Chapter 2 - THE BIRTHDAY THAT CHANGED EVERYTHING
Emily stared at me for so long that I could hear every small mechanical sound inside the cabin.
The engines.
The air vents.
The faint rattle of ice inside someone’s glass three rows ahead.
“Emily.”
She looked down at the little girl sleeping against her chest.
“March eighteenth.”
I did the math again.
I didn’t need to.
My body had already understood before my mind caught up.
Thirty-one months earlier, Emily and I had still been together.
We had spent a weekend at my father’s lake house because it was the first anniversary of his death and I couldn’t stand being in Manhattan.
I remembered rain striking the windows.
Emily making coffee at midnight because neither of us could sleep.
Her climbing into bed beside me without saying anything.
Her hand finding mine beneath the blanket.
Three weeks later, our relationship had collapsed.
And now a twenty-two-month-old girl with my father’s eyes was sleeping ten feet away from me.
“What’s her name?”
Emily swallowed.
“Madeline.”
I stared at the child.
“Madeline what?”
“Carter.”
Something in my chest twisted.
Not because she had Emily’s last name.
Because I suddenly understood that somewhere in the world there had been a birth certificate with an empty space where my name should have been.
“Is she mine?”
Emily’s eyes filled immediately.
That hurt worse than any answer.
“Nathan—”
“Don’t protect me from this.”
“I’m not.”
“Then tell me.”
She looked toward the window.
Clouds stretched endlessly beneath us.
“Yes.”
One word.
That was all it took to destroy the life I had been living five minutes earlier.
My daughter.
I had a daughter.
The little girl who had thanked me for picking up a cracker was my daughter.
I stood too quickly.
Emily flinched.
The flight attendant looked toward us.
I forced myself back into the seat.
“You knew.”
“Of course I knew.”
“How long?”
“I found out twelve days after we broke up.”
I stared at her.
“Twenty-nine months.”
“Yes.”
“You knew for twenty-nine months.”
Her expression hardened.
“Do not say that like I woke up one morning and decided it would be entertaining to hide your child.”
“What would you call it?”
“I would call it surviving what happened.”
My jaw tightened.
“What happened?”
Emily laughed once.
There was nothing amused about it.
“I called you.”
I stopped breathing.
“What?”
“The first time was the night I took the test.”
“I never got a call.”
“I called six times over three days.”
“No.”
“Yes.”
“My number hasn’t changed in eleven years.”
“Your assistant said you weren’t taking personal calls.”
“My assistant?”
“Your office.”
I leaned forward.
“Who did you speak to?”
“I don’t remember every receptionist I talked to two and a half years ago.”
“Think.”
“Nathan.”
“Think.”
She studied my face.
Then something uncertain appeared in hers.
“The last person was Richard.”
The cabin seemed to tilt.
Richard Vaughn.
My father’s oldest friend.
The attorney who had helped me fight a board revolt after Dad died.
The man who had sat beside me at the funeral.
The man I called when Emily left because I had been too proud to call her myself.
“What did Richard say?”
Emily hesitated.
“He said you knew.”
My heartbeat became painfully slow.
“Knew what?”
“That I was pregnant.”
I stared at her.
“He said he told you.”
“He never told me anything.”
Emily went still.
For the first time since she boarded the plane, the anger disappeared from her face.
“What?”
“I swear to you.”
She shook her head.
“No.”
“Emily.”
“No, because three days later I received an email.”
“From who?”
“You.”
I felt cold.
“I never emailed you.”
“Yes, you did.”
“What did it say?”
Her eyes lowered.
She didn’t answer.
“Emily.”
Her voice became barely audible.
“It said you believed the timing was manipulative.”
I couldn’t move.
“It said if the baby was really yours, your attorneys would deal with it after the birth. It said I was not to contact you personally again.”
My stomach turned.
“I did not send that.”
She looked at me.
For one long second, neither of us spoke.
Then she reached into the diaper bag.
She pulled out her phone.
Her fingers shook as she searched.
Finally, she held it out.
There it was.
An email dated twenty-nine months earlier.
From my corporate address.
[[email protected]](mailto:[email protected]).
I recognized the signature immediately.
Nathaniel James Cole
Chief Executive Officer
Cole Meridian Holdings
But I had never written the words above it.
I read them twice.
Then a third time.
My daughter stirred at the sudden silence.
Emily gently rubbed her back.
“I thought you hated me,” she said.
The anger in her voice was gone now.
That was worse.
“I thought whatever we had meant so little to you that you were willing to send a lawyer after your own unborn child.”
“I didn’t know.”
“You were photographed with Claire three weeks later.”
I remembered.
A Beaumont Foundation benefit.
Claire had been standing beside me because our companies were negotiating a financing agreement.
The tabloids had called it a romance before we had even kissed.
Emily must have seen it.
“I thought that was your answer,” she whispered.
I looked down at the velvet box still visible beneath my jacket.
Claire.
Napa.
The terrace.
The champagne.
Suddenly all of it felt like something belonging to another man.
My phone vibrated.
CLAIRE.
I didn’t answer.
Emily saw the name.
“You should.”
“No.”
“Nathan.”
“She’s waiting for me in Napa.”
Emily’s face changed.
Understanding.
Then guilt.
“Oh.”
“I was going to propose tonight.”
The words hung between us.
Emily looked away.
“I’m sorry.”
I almost laughed.
“You’re sorry?”
“This wasn’t how you were supposed to find out.”
“How was I supposed to find out?”
She didn’t answer.
That frightened me.
“Were you ever going to tell me again?”
“I tried once more after Maddie was born.”
My eyes moved immediately toward the child.
“You tried?”
“I sent a certified letter to your office. Photographs. Her birth certificate. Everything.”
“I never saw it.”
“I know that now.”
The pilot announced our descent into San Francisco.
Seat belt lights illuminated.
Emily buckled Maddie into the child seat beside her.
My daughter woke slowly.
She blinked at me.
Those gray eyes found mine again.
Then, because she was a toddler and the world had not yet taught her how devastating innocence could be, she smiled.
It was crooked.
My smile.
My father’s smile.
I turned toward the window because suddenly my eyes were burning.
“Nathan?”
Emily’s voice softened.
I looked back.
“I want a DNA test.”
Pain flashed across her face.
Not offense.
Resignation.
“Okay.”
“And I want copies of everything you sent.”
“Okay.”
“And after your sister’s surgery, you and I are going to talk.”
Emily nodded.
My phone vibrated again.
CLAIRE.
I answered this time.
“Hey,” she said immediately. “Your driver called. He says your flight lands in twenty minutes. I told the staff to delay dinner. How long until you’re here?”
I looked at my daughter.
Her tiny sneaker tapped against the seat.
“I’m not coming to Napa.”
Silence.
“What?”
“I’m staying in San Francisco.”
“Nathan, what happened?”
I closed my hand around the ring box.
“Something I should have known about twenty-nine months ago.”
Another pause.
Then Claire asked quietly, “Is Emily Carter with you?”
Every hair on my arms rose.
I turned slowly toward Emily.
“What did you just say?”
Claire didn’t answer.
“Claire.”
Her breathing changed.
“Nathan, we should talk in person.”
The plane touched the runway.
Hard.
The cabin shook.
But the real impact had already happened.
May you like
Because Emily had just told me Richard Vaughn knew about my unborn child.
And the woman I had planned to marry had somehow known Emily’s name before I had mentioned it.
