Chapter 5 - The Message That Made Me Stop Fighting
For eight years, I hated Conrad most for one sentence he never wrote.
That realization should have made me feel relieved.
Instead, it made me furious.
I walked out of Howard's study and into the empty hallway because I couldn't breathe.
Conrad followed.
"Cecily."
"Don't."
"I need you to know—"
"I said don't."
He stopped.
I turned toward him.
"You know what I did after I received that email?"
He didn't answer.
"I sat beside Sophie in the NICU and cried so quietly the nurse thought I was sleeping."
Conrad lowered his head.
"Noah had stopped breathing twice that week. Ava weighed three pounds. Miles had a feeding tube. Sophie needed oxygen."
My voice shook now.
"And I thought their father knew they existed and had decided they were my problem."
Conrad looked destroyed.
"That wasn't me."
"I know that now."
"But you didn't then."
"No."
Silence stretched between us.
From somewhere down the hall came Christmas music and the voices of children who didn't yet understand how much of their history was being rewritten.
Conrad sat on a bench beneath a window.
"I spent years believing you had lied about being pregnant."
I crossed my arms.
"And did that make you happy?"
He gave a bitter smile.
"No."
For the first time, the perfect life he'd invited me to admire began showing cracks.
Conrad told me he had moved to Seattle after our divorce.
His father had arranged a senior position with an investment group.
He stayed four years.
He returned to Montana when Howard's health began failing.
He dated occasionally.
Never married again.
Felicity had entered his life eighteen months earlier.
"We were supposed to announce our wedding date tonight."
That explained the elaborate dinner.
The champagne.
The smug wording of his invitation.
He wanted me to see that he had built the family future we once imagined—with someone else.
Instead, I had arrived carrying proof that his past had never ended.
Felicity appeared at the end of the hallway.
"I think we need to talk."
Conrad looked exhausted.
"About us?"
"Eventually."
She looked at me.
"But first, about Howard."
Something in her tone made me straighten.
"What do you know?"
Felicity hesitated.
"My father did business with Howard."
Conrad frowned.
"What kind of business?"
"Private lending."
"When?"
Her silence answered before she did.
"Eight years ago."
Conrad stood.
"Felicity."
She looked ashamed.
"My father was part of the Marlowe financing group."
The same merger Howard had planned to complete after our divorce.
I stared at her.
"You knew?"
"Not about the children."
"But you knew about me."
"Only pieces."
She explained that three months earlier, while preparing financial records after Howard's death, she had found references to "C. Ashby matter."
Howard had paid legal expenses, a private investigator, and something called "containment services."
She asked Conrad about it.
He told her his father had helped him through an ugly divorce.
Felicity believed him.
Until tonight.
"What are containment services?" Conrad asked.
"I don't know."
But I suddenly remembered something.
During my pregnancy, a man had appeared outside my apartment several times.
Same gray SUV.
Same baseball cap.
At the time, I thought I was imagining it.
Later, after the babies were born, someone called my employer asking questions about my income and whether I planned to return to work.
Then my apartment application was unexpectedly denied despite excellent credit.
I had treated those incidents as bad luck.
Now I wasn't sure.
Felicity returned to the study.
She came back carrying a black ledger.
"I found this three months ago."
She opened it to a marked page.
Several payments appeared beneath an internal code.
CA-4.
The dates covered nearly a year.
Beside one large payment was the name of a private investigations company.
Another line made my blood run cold.
MATERNITY LOCATION VERIFIED.
Conrad stared at it.
Howard had known where I was.
All along.
But the final payment revealed something worse.
It had been issued three days after the quadruplets were born.
The note read:
BIRTH CONFIRMED. FOUR LIVE INFANTS. NO CONTACT WITH C.J.A.
Conrad looked up.
May you like
His voice was almost inaudible.
"My father knew they were alive."
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