Page 53 of Under His Embrace

“The math seems about right,” he added.

I inhaled a deep breath and stared right back into the eyes of the man I loved. The man who I hoped would love me after I broke his heart all over again as I confessed my darkest secret.

“Caleb?” Dante’s voice cut through the thick tension in the air.

“That’s your name?” he asked.

“Yes, sir,” my son answered. “Who’s asking?”

He chuckled. “Yeah, the attitudes match, Franco,” he said quietly. “My name is Dante, Caleb. Do you like to swim?”

“I love to swim!” Caleb furrowed his brow. “But isn’t it kind of cold to be swimming outside yet?”

“Come check out this pool back here, then.”

Caleb tightened his grip on my hand. “My mom says I can’t follow strangers anywhere.”

“He’s not a stranger,” I told my son.

“Yeah. He’s my dad,” Romeo said, joining in Dante’s efforts to distract my son.

“Daddy!” Olivia said as she ran toward Liam. She’d just come in the room with a nanny, but she ran too fast and tripped.

Caleb rushed out to catch her, and they both tumbled so goofily that they ended up laughing.

“Good catch, Caleb,” Liam said as he scooped up his giggling daughter. “If your mom’s cool with it, I bet Olivia here would love to have a friend more her size to share the pool with.”

“Can I, Mommy?”

I nodded, grateful for their distracting him from what would be a very, very difficult conversation.

23

FRANCO

One by one, the others filed out of the living room. They pitched in to help Caleb to the pool, seeming to see that I needed a private conversation with the mother of my child.

My son.

Caleb, who was so excited to swim, quick to help a falling toddler, and smart to question Dante.

The boy was already making me proud, and I’d only known him for an hour.

“Is he my son?” I asked Chloe.

She sighed, hesitant to face me, and looked around the room. “Can we have this conversation somewhere more private?”

“Answer me.” My anger swarmed within me, coursing through my veins until I was certain I had to be shaking with rage. “Please,” I added curtly. “Is Caleb my son?”

“He is.”

I wouldn’t have believed her if she said he wasn’t. He looked like me. Acted like me. And his age made sense. If I did all the math and double-checked the addition, Chloe was pregnant with Caleb when she left.

With that realization sinking in, my fury faded and hurt rushed in. Pain nearly knocked me to my knees, and my heart cracked all over again.

“How could you hide this from me?” I shook my head, thinking back over this week that we’d shared. Every time we had sex. Those nights we shared in bed. Even when we talked about parenthood at Dante and Nina’s wedding. She had many chances to come clean and tell me, but she hadn’t, and that was more salt on the wound.

“How could you be so manipulative and deceiving?”

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