CHAPTER 9 – THE NIGHT AFTER TRUTH
Brendan drove Cassidy home himself.
The car ride was mostly silent, lit by dashboard glow and occasional streaks of coastal moonlight. Cassidy sat wrapped in his jacket, her wet dress cold beneath it, one hand resting over her stomach the entire way. Brendan kept both hands on the wheel because he did not trust himself to do anything else without asking for more than he had earned.
At Cassidy’s townhouse, he parked and turned off the engine. Neither moved immediately.
“Do you want me to come in?” he asked.
She stared ahead for a long moment. “No.”
He nodded. “Fair.”
But before she opened the door, she looked at him properly for the first time since the phone call. “You can’t fix what happened tonight by becoming noble afterward.”
“I know.”
“You can’t protect me only after your mother humiliates me.”
His hands tightened on the steering wheel. “I know.”
Cassidy’s face softened—not with forgiveness, but with fatigue. “If you want to be a father, Brendan, then be one because you choose it. Not because a lab made it official. Not because your mother failed. Not because you feel guilty.”
He turned toward her. “I do choose it.”
“Then prove it slowly.”
She got out of the car and walked to her front door without looking back.
Brendan sat there for ten full minutes before driving away.
By midnight, half the guests at Diane’s table had already texted apologies they did not mean, warnings disguised as concern, or strategic condolences. Cassidy ignored all of them. She showered the salt and humiliation off her skin, put on a soft robe, and sat at the edge of her bed with both hands over her stomach until the baby kicked lightly. Only then did she allow herself to cry fully.
Not because Diane had won.
But because truth had cost more than it should have.
Across town, Brendan went to his mother’s house instead of his own apartment. He found Diane in her sitting room with a glass of bourbon untouched beside her. She looked smaller somehow, though her spine remained stiff.
“You embarrassed me,” she said before he could speak.
He stared at her in disbelief. “That’s what you think happened?”
She turned away. “She trapped you.”
“No,” Brendan said. “You did.”
He told her he would be legally acknowledging paternity in the morning. He told her he would be setting boundaries. He told her that until she apologized to Cassidy sincerely and without condition, she would not be involved in anything concerning the baby.
Diane laughed once, thin and incredulous. “You’d cut me off for her?”
May you like
Brendan’s voice was the calmest it had been all night. “No. I’d cut you off for what you did.”
For the first time, Diane looked afraid.
