What things?”
“Your mail. Charger. Some clothes.”
“My clothes are in my apartment.”
“Our apartment.”
“My apartment.”
A familiar irritation moved across his face.
Then he controlled it.
“I’m not here to fight.”
“Why are you here?”
“To fix this.”
Claire almost laughed.
“How?”
“By talking like adults.”
“You tried to frame my pregnancy as infidelity in front of two hundred people.”
“Because my mother ambushed me.”
“She didn’t make you hit the glass.”
“I didn’t hit you.”
“No. You made sure you could say that.”
Ethan looked away.
The porch light attracted moths. One kept striking the glass above them with tiny dry taps.
“I was angry.”
“I know.”
“You said something before the video started.”
Claire stared.
“What did I say?”
“You told me you were reconsidering the wedding.”
“Yes.”
“In front of my mother.”
“No. I told you quietly.”
“She heard.”
“So?”
His mouth tightened.
“You had been avoiding me for days.”
“Because you were pressuring me to sign a prenup with an infidelity clause after we conceived a donor child.”
“It was standard.”
“My lawyer says it wasn’t.”
“Your lawyer is paid to create conflict.”
Claire almost answered.
Then she stopped.
This was how it happened.
A claim. A correction. Another claim. An hour vanished.
She folded her arms.
“Did you impersonate me to the fertility clinic?”
Ethan went still.
Not dramatically.
Just enough.
Claire felt something inside her settle.
He said, “What are you talking about?”
She had heard better lies from interns.
“Did you try to replace the donor with Julian?”
His face changed.
There.
Fear.
Real fear.
“You’ve been talking to my mother.”
“The clinic identified an unauthorized request.”
“Claire—”
“The replacement donor number was Julian’s.”
He looked toward the house.
Robert stood visibly behind the kitchen window.
Ethan lowered his voice.
“You don’t understand.”
“Then explain.”
“It wasn’t going to hurt you.”
Claire actually smiled.
Not because anything was funny.
Because the sentence was so revealing.
“That is your explanation?”
“I was trying to give us something.”
“What?”
“A child connected to both of us.”
“A child connected to you.”
“To my family.”
“Without telling me.”
“I was going to tell you.”
“When?”
“After.”
“After I was pregnant?”
“I didn’t know how you would react.”
Claire stared at him.
Rainwater from an afternoon storm still glistened between the bricks of the walkway.
“You didn’t know how I would react, so you removed my ability to react.”
“No.”
“That is exactly what you did.”
“It never happened.”
“Because a nurse stopped it.”
“I changed my mind.”
Claire’s eyes narrowed.
“What?”
“I stopped it.”
“The clinic says the request failed because the consent didn’t match.”
Ethan hesitated.
One second.
Too long.
“That’s what I mean. I didn’t push it.”
“You’re taking credit for failing.”
“I’m telling you I knew it was wrong.”
“After impersonating me.”
His jaw tightened.
“I was desperate.”
“There it is.”
“What?”
“The word that makes everything acceptable.”
“I’m infertile, Claire.”
“You lied to me about that too.”
His face hardened.
“I couldn’t say it.”
“You could.”
“You have no idea what that does to a man.”
“No. I know what your response did to me.”
He stepped closer.
Claire stepped back.
His face registered the movement.
Hurt.
Then anger at being hurt.
“I would never hurt you.”
“You already have.”
“I mean physically.”
“You don’t get credit for category management.”
He looked toward the box.
“I’m sorry about the glass.”
Claire waited.
He looked up.
“I am.”
“Okay.”
“Okay?”
“That means I heard you.”
“You’re not going to forgive me.”
“No.”
“Ever?”
“I don’t know.”
The uncertainty upset him more than no.
Claire had noticed this before. Ethan preferred a closed door he could attack to an open hallway he could not control.
He rubbed his forehead.
“Are you keeping the baby?”
Claire’s body stiffened.
“Yes.”
His eyes flickered toward her stomach.
“You didn’t tell me.”
“You knew I wanted this pregnancy.”
“That was before.”
“Before what?”
“Everything.”
Claire stared at him.
The idea that he believed his behavior might change her desire for the baby was so strange she could not immediately answer.
Ethan lowered his voice.
“I signed the parentage forms.”
“Yes.”
“I intended to be the father.”
“Past tense?”
He exhaled sharply.
“I don’t know what I’m supposed to be now.”
That, at least, sounded true.
For a moment they stood without speaking.
The moth hit the porch light again.
Claire said, “You could have been the father.”
Ethan looked at her.
“You were the father. Not biologically. That was the decision we made.”
His expression broke slightly.
Claire continued.
“You’re the one who made biology more important than the promise.”
“That’s not fair.”
“It is exactly fair.”
“I wanted one thing in my life to continue.”
“You are not a dynasty, Ethan.”
“You don’t understand my family.”
“No. I understand it better now than I did when I agreed to join it.”
He looked toward the dark lawn.
“My grandfather built everything.”
“Your grandfather owned insurance companies.”
“He built something that outlived him.”
“And you thought using your cousin’s sperm would make you immortal?”
“Don’t make it ugly.”
“You made it ugly.”
He flinched.
Claire had never seen him flinch from her words.
Part of her hated herself for noticing the satisfaction.
That was the ugly part of her, and it was real.
Ethan pushed the box toward her.
She took it because the conversation needed to end.
“Talk to Maya,” she said.
“You’re really going to do this through lawyers?”
“Yes.”
“You know what happens then.”
“No. That’s actually the first thing I’ve learned this month. I don’t know what happens next.”
He looked at her for a long time.
Then said, “My mother is using you.”
Claire almost told him Margaret had said the same thing in reverse.
Instead she said, “Go home.”
May you like
He left.
Inside, Robert was pretending to wipe an already clean kitchen counter.
