CHAPTER 2: The Non-Answer

FLYNN'S POV

The conference call ended at 6:15. I should have left then.

Instead, I sat at my desk staring at my phone. Sienna had texted an hour ago. *Baby's kicking like crazy. Doctor says everything looks good. Thank you for everything.*

I'd read it three times. Each time, the weight in my chest got heavier.

My office was on the twentieth floor. Floor-to-ceiling windows showed the city lights coming on as the sky went purple. I'd spent ten years building Thornfield Investments from nothing. The view was supposed to mean something. Success. Achievement. Proof I wasn't my father.

The photo on my desk caught the last of the daylight. Aria laughing, head thrown back, at our wedding. I'd caught her mid-laugh at something Jordan had said. She looked so happy. So sure of me.

I picked up my phone again. Typed out *I'll stop by tomorrow* to Sienna. Deleted it. Typed *Let me know if you need anything*. Deleted that too. Finally just sent a thumbs up. Coward's response.

Tell Aria tonight. I'd been saying that for eight months. Tonight would be different. I'd explain about my father. About the mistress he'd denied for decades. About the half-sister I'd only learned existed after he died. About the pregnant, desperate woman who'd shown up at my office with a birth certificate and nowhere else to go.

Aria would understand. She had to.

My stomach twisted. No, she wouldn't. Not after I'd hidden it this long.

I loosened my tie and headed for the elevator. Traffic was light. I made it home in twenty minutes. The lights were on upstairs. Our house in Pearl District had cost more than I wanted to spend, but Aria had loved it. Craftsman style, original hardwood, big windows. She'd painted in the spare bedroom until I'd suggested she quit the gallery and focus on her art full time but then stopped painting. I still didn't know why.

I unlocked the front door. "Aria honey?" The silence felt wrong. "Sorry I'm late. Conference call ran over."

Nothing.

I dropped my briefcase and climbed the stairs. The third step creaked. It always did. I kept meaning to fix it.

She was in the office. Surrounded by papers.

My heart stopped.

Bank statements. Months of them. Printed out and spread across the desk in a timeline of my lies. And there was Aria in the middle of it all, looking at me like I'd just confirmed her worst fear.

"Hey, I was thinking we could order from that Thai place you—"

The words died. Her face was pale. Her hands were shaking. And she was holding up February's statement with my transfers to Sienna circled in red pen.

Tell her. Right now. This is the moment.

"What are you doing?" I asked instead.

Idiot. Coward. Fool.

"Eight months." Her voice was flat. Dead. "You've been sending money to someone for eight months."

My hand went to my watch. I couldn't help it. Aria noticed. She always noticed everything.

"Aria, I—"

"Who is Sienna Thornfield? And why send her this outrageous amount of money?"

The name hung in the air between us. I'd never said it out loud in this house. It felt like a betrayal just hearing it here, in our space, in our life.

Tell her she's your sister. Tell her about Richard. Tell her everything.

"I can explain," I said.

"Then explain. Right now."

The look in her eyes. Like she was seeing me for the first time and hating what she saw. That look would stay with me. I knew it the second I saw it.

I'd spent my career calculating risk. Assessing odds. Making impossible decisions with incomplete information. But standing there with my wife looking at me like I was a stranger, my mind went blank.

"It's complicated."

The second the words left my mouth, I knew they were wrong. But Sienna had begged me not to tell anyone. She was ashamed. Humiliated. Our father had denied her existence her entire life, called her mother a liar and a gold digger. When she'd shown up pregnant and desperate, the first thing she'd asked was for privacy. Just until the baby came. Just until she got on her feet.

"You're asking me to lie," I'd told her.

"I'm asking you not to make it worse," she'd said. "Please. It's bad enough that he never wanted me. I don't need the whole world knowing."

So I'd promised. And I'd kept my promises.

Except the one I'd made to Aria three years ago. To love her. To honor her. To never hide from her.

"Complicated." Aria stood up. The chair hit the wall. "That's what you're going with?"

"I need you to trust me."

"Trust you? You just admitted you've been lying to me for months."

"I didn't lie—"

"What would you call it?"

I didn't have an answer. Technically I hadn't lied. I'd just omitted. Failed to mention. Kept quiet about the forty thousand dollars I'd sent to my half-sister. When I said it like that in my head, it sounded worse.

"It's not what you think," I tried.

"What do I think, Flynn? Change my mind please"

That I'm cheating. That Sienna is my mistress. That the baby is mine. That I've destroyed us.

She wasn't wrong about the last part.

"It's not—" Tell her. Just say it. *Sienna is my sister*. Three words. "I can't."

"Can't or won't?"

"Both."

The word cracked on the way out. Aria's face did something complicated. Hurt and anger and something harder. Something final.

"You have to trust me," I said, and hated how weak it sounded.

She laughed. Sharp and wrong. "I did trust you. Past tense."

I took a step toward her. She took a step back. The rejection hit harder than it should have. This was Aria. My wife. The woman who'd held my hand at my father's funeral and hadn't let go for hours. The woman who'd said yes when I'd proposed in the rain like an idiot because I couldn't wait for better weather.

Now she was backing away from me.

"Please," I said. "Just give me time."

"Time for what? To come up with a better lie?"

"To protect you."

"I didn't ask for protection!" Her voice rose. "I asked for a partner. Someone who tells me the truth."

"I am your partner."

"Then who is she?Your sister??Cousin? Family? if she is, why do I not know about her? Why did you lie to me about not having siblings?"

I tried to open my mouth to speak but it was heavy.

Why can't I just tell her. My phone was in my pocket. I could pull it up. Show her the texts. The ultrasound photos Sienna had sent. The birth certificate with Richard Thornfield's name where 'father' should be.

But I'd promised Sienna.

I stood there like an idiot while my marriage fell apart in real time.

“Is she something else? Are you married to her?” I saw the pain in her eyes. She didn't want to believe it. I didn't want her to believe it either because it wasn't true but I couldn't counter it for some reason.

“SAY SOMETHING DAMMIT!!” This was the first time in four years we've been together that Aria raised her voice at me. My heart shattered looking at her.

I am so stupid.

She looked at me for a long moment. Then walked past me, shoulder brushing mine. She smelled like the jasmine lotion she always used. The bedroom door slammed hard enough to rattle the frame.

I stood in the office. Surrounded by evidence of my own cowardice. Eight months of statements. Forty thousand dollars. One promise to a sister I barely knew. One promise to a wife I was losing.

I'd promised Sienna I'd keep her secret. I'd promised Aria forever. I couldn't keep both promises. I chose wrong.