Chapter 2 - THE LIE THEY HAD BOTH BEEN LIVING
Melinda looked as if Connor had slapped her.
“You weren’t supposed to say that.”
Connor turned on Kenneth.
“Give me the folder.”
Kenneth did not move.
“I represent Ms. Travis. You’re not entitled to privileged material simply because you’re angry.”
That was when I remembered him.
Kenneth Boyd handled complicated family-law cases in Clayton. One of Riverbend’s surgeons had used his firm during a custody dispute.
Connor’s face reddened.
“What did she hire you for?”
Kenneth glanced at Melinda.
She swallowed.
“Tell him.”
“Kenneth—”
“You asked me to come because you said you couldn’t keep doing this.”
Connor stared at her.
“Doing what?”
For the first time since I had run into them, his arrogance disappeared.
Not completely.
But enough for me to recognize fear beneath it.
Melinda put one hand on Mason’s stroller.
“He’s not sick,” she said quickly. “The cardiology appointment is just because the pediatrician heard a murmur.”
I stiffened.
“You’re here for cardiology?”
She nodded.
“I didn’t know you were working today.”
“I’m always working somewhere in this building.”
Connor snapped, “Can everyone stop acting like this is about Kirsten?”
Melinda gave him a strange look.
“It has always been about Kirsten.”
He took a step toward her.
Kenneth moved between them.
“Keep your distance.”
Connor actually laughed.
“She’s my partner.”
“No,” Melinda said.
The word barely carried.
Connor stopped.
Melinda looked at Mason.
Then at me.
“I’m sorry.”
I didn’t answer.
There were too many things she might have been apologizing for.
Sleeping with my husband.
Helping him lie.
Having his child.
Letting me find out from mutual friends.
Standing silently while he blamed me for the collapse of my marriage.
“Melinda,” Connor warned.
She flinched.
Kenneth said, “You don’t have to explain everything here.”
“Yes, I do.”
Her eyes filled, but she didn’t cry.
“Mason was conceived through donor insemination.”
For a moment the sentence felt clinically familiar.
I had explained donor conception to patients’ parents before. I understood exactly what the words meant.
Emotionally, however, my mind refused to place them into the scene.
Connor had spent the past year letting people call Mason his miracle son.
His mother had posted photographs online talking about “Fleming genes.”
Connor had once mailed a Christmas card to our former home by mistake—or claimed it was a mistake—with a photograph of him holding Mason beneath the words OUR GREATEST BLESSING.
I looked at him.
“You’re not his biological father?”
Connor said nothing.
Melinda whispered, “No.”
I waited for shock.
For confusion.
For rage at discovering that the woman beside him had deceived him.
None came.
Connor looked only furious that the secret had been spoken aloud.
I understood then why his first words to Melinda had not been What is she talking about?
They had been You promised me nobody would ever know.
“You knew,” I said.
His eyes met mine.
“That’s none of your business.”
A year earlier, that answer would have sent me searching for some gentler interpretation.
Not anymore.
“You knew before he was conceived.”
Melinda covered her mouth.
Connor turned away.
That was answer enough.
The receptionist had called hospital security.
Two officers approached from the main desk.
I suddenly became aware of how many people were watching.
Connor saw them too.
His posture changed instantly.
Shoulders down.
Hands open.
Voice controlled.
The version of him strangers trusted.
“There’s been a misunderstanding.”
I almost laughed.
He had used that voice during our divorce mediation.
During marriage counseling.
During dinners after arguments when he wanted everyone else to believe nothing was wrong.
Kenneth stepped toward the officers.
“There was physical contact initiated by Mr. Fleming. Dr. Sinclair was shoved and grabbed.”
Connor looked at me.
“Seriously?”
I said nothing.
He leaned close enough that only I could hear him.
“You want to destroy my life over this?”
I looked past him at Melinda.
She was staring at the floor.
“No,” I said. “I think you already did that yourself.”
The officers asked Connor to step away.
As they led him toward a private security office, he twisted back toward Melinda.
“You tell them everything,” he said, “and you’ll regret it.”
Kenneth’s expression hardened.
May you like
But what frightened me was Melinda’s answer.
“I already do.”
