Chapter 26 Damian
DAMIAN
I double back toward the reception hall because it’s the most logical place she could have gone. Logic is all I have right now, and I’m running in short supply of it.
The hallway is empty when I reach it. The music from the ballroom swells as I push the doors open again, the sound washing over me in waves of artificial cheer.
The dance floor is full now. Jason and Faith are no longer at its center.
They’re moving table to table, greeting guests with practiced and clearly fake smiles.
I scan the room again. No Perry in sickly pink. Nothing.
Instead, I find Amber.
She stands near the bar, one hand wrapped around the stem of a champagne flute. Her posture is immaculate, but her eyes are sharper than before. There is calculation in them, not venom. Something more measured. She steps into my path before I can move past her. “We need to talk.”
“I’m busy.”
“You have the time for me, and if not, you’ll make the time for me. This is important, Damian.”
I huff a sigh, and we move toward the side corridor that leads to the terrace, far enough from the center of the reception that conversation will not carry.
She doesn’t waste time. “Perry’s twins.”
“What about them?”
She studies my face carefully, as if looking for uncertainty. “They’re yours.”
It’s not a question. “Yes.”
Her lips press together, and she exhales slowly, the air leaving her in a measured release. “I always thought they were Jason’s.”
The statement surprises me. “You did too?”
“I did. But I didn’t want to screw things up for him with Faith by bringing it up.”
“You suspected he cheated on her?”
“Cheating or overlap, whatever you want to call it, the timing was close enough to be uncomfortable. But I chose not to ask.”
I look at her differently now. “You chose not to destroy their life.”
“Yes.” She glances back toward the reception hall, where Jason is laughing at something one of the groomsmen says. The laugh is too loud. Too performative. “I didn’t want my son walking into marriage under a cloud.”
“And now?”
She takes another breath, deeper this time, letting the information settle fully. “Now, it’s different because they’re yours.”
The reality is stabilizing in me now. The shock isn’t gone, but it’s solidifying into something I can stand on.
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
“I found out just before the ceremony. How did you find out?”
“Someone overheard Perry in the hallway, talking to you about them.”
“Who?”
She smiles. “I’ll never give away my sources, Damian. You know that.” Amber sighs. “Interesting timing on Perry’s part, don’t you think?”
“Yes.”
She almost smiles at that. “The girl seems to live for drama.”
“I doubt she does anymore.”
We stand in silence for a moment. The music shifts inside again. Applause erupts for some unseen milestone.
She looks at me thoughtfully. “Well, it’s a relief.”
I blink. “A relief?”
“For Jason,” she clarifies. “Considering his new marriage.” Her gaze drifts back toward the dance floor. “Although that might already be unstable.”
I fold my arms loosely across my chest and study her more carefully. “Unstable how?”
Amber lifts her chin slightly, the way she does when she’s about to deliver information that will rearrange the room. “I saw Faith overhear something. Your son was being…indiscreet.”
Funny how he’s my son when he’s in the wrong, but he’s our son when he’s behaving. “Indiscreet how?”
“Something about how he and Perry could figure something out after the honeymoon so they could have an affair behind Faith’s back.”
My jaw tightens. “I’m not shocked, sadly.”
We both glance toward the ballroom where Jason is now shaking hands with an older couple, grin fixed in place.
Faith stands beside him, posture stiff, smile thinner than it was an hour ago.
It pisses me off. She’s putting on a grand show on his behalf, knowing what she knows. Suffering with every fake smile.
“He has always struggled with fidelity,” Amber says quietly.
“He has always struggled with impulse,” I correct.
She considers that and nods. There’s a pause before she shifts the conversation again. “You seriously didn’t know before today?”
“No.”
She studies me for another moment, then exhales. “If I had known they were yours, I wouldn’t have had Meron push you out.”
“You admit you had him push me out?”
“Don’t pretend you don’t understand how that conversation went,” she replies. “You’re too smart for that. But if I had known my son had half brothers in the picture, I would have recalibrated.”
“Recalibrated how?”
“I would have chosen differently.” There’s no sarcasm in her voice. No mockery.
“You would have protected Jason,” I say.
“Yes,” she replies immediately.
“And now?”
She glances toward the ballroom again, watching Faith as she leans in to speak to one of her bridesmaids. “Now I have to consider something else.”
