Page 67 of Discretion at Its Finest

Because you would’ve been the better father.

Because you were the better man.

Because I ruined you and you will never forgive me.

The words slammed against the back of my throat. They burned and they begged to be let free. And I swallowed them whole.

Because saying them out loud, saying the truth, saying what I’d kept from him meant facing the one thing I couldn’t survive… that he would never love me the same way again.

My voice broke around a single, useless breath.

“I… I can’t.”

He didn’t say anything for a moment, the air between us charged with something I couldn’t name. My soul ached with the way he looked at me, those eyes filled with betrayal, filled with hate, resentment, everything I deserved.

And then his expression sealed itself shut, the mask slamming into place.

He stepped back like he couldn’t stand being that close to me another second and turned away, jaw clenched so tightly I could see the muscle twitch from where I sat. He didn’t look back, his hand dragged over his face rough.

Then—

SLAM.

He walked out and shut the office door behind him, the sound so brutal it carved straight through me.

I flinched, breath catching, the silence that followed somehow louder. For a moment I just sat there, frozen.

My chest tightened. Words I couldn’t speak crawled up my throat like they were suffocating me.I should’ve said something.Anything to keep him from leaving the way he did. My fingers shook as I pressed them to my lips.

I could still feel him… his closeness, his anger, his disappointment.

The way he looked at me like he’d expected… hoped… I would finally stop running.

My eyes stung. God, what was I supposed to do now? How was I supposed to convince the man I left that the truth would break us and he’d never forgive me for what I’d kept from him?

Back at Reid’s penthouse, I couldn’t calm my nerves. I’d been on edge since I left his office, my mind running circles around itself with no place to land. Cara had taken the rest of the night off once she realized I was back. She’d cooked dinner, got Eugene fed, bathed, tucked into his pajamas, efforts to soften the already long day we had.

It didn’t help.

Now I was brushing the hair out of my son’s face as he slept peacefully, his small hands curled near his cheek.

These days, every time I looked at him, I could see the truth staring back at me. It was eating me alive from the inside out.

I stood from the side of his bed, leaning down to press a lingering kiss to his warm skin. He stirred under the touch, thensighed softly, sinking back into whatever little dream held him. I wanted to be part of those dreams, to feel like I was still part of him, but it felt like the more time passed, the more he was slipping through my fingers.

Maybe that was my karma.

Jamie had kept what she almost lost.

She’d nearly lost Raymond when the truth of her affair came out… nearly lost the man who stayed and forgave her publicly even when it shattered their home privately. She paid for that mistake every day afterward: with her silence and guilt, with a body that kept betraying her long before the cancer did, and her son who left but was still willing to care for her despite everything.

And me? I was paying my price another way, watching the truth unravel piece by piece.

Reid could see through every lie I’d built my life around and all I could see was the man I once loved… the man I never stopped loving slip farther out of reach every time I opened my mouth and failed to tell him the truth.

I straightened slowly, forcing out a breath before I tucked Eugene’s blanket around him one more time. Then I backed out of the room and pulled the door halfway. I should have gone straight to the guest room, pretended I was tired to get rest from one of the longest days I’d probably ever have.

But I was restless and my feet had a mind of their own.I couldn’t leave things like this.