Page 68 of Discretion at Its Finest

I found myself arguing with that voice in my mind as I approached his room.What good will this do, Genevieve? The man made it clear he wants to be away from you and you made it clear to him that you couldn’t tell him the truth when he needed it.

His bedroom was dark, door closed, but his office—

A sliver of light cut across the hallway from the ajar door.

I hesitated, my mind at war before I knocked softly. When I pushed it open, I glanced around for him, but he wasn’t inside.

The desk lamp glowed over his desk. Papers left out, his watch abandoned near the keyboard. His jacket thrown onto the chair like an afterthought instead of hung neatly the way he always insisted.

He never left things like this. Not unless he was stressed or on edge.And here I was pushing him toward it.

My chest constricted painfully. This was my karma too… knowing Reid, he wouldn’t forgive me easily. Maybe not at all. Still… I stepped inside. Some part of me…the desperate, foolish, reckless part…wanted to apologize. Soften the tension between us, tell him I was planning to tell him everything even if my courage to do so was non-existent.

I shouldn’t be in here.Especially after earlier, snooping through the documents about Jamie and finding the proof of everything he’d been carrying alone. Here I was ripping open another wound neither of us was ready to face.

But my feet kept moving through the room. As I moved toward the desk, something stopped me dead in my tracks. Made my entire world flip on itself. A paper glowed like a light in the middle of his corporate chaos.

And at the very top—

My son’s name.

Eugene Newman.

My vision tunneled. My pulse slammed into my throat and before I could stop myself, my hand found the paper, holding it up to read it.

DNA CONFIRMATION RESULTS

My breath caught.

No.

No, no, no—

My stomach dropped so violently I nearly grabbed the desk to steady myself.

CHILD: Eugene Newman

ALLEGED FATHER: Reid Kaufman

RESULT: 99.998% Probability of Paternity

Chapter twenty-seven

Genevieve

The world stopped spinning.

My pulse was gone, my breath stolen from my chest, my bones hollowing out. I reread the line once. Twice. A third time before my vision blurred so completely I could barely see the words anymore.

He knew…

He already knew.

He already fucking knew.

My knees almost buckled, bile rising in my throat, my heart pounding so loudly I couldn’t hear anything else.

This was it.The secret I’d buried. The lie I’d chosen. The truth I never gave him.