Chapter 4
"Did you ever sleep with her?"
"No."
"Kiss her? Send her messages you wouldn't want me to see?"
"No."
He answered without filling the silence with outrage. I needed that more than another declaration that he loved me.
Then he reached for his wallet.
"I can call the clinic. They'll provide the records again."
"I was there, Reed."
He stopped.
Seven months earlier, we had sat together in a reproductive specialist's office. Reed had a congenital absence of both vas deferens, the ducts that carry sperm, and repeated testing had confirmed the resulting obstruction.
Natural conception was not a possibility for him. Having a biological child might require sperm retrieval and IVF with ICSI, after the appropriate evaluations and counseling.
We had not begun treatment. We had discussed costs, uncertainty, and whether parenthood was something we both wanted badly enough to pursue that route.
He had told me before proposing. His previous partner had made the diagnosis sound like a defect in his character, and he had wanted me to have the information without a ring making my answer harder.
I had said yes to him with my eyes open.
"You know her claim doesn't fit," he said.
"Her claim about the baby doesn't fit. That doesn't automatically tell me whether you betrayed me."
He looked down at the table.
"I understand."
"Your diagnosis cannot do all the work tonight."
Joan quietly carried two glasses of water into the room. Reed thanked her and waited until she stepped away.
"Grant knows about the diagnosis," he said. "I told him years ago."
"Does Avery?"
"I never told her."
Neither had I. Reed's medical information was not something I shared over lunch simply because Avery and I shared everything else.
My phone lit up on the table.
The message was from Avery.
I'm sorry. He told me you knew your relationship was over.
Beneath it was a screenshot. The contact name at the top was Reed, and a blue message bubble said, Don't tell Tessa until after the wedding. I'll handle her.
I slid the phone toward him.
"That conversation never happened," he said.
He opened his messages and searched her name. There were ordinary exchanges about airport pickups and a restaurant reservation, but nothing resembling the screenshot.
Absence on his phone wasn't proof by itself. I knew enough about records to know that an image of a conversation wasn't proof by itself either.