16. Layla
— ? —
Layla
I was buried in fabric samples when the front door opened.
I didn’t look up right away. Nessa had a client consultation at ten, and I assumed it was them arriving early.
“I’ll be right with you,” I called, reaching for my notebook. “Just give me one second to clear this.”
“Layla.”
The voice froze me in place.
I knew that voice. I knew it the way I knew my own heartbeat, the way I knew the sound of rain on a roof or a song from childhood. I hadn’t heard it in four years, but my body recognized it before my brain caught up.
I looked up.
Pippa stood in the doorway.
My sister. My best friend. The woman I had believed had betrayed me with my own husband.
She looked older. Tired in a way that went deeper than sleep could fix. Her hair was shorter than I remembered, cut to her shoulders instead of falling past them, and there were lines around her eyes that hadn’t been there four years ago.
But her face was the same. The nose we’d both inherited from our mother. The stubborn set of her jaw. The way she held herself, one shoulder slightly higher than the other, like she was bracing for impact.
I couldn’t move.
I couldn’t do anything but stare at the ghost of my past standing in my present.
And now Pippa was here.
“Layla.” Her voice cracked on my name. “Stefan called.”
Two words. That was all she said.
And I understood. I understood that he’d told her everything. The fake recording. The lies. The years we’d lost because his mother had decided I wasn’t good enough and had systematically destroyed my life to prove it.
I stood up. The fabric samples slid off my desk and scattered across the floor. I crossed the room in three steps and threw my arms around my sister.
The sob that tore out of me was ugly. Raw. Pippa’s arms wrapped around me and squeezed so tight I could feel my ribs compress, and she was crying too, her tears hot against my neck, her whole body shaking.
“I’m so sorry,” I choked out. “Pip, I’m so sorry. I should have asked you. I should have confronted you instead of running. I just saw you with him and I heard that recording and I thought...”
“God no, Lay.” Pippa pulled back just enough to look at my face, her hands gripping my shoulders. “No. Don’t you dare apologize. I should have tracked you down and made you talk to me. I missed you so much. So goddamn much.”
“I missed you too.” The words came out broken. “Every day. Every single day. I’d see a movie I knew you’d love and reach for my phone to text you, and then I’d remember. And it would hit me all over again.”
“Why didn’t you call?” Pippa’s fingers dug into my arms. “Four years, Lay. Four years without a word. Why didn’t you tell me where you were?”
“I thought you and Stefan...” I couldn’t finish the sentence. Even now, knowing the truth, the words stuck in my throat.
“I know.” Pippa’s face crumpled. “He told me. That fucking recording. Whatever that bitch paid to have it made, I hope she rots for it.”
“All this time,” I managed. “All this time I thought you wanted him. I thought he wanted you.”
“I could never.” Pippa grabbed my hands and squeezed them until it hurt. “Lay, listen to me. I could never want Stefan. Not in a million years. Not even if you handed him to me on a silver platter. You want to know why?”
“Why?”
“Because he was yours.” Her voice broke again.
“From the moment he saw you at that party, from the moment he walked up to you like the rest of the world didn’t exist, he was yours.
Any idiot could see it. The way he looked at you.
The way he talked about you. You were his whole world, Lay. There was never room for anyone else.”
I dropped my head onto her shoulder and cried. “I should have trusted you,” I said.
“You should have trusted him.” Pippa stroked my hair the way she used to when we were kids and I’d had a nightmare. “But that bitch made sure you couldn’t. She played you perfectly. She knew exactly which buttons to push.”
“She showed me the recording right after she’d spent an hour making me feel worthless.
” The memory surfaced, still sharp after all this time.
“Taking me shopping, pretending to be nice, and then tearing me apart piece by piece. By the time she played that recording, I was already primed to believe it.”
Pippa’s voice hardened. “She’s a fucking monster, Lay. Always has been. Stefan knows it now. He’s going to deal with her.”
“What do you mean, deal with her?”
“I don’t know exactly. He didn’t give me details.” Pippa pulled back to look at me. “But he sounded different on the phone. Colder than I’ve ever heard him. Like whatever love he had left for his mother had finally burned out.”
Good. The thought surprised me with its viciousness. Good. Let him cut her out. Let him watch her suffer the way we suffered.
“I want to show you something.” I pulled out my phone with trembling hands.
“What is it?”
I scrolled to my favorite picture. Cece in the park, laughing at something off-camera, her dark hair wild around her face, that familiar dimple creasing her left cheek. She looked so much like Stefan in that photo that it made my chest ache every time I saw it.