“Which is?”
“That there are two infants who carry this family’s name, whether we like it or not.”
We stand in silence for a moment. Then she looks at me directly. “Why didn’t she tell you sooner?”
“Fear.”
“Of what?”
“Of everything, Amber. If she had told me at the start of this, I might have reacted poorly. Jason could have flipped out, dumped Faith. Who knows what your reaction back then would have been. Don’t get me started on Mother—”
She laughs derisively. “Fair enough.”
“And if she had told me when we started dating…I don’t know how I would have taken it, which means she doesn’t either.
I might have broken up with her to keep things clean, or felt like she was admitting it to trap me.
All of this could have gone sideways in a hundred different ways, all of them ending with her losing me. ”
Amber’s expression shifts slightly at that. Not softened. Adjusted. “And did she?”
“I don’t know,” I reply honestly. But that honesty nauseates me because it’s not entirely true.
The band crescendos inside. Laughter spills outward.
Amber studies me in silence for a moment, as though recalculating the terrain entirely.
The hostility from earlier has shifted into something more analytical.
I recognize that look. It’s the same expression she wore when we used to discuss investment portfolios or social events—measured, strategic, assessing risk versus reward.
Then she laughs. It’s not cruel laughter. It’s sharp, almost incredulous. “At your age,” she says, shaking her head slightly, “you have more than paternity to figure out.”
“How’s that?”
“You’re not in your twenties anymore. This isn’t just a romantic complication.
This is diapers and sleeping schedules and pediatricians and daycares.
” She folds her arms loosely. “All the good daycares are full before the first ultrasound. People put their names down years in advance. If those boys aren’t on a list already, you’re going to be scrambling. ”
The image hits me with unexpected force. Daycares. Waiting lists. Drop-offs before work. Midnight feedings. I haven’t allowed myself to move beyond the shock of fatherhood into the logistics of it. I’ve been standing in the abstract—two sons, mine—without stepping into the reality of it.
I know that Amber means all of this cruelly, like some sort of karmic retribution, but the more she piles onto that list, the more excited I am about doing all of it.
Amber continues, almost amused now. “You’ll have to re-learn the rhythm of it.
The screaming at three in the morning. The way sleep deprivation makes you question every decision you’ve ever made.
The pediatric appointments you reschedule three times because one of them has a fever and the other won’t stop crying. ”
“Yeah.”
There’s something faintly satisfied in her tone. “This,” she adds, gesturing toward the reception hall, “might be the best revenge I ever got on you.”
I blink at her. “Revenge? For what?”
She studies me carefully before answering. “For cheating on me.”
I feel my spine straighten instinctively. “I never cheated on you,” I say immediately. “There was no one else. Not ever. You think I cheated on you? Is that why you started fucking Meron?”
She doesn’t flinch. “No. But you did cheat on me with your work, Damian.”
The correction disarms me more than the accusation. “What are you talking about?”
“You have all the money you could ever want or need,” she continues, her voice quieter now. “But you chose medicine over me. Over your son. You chose overnight shifts and weekends and holidays in the emergency department.”
“It’s an honorable profession—”
“I didn’t say it wasn’t. But you never needed it.”
I open my mouth to argue, then stop. She’s not entirely wrong.
“I married into the Baylock family,” she continues. “I thought that meant something very specific. I thought it meant a husband who would be home. A husband who would dote. A husband who would choose me first.”
She looks past me toward the dance floor where Jason and Faith are now swaying awkwardly to a slow song. “You chose your profession. Over and over again.”
“I chose a purpose,” I reply.
“Family should have been your purpose, Damian,” she counters.
I understand her meaning. “I need more than that out of life, Amber.”
“I know that now.” She sighs. “I thought marrying you meant I’d have a life of leisure. A husband who didn’t have to work unless it was to please me. Someone who would build a life around me.”
I inhale slowly. “I never promised that.”
“No. You never did.” There’s no venom in her voice now. “You never promised the life I imagined. I built that fantasy myself. And when I realized you weren’t going to live inside it, I resented you for it.”
I stand there for a moment after she says it, letting the noise from the reception swell and recede behind us like tidewater. The band shifts songs again. Glasses clink. Laughter rises and falls. None of it belongs to this conversation.
