Tous les chapitres de : Chapitre 111 - Chapitre 120

JUNE’S POVI drove without a plan, turning when it felt right, stopping at red lights that bled together until one intersection looked like the next.The city slid past in dull colors. A CVS lot flashed by on my right. My grip tightened on the wheel until my knuckles blanched. Somewhere between one light and the next, the direction settled in my body. I knew where I was going. I just had not let myself say it yet.I turned toward the city center, toward the Hotel Luxe. The decision locked into place as if it had been waiting. My heart pounded the entire drive, loud enough to crowd out reason.I told myself I only needed to see him, that I needed to know he was okay. There was a hard pressure under my breastbone, sharp and insistent, and it refused to loosen.Traffic thickened downtown. A delivery truck idled at a light. I tapped my fingers on the steering wheel, then stopped when I realized I was counting my breaths.I pictured his face in half light, the small crease between his brow

LUCA’S POVHer gaze flicked past me into the room, then back to my face. I still held the door half-closed, shoulder braced against it, my phone warm in my hand from the call I had missed. The hallway lights hummed. Someone laughed two doors down.“You were not answering your phone,” she said. “I did not have a choice.”My heart started pounding, slow and heavy, like something knocking from the inside. “What do you mean you had no choice, Lena?”“We need to talk.”“About what?” I asked, already aware that whatever she had come to say was not going to leave things intact.She shifted the strap on her shoulder, fingers tightening until her knuckles drained of color. “I am pregnant.”Behind me, my phone buzzed on the bed. June was calling back, and in that small sound, everything I thought I had under control came loose at once.For a moment, my brain refused to anchor the word to anything real. It floated between us, unreal, pointed at her and then at me.“That is not possible,” I said,

JUNE’S POVThe room went still in a way that felt physical, as if the air had been punched right out my lungs. I stood beside Franklin, my fingers laced together, my smile already aching, while the last note of his announcement settled over the donors, board members, and friends packed into the gallery.A soft, collective sigh moved through the crowd. A woman near the front pressed her hand to her chest. Mr. Altman’s face brightened, approval quick and generous. Heads nodded. People leaned toward one another, already congratulating us with their eyes.Every route out of the room closed at once. Every word I had practiced, every quiet plan to leave him, turned heavy on my tongue.To refuse him here would not be private. It would be a spectacle. The kind people remembered and retold. The kind that hardened into label like she is difficult. Unstable. Ungrateful.Franklin watched me without blinking. His hand rested at the small of my back, light but firm. He had timed it perfectly. This

JUNE’S POVThe stairwell door banged shut behind me, the sound chasing me down the hall, too loud for a quiet campus afternoon. I walked fast, the tote bag still warm from the oven swinging against my leg, my breath thin from the climb and from the room I had just left.“June. My daughter’s down the hall. 312.”“Marlene’s mom?” Lena had managed a small, real smile. “She’s sweet. She lent me her biology notes last week.” She took a careful bite of the cracker I had brought. “Thank you. Really.”“You take care of yourself,” I had said, already edging toward the door, needing air, needing to leave before my worry spilled into her space. “Feel better.”Now I stood in front of 312, the black numbers sharp against the white placard, my knuckles lifting to knock.The door flew open before I could.“Mom!” Marlene’s face lit up the way it always had when she was truly surprised. She pulled me into a hug that smelled like her shampoo and clean cotton.“This is the best surprise ever.”I let mys

JUNE’S POVThe drive home was a single furious streak (highway signs whipping past, exits I ignored, radio silent because every station would have felt like mockery). The anger burned low in my gut, stubborn and hot, refusing to fade.Luca’s face kept surfacing in the rearview mirror, Lena’s hand resting on her stomach, that soft smile she gave him like it was a gift. My knuckles whitened on the wheel, the heat climbing higher no matter how tightly I gripped.By the time I turned into our driveway, the sun had slipped behind the trees, and the house windows glowed warm and golden. Franklin’s car sat in its usual spot, sleek and black.I killed the engine and sat in the ticking quiet, trying to choose which version of myself would walk through that door. The betrayed wife. The furious one. Or the one who suddenly needed to overwrite Luca’s touch with something safe and known.I chose the last.The front door opened before I reached it. Franklin stood there in shirtsleeves, tie gone, to