Chapter 6: The Diner Confession
They ended up in a nondescript diner three blocks away.
The kind of place Julian would never have entered on purpose, with cracked vinyl booths, tired coffee, and a waitress who called everyone honey.
Maya sat between them, eating pancakes as if the world had not just cracked open around her.
Hannah wrapped both hands around a mug she never drank from.
“I didn’t run because I stopped loving you,” she said at last.
Julian said nothing.
His silence was colder than shouting.
Hannah looked at Maya, then back at him.
“Sloane came to me.”
The name changed the air.
Sloane had been Julian’s fixer, the invisible hand behind impossible problems, the woman who could make lawsuits vanish and enemies reconsider breathing too loudly.
“She told me your family’s enemies would use me,” Hannah said. “Then she told me I was pregnant before I even knew how to tell you.”
Julian’s face hardened.
“And you believed her?”
Hannah’s voice broke.
“I was terrified.”… Continue Reading ⬇️