3. Tess #3
“No. You come on.” Her voice stayed level, which almost made the words worse. “Your father puts another woman in your lap, photographs it, sells the entire internet a romance, and your answer is that I should be grateful because the campaign pays well?”
“That is not what I said.”
“It’s what you keep defending.”
Camden slid the phone away. “Marcus knows how to manage the optics. He’s been doing this my whole career. If I start fighting every stupid headline, I’ll spend my life arguing with strangers.”
“I’m not asking you to fight strangers.”
“Then what do you want?”
Tess held his gaze across the stone.
“I want my husband to know where the line is without his father drawing it for him.”
Silence stretched across the island.
The purse strap had slipped toward the edge of the stool. Tess reached for it before it could fall, pulling the bag against her hip.
Camden watched the movement. “You’re making this bigger than it is.”
A few minutes ago, keeping the envelope hidden had felt impossible. She had imagined herself laughing while she pulled it free, imagined Camden staring at the sonogram and forgetting every bruised joint in his body.
Now the thought of taking those photographs out in this kitchen felt wrong.
Not here.
Not while Chloe’s picture sat between them and Camden kept defending the man who had arranged the camera.
Tess tightened her grip on the purse.
“Your only job was to protect one boundary,” she said. “Instead, you gave your father permission to decide when your marriage exists.”
Camden opened his mouth, but Tess had already stopped waiting for the answer she wanted.
Her hand closed around the purse, and the envelope stayed inside.
Camden looked at her for another moment, then picked up the tablet.
“I’m calling it here, Tess.” He tucked the device beneath his arm. “I’ve got film review before sunrise, and I don’t have another hour in me for an argument about manufactured PR.”
“You keep calling it manufactured like that makes the picture disappear.”
“It means the picture isn’t real.”
“It was real enough for Chloe to post.”
Camden turned toward the hallway. “I’m not doing this until midnight.”
Tess stayed beside the island. The purse remained against her hip, her hand wrapped around the strap.
“Walking away doesn’t settle anything.”
“Neither does dragging this out when I can barely think straight.”
There was no point following him.
That realization came with an ugly kind of relief. Chasing him down the corridor would turn her into someone begging to be taken seriously while he counted the hours until football demanded him again. She had already put the picture in front of him. She had already told him where the line was.
“You didn’t manufacture this problem, Camden,” she said. “You’re shutting your eyes while the franchise walks all over our marriage.”
His steps slowed, but he didn’t turn around.
“I know you’re angry.”
“That isn’t an answer.”
“I don’t have one you’re going to accept tonight.”
Tess tightened her grip on the purse.
Camden started walking again.
“I have to be at the facility before dawn,” he said. “Take the night. Level your head. We’ll settle this tomorrow.”
The distance between them widened with every step.
“You mean I should calm down until your schedule has room for me.”
“That isn’t what I said.”
“It’s what you keep doing.”
Camden reached the mouth of the hallway and stopped long enough to glance back.
“Get some sleep, Tess.”
Then he turned away.
His footsteps receded through the house until the kitchen reclaimed its usual stillness.
Tess did not follow.
The phone remained on the island behind her, Chloe’s picture waiting beneath its black screen. Camden’s keys sat beside it, abandoned in the rush to carry his playbook into another room.
Her purse was still in her hand.
Tess looked down at it.
The envelope inside had survived the clinic, the parking lot, the drive home, and every minute of this argument without ever leaving the bag.
Not like this.
She eased the purse closer against her side and placed her free hand over her abdomen.
There was nothing visible yet. No curve beneath her clothes. No outward proof of the small flicker she had watched on the monitor that afternoon.
But it was there.
Their child deserved better than being introduced in the wreckage of an argument about Chloe Kensington.
Camden was exhausted. That much was obvious. Sunday had left him bruised, the campaign had swallowed another day, and Marcus had spent years teaching him to treat every demand from the NFL machine like an emergency.
Maybe sleep would give her husband back.
Tomorrow was their anniversary.
The thought carried enough promise to keep her standing there.
Tomorrow had history behind it. No cameras. No campaign set. No treatment room. Just the two of them and the date they had protected even when the league took everything else.
She could wait one more night.
Let Camden sleep. Let the tension leave his face. Let him wake up embarrassed by what he had said and ready to admit that the photograph crossed a line.
Then she would give him the envelope.
Then the baby would belong to a clean moment instead of this one.
Tomorrow.
Tess did not move from the island as Camden disappeared down the hall.