26. Genevieve #2
He didn’t say anything for a moment, the air between us charged with something I couldn’t name. My soul ached with the way he looked at me, those eyes filled with betrayal, filled with hate, resentment, everything I deserved.
And then his expression sealed itself shut, the mask slamming into place.
He stepped back like he couldn’t stand being that close to me another second and turned away, jaw clenched so tightly I could see the muscle twitch from where I sat. He didn’t look back, his hand dragged over his face rough.
Then—
SLAM.
He walked out and shut the office door behind him, the sound so brutal it carved straight through me.
I flinched, breath catching, the silence that followed somehow louder. For a moment I just sat there, frozen.
My chest tightened. Words I couldn’t speak crawled up my throat like they were suffocating me. I should’ve said something. Anything to keep him from leaving the way he did. My fingers shook as I pressed them to my lips.
I could still feel him… his closeness, his anger, his disappointment.
The way he looked at me like he’d expected… hoped… I would finally stop running.
My eyes stung. God, what was I supposed to do now? How was I supposed to convince the man I left that the truth would break us and he’d never forgive me for what I’d kept from him?
Back at Reid’s penthouse, I couldn’t calm my nerves.
I’d been on edge since I left his office, my mind running circles around itself with no place to land.
Cara had taken the rest of the night off once she realized I was back.
She’d cooked dinner, got Eugene fed, bathed, tucked into his pajamas, efforts to soften the already long day we had.
It didn’t help.
Now I was brushing the hair out of my son’s face as he slept peacefully, his small hands curled near his cheek.
These days, every time I looked at him, I could see the truth staring back at me. It was eating me alive from the inside out.
I stood from the side of his bed, leaning down to press a lingering kiss to his warm skin.
He stirred under the touch, then sighed softly, sinking back into whatever little dream held him.
I wanted to be part of those dreams, to feel like I was still part of him, but it felt like the more time passed, the more he was slipping through my fingers.
Maybe that was my karma.
Jamie had kept what she almost lost.
She’d nearly lost Raymond when the truth of her affair came out…
nearly lost the man who stayed and forgave her publicly even when it shattered their home privately.
She paid for that mistake every day afterward: with her silence and guilt, with a body that kept betraying her long before the cancer did, and her son who left but was still willing to care for her despite everything.
And me? I was paying my price another way, watching the truth unravel piece by piece.
Reid could see through every lie I’d built my life around and all I could see was the man I once loved… the man I never stopped loving slip farther out of reach every time I opened my mouth and failed to tell him the truth.
I straightened slowly, forcing out a breath before I tucked Eugene’s blanket around him one more time. Then I backed out of the room and pulled the door halfway. I should have gone straight to the guest room, pretended I was tired to get rest from one of the longest days I’d probably ever have.
But I was restless and my feet had a mind of their own. I couldn’t leave things like this.
I found myself arguing with that voice in my mind as I approached his room. What good will this do, Genevieve? The man made it clear he wants to be away from you and you made it clear to him that you couldn’t tell him the truth when he needed it.
His bedroom was dark, door closed, but his office—
A sliver of light cut across the hallway from the ajar door.
I hesitated, my mind at war before I knocked softly. When I pushed it open, I glanced around for him, but he wasn’t inside.
The desk lamp glowed over his desk. Papers left out, his watch abandoned near the keyboard. His jacket thrown onto the chair like an afterthought instead of hung neatly the way he always insisted.
He never left things like this. Not unless he was stressed or on edge. And here I was pushing him toward it.
My chest constricted painfully. This was my karma too…
knowing Reid, he wouldn’t forgive me easily.
Maybe not at all. Still… I stepped inside.
Some part of me… the desperate, foolish, reckless part…
wanted to apologize. Soften the tension between us, tell him I was planning to tell him everything even if my courage to do so was non-existent.
I shouldn’t be in here. Especially after earlier, snooping through the documents about Jamie and finding the proof of everything he’d been carrying alone. Here I was ripping open another wound neither of us was ready to face.
But my feet kept moving through the room. As I moved toward the desk, something stopped me dead in my tracks. Made my entire world flip on itself. A paper glowed like a light in the middle of his corporate chaos.
And at the very top—
My son’s name.
Eugene Newman.
My vision tunneled. My pulse slammed into my throat and before I could stop myself, my hand found the paper, holding it up to read it.
DNA CONFIRMATION RESULTS
My breath caught.
No.
No, no, no—
My stomach dropped so violently I nearly grabbed the desk to steady myself.
CHILD: Eugene Newman
ALLEGED FATHER: Reid Kaufman
RESULT: 99.998% Probability of Paternity