Page 84 of Letting Go

I shake my head. “Too safe.”

“Lucian?”

I make a face. “Too vampire.”

“Leonard?”

I shoot him a glare. “DidInot just give birth toyourchild? Try again.”

He grins. “Okay, okay.”

We sit in silence for a moment, both staring down at this tiny, impossibly loud human who somehow looks like both of us and neither of us.

Then, like it’s always been there, the name just slips out.

“Rhett.”

Caden blinks. Looks at me. Then down at him. Then back up. “Rhett?”

I nod. “Strong. A little dramatic. Probably going to break hearts and get detention for arguing with teachers. But fair. And brave.”

He breathes out, and it sounds likeyes.

“Rhett it is.”

And just like that, our son has a name.

Rhett Marx.

First of his name. Professional crier. Wielder of terrifyingly strong grip. And my whole damn heart.

Chapter 32

TWO YEARS LATER

I’m in the office, pretending to work, but my head’s not in it.

Caden’s out with a client. Usually, we go together. We’re a team. We show up side by side, close the deal, kiss in the elevator on the way back up. But not today. Not after this morning. Not after last night.

I’m staring at a spreadsheet, trying to pretend I haven’t read the same line twelve times. Trying not to think about the man I had lunch with. The man I should’ve walked away from the moment I saw him. But I didn’t.

I had lunch with Michael. There. I said it.

Ran into him yesterday. He looked like hell. Not the superficial kind, broken. Hollowed out. Turns out, his father told him everything. Days after the divorce. And despite knowing better, Mike went digging.

Pandora’s Box kind of digging.

His father was a serial rapist. Not just one or two victims, many. And siblings. Several. Half-siblings scattered like secrets he never knew existed. Mike’s the youngest. And now he’s haunted by bloodlines and fate and the question that won’t let him sleep: what if he’s the same?

He never drugged anyone. Never held them down. But he took advantage of a nineteen-year-old girl who trusted him. Who thought he was safe.

“I think it’s in me,” he said. “That… sickness.”

I didn’t forgive him. I didn’t try to fix it. I just gave him Dr. Muñez’s number. Told him to call. Told him I wasn’t his priest, or his therapist, or the woman he used to lean on. If he wanted redemption, he’d have to build it himself.

I thought that was it. That I'd done the right thing and closed the chapter.

Then I got home.

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