Chapter 30 Caleb
CALEB
Work dragged me back and forth between Vancouver and Seattle once the holidays ended. Meetings stacked. Deadlines multiplied. And every delay pushed Nyah further out of reach.
I hadn’t seen her since the morning after New Year’s.
That morning had stretched endlessly. Every time I closed my eyes, the moment replayed itself—her standing in front of me, hair loose around her shoulders, eyes lifted, lips parted in quiet hope.
And I had kissed her forehead.
The coward’s kiss.
I’d wanted her. God, I’d wanted her. The pull toward her felt inevitable, like gravity—impossible to ignore, impossible to escape.
My mother had dragged me off early the next morning to the Sears’ house for some meeting, and by the time I returned, Nyah was gone.
No goodbye.
No lingering look.
Just absence.
We messaged, but it wasn’t the same. Texts couldn’t replace the way she felt in my arms, or the warmth of her laugh when she leaned into me.
I wanted to see her.
To hold her.
To kiss her.
She’d invaded my thoughts at the strangest times—behind the wheel in traffic, standing alone in an elevator, staring at my own reflection and seeing her instead.
I could still feel the press of her body against mine when we danced, the faint floral scent of her hair.
I could draw her from memory without trying; she was etched into my hands, burned into my nerves.
I kept imagining the next time we’d see each other. Her walking straight into my arms. Her fingers gripping my jacket. Her finally saying she couldn’t wait any longer—that I had to kiss her now.
Taylor delivered the surprise to her apartment.
Lucas called me later, breathless with excitement. “Thank you for the Havanese puppy! How did you know I told Mama I wanted a dog?”
I smiled despite myself. “Buddy, I saw how happy you were playing with the dogs at the house. I thought you deserved one. What does your mom think?”
“His mom is really happy,” Nyah said. “She says thank you.”
I heard her soft voice in the background, and every nerve in my body lit up.
“I’ve been meaning to call you,” she said. “Work’s been crazy. How are you?”
“I’m great,” I lied easily. “I was wondering the same about you.”
Before I could say anything else, my PA buzzed through the intercom—some client returning a call. I cut the conversation short and hung up with a sigh.
I missed her. Terribly.
I’d been trying to see her since the new year began, but work made it impossible. Every day felt like something stolen.
The last week of January, my mother showed up at my office. One look at her expression told me this wasn’t a social visit.
“Would you like something to drink?” I asked, already tense.
“No.” She slid a black file across my desk, her jaw rigid. “I knew she was bad news.”
My stomach dropped. “Are you talking about Nyah?”
“Read it.”
I opened the file.
Her picture stared back at me and beneath it, pages of information. Most of it I already knew: orphaned, adopted Lucas, and a brief mention of Harper.
But then I saw it.
Nyah Rodriguez didn’t exist eight years ago.
There was nothing before that. No records. No trail.
“You had her investigated?” My voice rose before I could stop it.
Ignoring me, my mother folded her arms. “What has she told you about herself, Caleb?”
I searched my memory—and found not facts, but details.
Lilies. The way she doodled intricate patterns when she talked on the phone. Ice cream hidden in her freezer like a guilty pleasure. Recipe books stacked on her counter. Her laugh with Lucas. Her patience. Her kindness.
Her heart.
“I know enough to know she’s a good person,” I said firmly. “Her past doesn’t interest me.”
She smiled thinly. “If you’re happy with that, honey, then that’s wonderful. I just thought you should know the kind of person you’re becoming… friendly with.”
The way she emphasized the word made my blood boil.
When she left, her crooked smile lingered like a bruise.
I paced my office, fury coiling tight in my chest. How dare she interfere in my life and have Nyah investigated? She doesn’t have any right to do that. This is my life and my choice!
But the questions crept in anyway.
Who was Nyah eight years ago? What had happened that made her change her name? And—worst of all—could her past change the way I felt about her?
I hated myself for even wondering.
But the seed had been planted. And it was already taking root.
I hesitated outside Nyah’s apartment longer than I should have. I knew I was walking into dangerous territory, but the need to understand her—really understand her—outweighed the feelings in my heart. Curiosity had clawed its way past restraint, past patience, past the voice telling me to wait.
I showed up unannounced that night, and I knew immediately she felt the shift.
Dinner passed in fragments. I answered Lucas in single words, my attention split between the table and the weight pressing against my chest. I kept running a hand through my hair, rehearsing and discarding a hundred ways to ask what I needed to know.
“Is everything all right?” Nyah asked softly, her fingers brushing mine.
The warmth of her touch nearly stopped me. For a moment, I weighed the risk—heart versus truth.
I chose truth.
“I’m fine,” I said, forcing a smile. “Sorry—what were you saying?”
“Lucas was telling you he named the puppy Oreo.”
“That’s great.” I rubbed my bottom lip, buying time. “That’s a great name.”
When Lucas finally went to bed, the apartment settled into a hush that felt too loud. Nyah and I sat across from each other on the couch.
I rolled up my sleeves and leaned forward. “Nyah… I’d like to know a little more about you.”
Her eyes flickered.
I swallowed. “Something. Anything about your past.”
She leaned back, folding into herself. “Well, you already know I’m an orphan. And you’ve met Harper.” Her fingers fidgeted with the buttons of her blouse. She wouldn’t meet my gaze. “What else would you like to know?”
“Where you grew up,” I said carefully. “What your childhood was like.”
I set my mug down, untouched, and waited.
“I’m originally from Manitoba,” she said. “I was raised in foster homes. I came to Vancouver when I was eighteen. It seemed like a good place to build a future.”
She stood and walked toward the kitchen.
I hesitated, then asked, “Why did you wake up so terrified that night?”
She stopped mid-step.
