“Yes.”
Her honesty made me study her.
“He promised me for months that we would be a family.”
“He called me his wife at the hospital.”
“When I heard him say it, I believed he had finally chosen us.”
Her voice broke.
“Then he learned you were pregnant, and suddenly I became an obligation he could manage from another address.”
I looked at the sleeping infant.
“Your son deserves a father.”
“I know.”
“But I will not return to Grant so he can remain near you.”
“I’m not asking you to.”
“Then what do you want?”
Aubrey took a breath.
“I want you to know that he is telling people you left because you could not accept his child.”
I felt my body go still.
“Who is he telling?”
“His relatives.”
“Some friends.”
“He says you had known about me for months but refused to discuss it.”
“That is a lie.”
“I know.”
“He says you became pregnant to stop the divorce.”
My hand moved protectively over my stomach.
“We were not discussing divorce.”
“I know that now.”
“How?”
Aubrey reached into her handbag and pulled out her phone.
She opened a conversation with Grant.
The messages stretched back months.
She did not give me the phone.
She simply placed it on the table where I could read.
In one message, Aubrey asked when he planned to tell me the truth.
Grant replied that I was too emotionally dependent to handle it during the holidays.
In another, he said he needed to protect me from public embarrassment.
Two weeks before the birth, he wrote that I would be staying with a friend while Aubrey recovered in the condominium.
He had planned my disappearance without telling me.
Aubrey scrolled to a message sent after he learned about my pregnancy.
I need time. Evelyn’s condition changes the situation. Do not contact her.
Condition.