I turned the screen toward Pippa.
She stared at it. Her hand flew to her mouth.
“Oh my God.” The words came out muffled through her fingers. “Layla. Is that...”
“Her name is Francesca.” My voice was steady now, filled with the same pride I felt every time I talked about my daughter. “We call her Cece. She’s three.”
“She looks just like him.” Pippa took the phone from my hand, holding it closer, drinking in every detail of Cece’s face. “Jesus Christ, Lay. She’s his clone.”
“I know.”
“She’s beautiful.” Pippa’s voice cracked. “She’s so beautiful. Lay, she’s perfect. Look at that smile.”
“She has his smile,” I agreed. “And his stubbornness. And his habit of asking a thousand questions about everything.”
“Does she know?” Pippa looked up from the phone. “About Stefan?”
“She does now.” I took the phone back and scrolled to another picture. Cece at the coffee shop, chocolate milk mustache on her upper lip. “He found us. By accident, if you can believe it. Walked into a coffee shop and there we were.”
“Holy shit.” Pippa shook her head slowly. “What are the odds?”
“I don’t know. I’ve stopped trying to make sense of it.” I pocketed my phone. “All I know is that he saw her once and he knew. He took one look at her face and he knew she was his.”
“How did he react?”
“How do you think?” I smiled despite myself.
“God.” Pippa pressed her hand to her chest. “I can’t even imagine. Three years of not knowing you have a kid, and then suddenly there she is.”
“He’s been amazing with her.” The words came out soft. “Every morning at the coffee shop, listening to her talk about clouds and butterflies and whether dogs dream. He bought a car seat. Toys. Books. Clothes in three different sizes because he wasn’t sure what would fit.”
“He researched parenting.” Pippa laughed wetly. “Of course he did. That man doesn’t do anything halfway.”
“He can tell you the difference between Montessori and traditional preschool curricula.”
“Now you’re just showing off.”
“I’m really not.” I felt myself smiling, a real smile, the kind that had been rare for too long. “He’s been studying. Like it’s his job. Like being a good father is the most important thing he’ll ever do.”
“It probably is,” Pippa said. “To him.”
The front door opened again.
We both looked up.
Stefan walked through the door looking like sin in a suit. Dark gray jacket, white shirt with the top button undone, no tie. His hair was slightly disheveled, like he’d been running his hands through it, and there was a tension in his jaw that I recognized from four years of marriage.
He saw the two of us on the couch, tear-streaked and red-eyed, holding hands like we were afraid to let go. His face softened. The hard line of his mouth curved into something warmer.
“Glad you’re here.” His voice was rougher than usual. “I didn’t want to leave my girls alone.”
“Leave?” I stood up, my hand still linked with Pippa’s. “Where are you going?”
“I have to head back for a few things. Chicago.” He crossed the room toward us, his eyes locked on my face. “Loose ends to tie up. Things to close out before I can move everything here permanently.”
“How long?”
“Few days. A week at most.” He reached me and cupped my face in his hands, his thumbs tracing my cheekbones. “Pippa’s going to stay with you while I’m gone.”
“I don’t need a babysitter.” The protest was automatic.
“I know that.” His lips quirked. “But you could use some company with your sister. Reconnect. Talk. Cry on each other some more.” He glanced at Pippa. “And I’m sure Cece would love a girls’ night.”
“Cece is going to lose her mind when she meets her aunt.” Pippa stood up and moved toward us. “I’m already planning to spoil her rotten.”
“That’s what I’m afraid of.” But I smiled, because she was right. Cece would be ecstatic. She’d been asking about family for months, about grandparents and aunts and uncles, wanting to know why everyone else had big families and she only had Mommy and Nessa.
The thought of Pippa meeting Cece made my chest ache in the best way. Of having my family back. Of not being alone anymore.
“Okay.” I nodded. “A week. But you call every night.”
“Every night.” Stefan pulled me closer, his hands sliding from my face to the back of my neck. “And I’ll be back before you know it.”
Then he kissed me.
Not a quick peck goodbye. Not a chaste brush of lips.
He kissed me like he was trying to memorize the taste of me, deep and thorough and devastating.
His tongue slid against mine and his fingers tangled in my hair and I forgot we had an audience.
I forgot everything except the heat of his mouth and the solid wall of his body pressed against mine.
Pippa snorted loudly.
“God,” she said. “You guys are gross.”