Chapter 1
I walked into the hospital room ready to meet my first son, but when my wife smiled and told me his name, I stopped beside the bed. She had named him after the man she swore she hadn’t spoken to in six years.
My wife, Emily, was holding our newborn against her chest.
I was crying before I even reached her.
“He’s perfect,” I whispered.
She smiled tiredly.
“James, meet Adrian.”
My hand froze above the baby’s blanket.
“What did you say?”
“Adrian.”
Emily’s smile disappeared.
There was only one Adrian I had ever known.
Adrian Cole.
Her ex-boyfriend.
The man she had cheated on me with during our first year of marriage.
I stared at her.
“You named our son Adrian?”
“It’s just a name.”
“No, it isn’t.”
Her mother, Susan, suddenly became very interested in the window.
That made my stomach turn.
I looked at her.
“You knew about this?”
Emily sat up.
“James, don’t do this here.”
“Then tell me why my son has his name.”
She tightened her arms around the baby.
“I always liked the name.”
I laughed once because I couldn’t believe what I was hearing.
“You told me that man almost destroyed our marriage.”
A nurse quietly stepped out of the room.
Emily whispered, “Lower your voice.”
Then her phone lit up on the table beside me.
One message appeared on the screen.
Congratulations. I wish I could be there to meet him.
The contact name was simply A.
I picked up the phone.
Emily’s face went white.
“James, give me that.”
I opened the message thread.
There were hundreds of texts.
Not from six years ago.
From last week.
Then I saw a photograph Adrian had sent three months earlier.
It was a sonogram.
May you like
Underneath it, Emily had replied with five words that made me look down at the baby in her arms.
He deserves to know eventually.