I feel the urge to apologize. Not because I screwed up, but because I wasn’t a husband to Amber. “I never told you I would be that man. But I am sorry I wasn’t a good husband.”
She looks toward the ballroom, toward the center of the room where Jason and Faith are now circling each other under the chandeliers, faces turned toward cameras and curated joy.
“I made all of it up in my head,” she continues quietly. “The leisure. The doting. The idea that the Baylock name meant something automatic and effortless. That’s on me. I’ll own that. It’s not your fault you didn’t live up to my imagination.”
The admission surprises me more than anything else she has said tonight.
“For what it’s worth,” she adds, glancing back at me, “I don’t hate you. I never did. Not really.”
“I don’t hate you either. Not really. I think we were two people who wanted different things and took too long to admit it.”
She studies me for a second as if deciding whether to believe that. “Maybe.” Then she inhales and shifts the subject with deliberate clarity. “You need to understand what the Baylock name means in this town before you go dating anyone else.”
The warning is not petty. It’s pragmatic.
“I am aware.”
She nods once. “And speaking of being a good partner, you need to fix things with Perry.”
“She lied to me.”
“She panicked,” Amber counters. “She’s likely been panicking since she figured out she was pregnant. I don’t envy her position in the slightest.”
“She decided I couldn’t handle my own children.”
“She thought she might lose you.”
“That wasn’t her decision to make.”
“No, it wasn’t,” she agrees. “But fear rarely produces rational thinking.”
I exhale slowly. “I’m angry with her, Amber. And I don’t know how to get past it.”
She tilts her head slightly, as though assessing whether I’m being dramatic or honest. “Oh, get over yourself.”
The bluntness catches me off guard. “What did you say?”
“There are two babies involved and a woman who has been put through the wringer by me, by your son, by her sister, by everyone in this room. She loves you, you idiot.” The insult carries no venom. “And you love her, or you wouldn’t be standing here talking to me of all people. You hate me.”
I almost smile. “I just told you that I don’t hate you. Aren’t you listening?”
She arches a brow. “When do I ever listen to you?”
I snort a laugh at that. “Fair point.” I glance toward Meron, who’s standing near the bar pretending not to watch us. “Speaking of which, why Meron? He works the same hours I did. He’s in the same profession. The same chaos. How is he an upgrade—”
She holds up a hand before I can finish. “At first, it was because he was your best friend, and I knew it would irritate you.”
I snort again despite myself. “That tracks.”
“But then,” she continues, and something softer enters her expression as she watches him, “I fell in love with his stupid ass.”
Meron laughs at something a guest says, shoulders relaxed now that the public tension has passed.
“He’s a dolt.”
“God, yes. But he’s my dolt. He’d do anything for me.” She pauses. Her tone turns dry. “It’s a pity that doesn’t come with a ton of money.”
I laugh properly this time. “I can’t believe your priorities got overwritten by love, Amber. You of all people.”
She studies me once more, her expression no longer adversarial. “Yours should too. Go to her. Make this right.”
“I’ve been trying to find her. But she’s avoiding me.”
“When you find her, put your pride aside,” she says quietly. “Put your hurt aside. The longer you take, the longer it will be before you can be a father to your boys and a partner to the woman you love.”
The music pulses against the walls. Glassware clinks. Somewhere near the bar, someone laughs too loudly. The reception continues, oblivious to the recalibration happening in a quiet corridor just beyond its center.
I study her for a moment. This is not the same woman I married. There’s no calculation behind her words. Just a tired kind of clarity. It leaves me wondering. “You really think she loves me?”
Amber exhales through her nose, almost amused. “She risked everything to tell you at the worst possible time. That’s not manipulation. That’s someone who couldn’t carry a heavy load by herself anymore.”
My anger has not evaporated. It sits in me, sharp and unresolved. But layered beneath it now is something heavier and more pressing.
My sons.
Amber’s voice cuts through my hesitation one last time. “Now go be happy.”
“Thanks for this, Amber.” I never knew how complicated my ex-wife is until now. I wish I’d understood her sooner.
She smiles, and it’s refreshingly pleasant. Not her usual smile. It’s the real one. “You’re welcome, Damian.”
I turn on my heel and start the hunt all over again.