Chapter 2
The elevator to our apartment seemed to take forever.
Each floor passing felt like another year I had survived without him.
When the doors finally opened, I herded the children inside and locked the deadbolt twice.
The familiar click of the locks should have brought comfort.
It didn't.
Because I knew...
This was only the beginning.
"Mommy?" Sophie's small voice pulled me back.
"Who was that man?"
I knelt down to her level.
Tucked a strand of hair behind her ear.
"That man's name is Sebastian," I said carefully.
"A long time ago... before you were born... he was very important to me."
Ethan's eyes narrowed.
"Is he our daddy?"
The question hung in the air like smoke.
Five years I had avoided this exact moment.
Five years I had planned exactly what I would say.
Now that it was here...
The words wouldn't come.
Before I could answer, my phone rang again.
Sebastian.
I silenced it.
Then silenced it again when he called back.
And again.
By the seventh call, I was ready to throw the phone across the room.
Instead, I walked into the kitchen and poured myself a glass of water.
My hands were shaking so badly the water sloshed over the rim.
The children settled in the living room with their favorite cartoon.
Their laughter should have drowned everything out.
It didn't.
Because every few seconds...
I could see Sebastian's face.
The confusion.
The dawning horror.
The way he had looked at Olivia like he had never truly seen her before.
My phone buzzed once more.
Not a call.
A text.
I'm outside your building. I'm not leaving until you play whatever it is you have. Hannah... five years. I've lost five years. Don't make me lose more.
I walked to the window and peered through the curtains.
There he was.
Standing on the sidewalk beneath a streetlamp.
No security team.
No driver.
Just him.
Alone.
And then...
Olivia pulled up in her silver Mercedes.
She jumped out and marched toward him.
Even from six floors up...
I could see the anger in her posture.
She grabbed his arm.
He shook her off.
They argued.
Fiercely.
I couldn't hear the words.
But I didn't need to.
I had lived this argument in my head a thousand times.
Finally, Sebastian pulled something from his pocket.
His phone.
He held it up toward my window.
Then he typed something.
My phone buzzed.
Send me the recording. Or I'm coming up there right now and I won't leave until you do. The kids are home. You don't want that scene any more than I do.
He was right.
I didn't.
The children had already been through enough for one night.
I typed back.
Come up alone. If she's with you, I'm calling the police. One minute. That's all you get.
I sent the address of the private conference room in my office building three blocks away.
Not here. Not where my children sleep. Twenty minutes. Alone.
I watched from the window as he read the message.
He looked up at my window one more time.
Then he climbed into his car and drove away.
Olivia stood on the sidewalk screaming at his taillights.
---
The conference room was cold and sterile.
White walls.
Glass table.
No decorations.
Perfect.
I arrived ten minutes early and set my phone on the table.
Screen up.
Ready.
The door opened at exactly 7:58.
Sebastian stepped inside.
Alone.
His tie was gone.
Top two buttons undone.
Hair messy where he had run his hands through it a hundred times.
He looked nothing like the polished billionaire from the restaurant.
He looked like a man who had just discovered his entire life was a lie.
He closed the door softly behind him.
Leaned his back against it.
Like he needed the support to stay standing.
"Play it," he said.
His voice was raw.
Broken.
"Whatever you have... just play it."
I didn't speak.
I just pressed play.
Olivia's voice filled the room.
Clear as day.
Five years old.
But every word still cut like a knife.
"Sebastian is in a meeting. He can't come to the phone right now. Who is this?"
My own voice—weaker, younger, desperate—answered.
"It's Hannah. I'm at Northwestern Memorial. The babies came early. Three of them, Olivia. Three beautiful boys and girls. They're in the NICU but the doctors say they're strong. Please... just tell Sebastian. Tell him I need him."
Olivia's laugh came next.
Cold.
Calculating.
Exactly as I remembered.
"Oh, Hannah. You poor thing. You really think he's going to leave his mother's birthday party for this? After you embarrassed the entire family by getting pregnant before the prenup was even finalized? He told me himself—if anything happened to you and the babies, it would be the best thing for everyone. He doesn't want you, Hannah. And he certainly doesn't want three screaming babies ruining his life. Do us all a favor... disappear. And don't ever call this number again."
Silence.
Then the sound of Olivia hanging up.
Then my own voice—sobbing—whispering into the dead line.
"I knew you'd say that. That's why I recorded it."
The recording ended.
The room went absolutely still.
Sebastian hadn't moved.
He was still leaning against the door.
His face had gone completely white.
Then...
He slid down the door until he was sitting on the floor.
Head in his hands.
And he wept.
Not quiet tears.
Great, heaving sobs that shook his entire body.
The kind of crying that only happens when every foundation you've ever stood on crumbles beneath you.
I sat perfectly still.
I had waited five years to see this moment.
Five years to watch him understand what had been taken from us.
I thought I would feel triumph.
I thought I would feel satisfaction.
I felt nothing but empty.
Because his pain didn't give me back those five years.
It didn't give the children their first steps.
Or their first words.
Or the bedtime stories he had missed.
It just... hurt.
Finally, he looked up at me.
Eyes red.
Face streaked.
"She told me..." he whispered.
"She told me you called once. Drunk. Screaming that you had lost the babies and it was all my fault. She said you were sobbing and hysterical and that you never wanted to speak to me again. She said... she said she was protecting me from the pain."
He stood slowly.
Wiped his face with the back of his hand.
"My own mother told me the same thing. They both said you had miscarried. That you couldn't handle the pressure of the Carter name. That you left because you hated me for putting you in that position."
He walked to the table.
Leaned forward with both hands flat on the glass.
"Hannah... I would have come. If I had known... I would have burned the entire world down to get to that hospital. You have to believe me."
I looked him dead in the eye.
"Do I?"
The question hung between us.
Five years of silence.
Five years of loneliness.
Five years of wondering why the man who had once promised me forever hadn't even bothered to look for me.
"You signed the divorce papers," I said.
"Six months after I left. You didn't contest a single thing."
"My mother handled it," he said quickly.
"She said you wanted it clean. That you didn't want alimony. That you just wanted out. I was... I was drinking, Hannah. A lot. For almost a year after you left. I didn't care about anything. I signed whatever they put in front of me."
He reached across the table.
I pulled my hand back before he could touch me.
"Don't," I said.
"You don't get to touch me yet. Not after five years."
He nodded slowly.
Accepted it.
"What happens now?" he asked.
"Now," I said, standing and slipping my phone into my pocket.
"Now you go home. You break off your engagement. You confront your mother. And you stay the hell away from my children until I decide you're ready to meet them properly."
He flinched at "my children."
But he didn't argue.
"And if I do all that?" he asked.
"Then..." I paused at the door.
"Then maybe... we can talk about what being a father actually means. It doesn't mean showing up with presents and a guilty conscience. It means showing up. Every single day. For school plays. For fevers at two in the morning. For tantrums about broccoli. For all of it. Are you actually capable of that, Sebastian? Or is this just another project the great Sebastian Carter will abandon when it gets too hard?"
He didn't answer immediately.
He looked at me with those eyes—the same eyes my children had—and for the first time since the restaurant...
I saw something I hadn't seen in a very long time.
Determination.
"I'm going to prove it to you, Hannah," he said quietly.
"I don't care how long it takes. I'm going to be the father they deserve. And the man you should have had five years ago."
I walked out without another word.
But as the elevator carried me down to the street...
I felt something I hadn't allowed myself to feel in five years.
Hope.
Faint.
Fragile.
May you like
But there.
And that scared me more than anything Olivia Bennett could ever do.