“I know it wasn’t just a bad dream,” I continued, rising to my feet. “Something’s going on, Nyah. And I want to understand.”
Her back was to me. Her shoulders were rigid.
I stepped in front of her, searching her face.
Her muscles were tense, her eyes evasive. “Honestly, it’s nothing. It’s not important,” she said matter-of-factly, trying to move past me. “It was just a dream.”
That wasn’t enough.
I blocked her path, dragging a hand through my hair as frustration pounded in my ears. “I’ve been nothing but honest with you,” I said, my voice breaking through restraint. “And somehow… you still don’t trust me. Not after all this time. Not after everything we’ve shared.”
She startled at my raised voice, taking a step back.
“I introduced you to my family,” I went on.
“My friends, but you still can’t tell me about your past, and what’s haunting you.
I’ve tried to be patient, hoping you’d open up when you were ready.
” I turned away, then back to her, pointing without meaning to.
“But you’re so damn closed off. Your walls are always up when it comes to anything to do with you. ”
A deathly silence descended over the room.
I stepped closer, lowering my voice. “Do you even have emotions? Do you even let yourself feel things, Nyah? When was the last time you cried? Did you feel anything when Harper got married? When Beth said those things about you?” My throat tightened. “Did you feel anything at all? Anything?”
She set the mugs down with controlled precision. When she looked at me, her eyes were hard. “So what is it?” she asked coolly. “That I don’t wear my emotions on my sleeve? That I have trust issues? Or that I haven’t told you every detail of my past?”
“All of it,” I snapped, heat flaring. “Yes. All of it.”
She folded her arms. “If you feel that way, I can’t help it.
I’ve never forced you to tell me anything.
I’ve never demanded explanations. And I expect the same respect.
” She stepped closer, her voice quiet but cutting.
“You don’t need to know anything about me that doesn’t affect you—or our friendship. ”
Friendship. The word lodged in my chest like glass.
“So that’s how you see this?” I asked, shaking my head slowly. “I give you everything, and you are selective with what you say?” I searched her face, my voice breaking despite myself. “I just wanted to understand you. I want to be there for you. Is that really too much to ask?”
“No, it’s not too much, but my past isn’t important,” she said. “And it has nothing to do with you.”
“Did you say that to Harper?” I asked.
She didn’t answer.
That was answer enough.
I grabbed my coat and walked to the door. “Thanks for trusting me, friend.”
The anger carried me all the way home. It burned hot, keeping my hands clenched on the steering wheel and my jaw locked as the city lights streaked past the windshield. Every time the argument replayed in my head, the same frustration rose.
Why wouldn’t she just answer me?
By the time I pulled into my driveway, the anger hadn’t faded. It had only thickened, settling heavier behind my ribs.
I replayed the argument again and again. Each time, I heard my own voice more clearly. Each time it sounded harder, more demanding.
Do you even have emotions?
The words echoed back at me, jagged and unfiltered.
I tightened my grip on the steering wheel until my knuckles went white. I hadn’t meant to attack her. I’d wanted honesty. Understanding. Something real.
Instead, she’d shut me out. Folded her arms. Stared at me with that same impenetrable calm, like none of it mattered.
And I’d pushed harder.
I didn’t call her. Not because I didn’t want to—but because I refused to be the only one reaching. Pride dressed itself up as restraint, and I let it.
When days passed without her voice, it felt wrong. I caught myself reaching for my phone during meetings, during meals, during nothing at all. Every time I stopped myself, irritation flared again.
If she wanted distance, she had it.
When I missed her call during a meeting, her message waited for me afterward.
NYAH:
Hi. Hope you’re doing well. Just wanted to know if you’d be coming over for dinner this week. Lucas was asking about you. Take care and message when you can.
The casual tone irritated me more than it should have. As if nothing had happened.
I called the next day and kept my voice clipped, distant. “Hi. I’m heading to New York for a conference. I’ll be gone for about a week. If you or Lucas need anything, message me. I’ll call when I’m free.”
The coldness in my reply tasted bitter even as I spoke it, but I didn’t pull the words back.
She matched my tone perfectly. “Okay. Take care. Have a good trip.”
Her calm response snapped something inside me. I threw my phone onto my desk, pushed my chair back, and walked to the window. I’d never felt so… dismissed.
New York didn’t help.
The city buzzed around me, alive and indifferent, while I moved through it like a ghost. I attended meetings, shook hands, nodded through conversations, but my mind kept circling back to her apartment.
To the way she’d folded her arms in quiet defiance. To the way she hadn’t raised her voice once.
I had.
At night, alone in my hotel room, the anger started losing its edge. And questions began creeping in where certainty had been.
What if her silence wasn’t indifference? What if I’d mistaken strength for coldness because it didn’t look the way I believed it should?
I thought about everything she had given me without ever being asked.
Her son.
Her time.
Herself in ways I never asked for, without promises or demands.
And I had repaid her by turning her pain into an interrogation.
The realization landed slowly—and when it did, it hit hard.
I hadn’t wanted the truth.
I’d wanted reassurance.
I wanted her past neatly packaged so I wouldn’t have to sit with my own vulnerability—the fact that I had fallen for someone I couldn’t fully control or protect. And when that scared me, I’d lashed out.
That night at the bar, the final piece fell into place.
Harper had known her past. And he had loved her anyway.
Which meant the problem had never been Nyah.
It had been me.
My impatience. My entitlement. My belief that closeness gave me the right to answers she wasn’t ready to give.
I stared into my glass, the reflection staring back unfamiliar and humbled. I don’t need to know who she was before, I realized. I need to be worthy of who she is now.
By the time I pulled my phone out, my chest ached with something close to resolution.
I wasn’t owed her story. But I could still earn her trust—if I was brave enough to admit I’d been wrong.
I scrolled to Elle’s name and hit call.