Chapter 5 - Melinda’s Confession
Connor turned on Melinda.
“What did you tell him?”
She crawled backward slightly, her hand slipping in the spilled milk. “Nothing. I didn’t tell him anything.”
Kenneth said, “She didn’t have to.”
Connor’s eyes moved between us.
“What does that mean?”
Kenneth took out a second report.
“Mr. Fleming, the child’s paternity test was completed at 8:14 this morning.”
The baby made another small sound.
This time, everyone looked at him.
Safe.
Innocent.
Unaware that the man who had just used him as proof of victory was about to lose the story entirely.
Connor’s face went empty.
“No.”
Melinda began sobbing.
“Connor…”
“No,” he said again, louder. “Don’t you dare.”
Kenneth looked at me. “Kirsten, you don’t have to stay for this part.”
But I did.
Because Connor had made me stand inside his humiliation.
Now I would stand inside the truth.
Kenneth said, “The child is not biologically related to Mr. Fleming.”
The hallway erupted.
A woman near the reception desk gasped.
The elderly man whispered, “Good Lord.”
Connor stumbled one step backward.
Melinda covered her face with both hands.
He stared at the stroller.
Then at Melinda.
Then at me, like somehow this could still be my fault.
“You knew?” he asked me.
I shook my head.
“No.”
His voice cracked. “You knew.”
“I found out thirty seconds ago.”
He turned back to Melinda.
“Who?”
Melinda cried harder.
Connor grabbed her arm, but a security guard immediately stepped forward.
“Sir,” the guard warned.
Connor let go, but his whole body shook.
“Who is his father?”
Melinda looked down.
Kenneth answered for her.
“According to the report, the biological father is Daniel Reeves.”
Connor froze.
I knew that name.
Daniel Reeves had been Connor’s college friend. His best man at our wedding. The man who had stood beside him while he promised to love me honestly.
Melinda whispered, “It wasn’t supposed to happen like this.”
Connor laughed.
It was not a sane laugh.
“You’re telling me the son I brought here to humiliate my ex-wife is Daniel’s?”
Melinda sobbed. “I was scared.”
“Of what?” he shouted.
She looked up at him, mascara running.
“Of you finding out you couldn’t have children.”
The hallway went dead silent again.
And for one strange second, I saw the whole ugly circle.
Connor had hidden his infertility from me.
Melinda had hidden another man’s child from Connor.
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Cruel people had built a house out of lies.
And now every wall was falling at once.
