Bryan looked at the phone in his hand.
Lydia's name glowed on the screen in the dim hotel room light, steady and patient. He had maybe four seconds before it went to voicemail. He looked up at Alessa and she looked back at him with an expression that gave him nothing either way, no pressure, no plea. Just steady eyes and folded hands.
He picked up the call.
"Where are you?" Lydia asked. Her voice was light but there was a current underneath it.
"I had something to take care of." He replied.
"You've been gone for over an hour. I was worried." She said.
"I'm fine." He said. "I'll be back later tonight."
"Bryan." She said, softer now, closer to the tone she used when she wanted something. "Come home. I made dinner. I want us to have a proper evening together, it feels like we haven't had one since everything happened."
He looked at the papers sitting on the table between him and Alessa.
"Give me an hour." He said.
"Okay." She replied. "I'll keep it warm."
He ended the call and stood there for a moment before putting the phone in his pocket.
"You should go." Alessa said.
"Alessa—"
"No." She said quietly. "I mean it. Go home. Don't let on that you know anything yet. Not until you have thought about how you want to handle this."
He looked at her.
"Why are you helping me?" He asked. The question was genuine, almost confused, like he couldn't locate the motivation in anyone doing something for him without an angle attached to it.
She thought about it for a moment.
"Because you are the father of my child." She said. "And I would rather my child's father know the truth than live inside a lie. Whatever happens between us has nothing to do with that."
He stared at her.
She stared back.
"Take the documents." She said. "Make copies first, leave the originals somewhere safe. And Bryan." She waited until she was sure she had his full attention. "Don't confront her without proof you can hold in your hands. She is smart. You need to be smarter."
He picked up the envelope. He looked at it for a moment.
"You know." He said slowly. "If any of this is true. What it means is that I threw you out of your own home and humiliated you in front of my family for a lie."
Alessa said nothing.
"I need you to know that I—" He started.
"Don't." She said gently. "Not right now. Sort out what is true first. There will be time for everything else after."
He nodded slowly.
He walked to the door.
Hand on the frame, he paused.
"Are you eating properly?" He asked without turning around. "Not just for the baby. For you."
She blinked.
"I had a full breakfast this morning." She said.
"Good." He replied.
He left.
Alessa stood in the middle of the room listening to his footsteps fade down the corridor. She waited until she heard the distant sound of the elevator before she sat down on the bed and let out a long breath that felt like it had been trapped in her chest for the better part of a week.
She didn't know what happened next.
She didn't know if Bryan would confront Lydia, or how Lydia would respond, or whether the truth would be clean or complicated or something in between. She didn't know if whatever she had just seen in Bryan's eyes when he looked at her was something real or just the disorientation of a man whose world had tilted suddenly.
She knew only that she felt more like herself tonight than she had in three years.
She picked up her phone and looked at it. She opened a new note and started writing. Not to Bryan, not to anyone. Just to herself.
Things I will not compromise on.
She stared at the words for a moment. Then she started to list them.
Bryan got home and found Lydia at the table with candles lit and two plates of food that smelled better than anything the house had produced in weeks. She looked up when he walked in and smiled, warm and wide, the kind of smile that had once made him feel like the most chosen man in the world.
He smiled back.
He sat down at the table and they ate together and she talked about the wedding, small details, flowers she had been looking at, venues that had come up in conversation with his mother. She was animated and happy and entirely herself and he watched her and listened and said the right things at the right times.
He was very good at that. He had spent enough years in boardrooms to know how to be completely present in his face while his mind worked quietly elsewhere.
He looked at her across the table.
The candlelight moved across her features, soft and golden.
He thought about the photograph. Marcus Reid. A fertility specialist. Dated three weeks ago.
He thought about her voice on the phone calling him home to dinner.
He thought about Alessa's voice saying don't confront her without proof you can hold in your hands.
"You are quiet tonight." Lydia said, tilting her head slightly.
"I'm just tired." He replied. Same answer as before. She accepted it the same way.
After dinner she took his hand and led him to the couch and leaned against his shoulder and he sat with her and said nothing and thought about everything.
Later when she was asleep, he sat at his desk in the study and opened his laptop.
He pulled out the envelope and went through the documents again under proper light, reading slowly, taking his time with each page.
Then he opened a browser and searched for one name.
Marcus Reid.
Within twenty minutes he had found enough to make his stomach tighten.
He leaned back in the chair and looked at the ceiling.
His phone buzzed. A message from an unknown number.
He almost ignored it. Something made him open it.
Ask her about the clinic appointment on the fourteenth. She told you she was visiting her sister that day. She wasn't.
Bryan sat completely still.
He looked at the date on his phone.
The fourteenth had been eleven days ago.
He had been in London for a conference. He remembered because she had called him that evening from her sister's house and he had heard the television in the background.
He looked at the message again.
His jaw was set and his eyes were cold and very, very focused.
He typed back one word.
Who are you?
The reply came fast.
Someone who has been watching this longer than you have. The truth is closer than you think Bryan. All you have to do is look.