Chapter <b>563 </b>


    Noah.


    I’m drowning. Drowning under the weight of what Sierra just revealed.


    I see her, see the way she takes slow, unsteady steps backward. I see the fear in her eyes, wide and shimmering. I can almost feel it. Taste it. It thickens the air between us, pressing in on my chest and wing at my lungs.


    Her fear is suffocating, but so is my fury.


    The two collide, and the result is a red haze that clouds my thinking.


    Sierra backs away, one trembling hand reaching for the doorknob. She opens it, eyes wide open as if she’s just seen the devil, and then she flees.


    I hear everything.


    The hurried p of her retreating footsteps. The soft, final click of the door closing behind her. And then, nothing… Just the echo of what I did. Of what we did.


    I don’t remember standing. I don’t remember moving. But something crashes violently against the ss wall of my office.


    It shatters just like everything inside me.


    I barely feel it. The sting in my knuckles. The burn in my chest. The hollow echo of her words.


    “I’m pregnant. The baby is yours.”


    Those two words keep ricocheting in my skull like bullets. Over and over again. Loud, piercing and


    unforgiving.


    I let out a strangled scream, the kind that rips from your throat like a wound. My fists find another target, the edge of my desk. I strike it again and again until the wood cracks and the bones in my hand scream


    in protest.


    I don’t care.


    All I can think about is how I fucked up. How I betrayed Chloe.


    I loved my wife. I still fucking love her, so how could I betray her? how could I betray her memory? I didn’t just slip–I dove headfirst into this shitstorm.


    I thought ending up in bed with Sierra was bad, but no, that’s not even the worst of it.


    Her pregnancy<b>? </b>It feels like the end of the fucking world.


    I stumble back, knocking over the chair. It tters loudly to the floor, but it barely registers. My breath ising in fast<b>, </b>shallow gasps. I can’t get enough air. My chest feels like it’s caving in. Like someone took a match to everything I’d buried, and now I’m standing in the middle of a goddamn wildfire.


    A baby… With Sierra.


    God. What have I done?


    The guilt of sleeping with Sierra has been suffocating me, but the consequence of that night has all but


    killed me and sent me straight to hell.


    The door bursts open and a voice cuts through the haze.


    <b>“</b>Noah!”


    Lilly.


    She stops just inside the room, eyes wide as she surveys the wreckage–shattered ss, overturned furniture, blood dripping from my knuckles.


    Her face pales. “What the hell happened?”


    I sink into what’s left of the chair, my head dropping into my hands. “She’s pregnant,” I mutter.


    There’s a pause. A very long one.


    Then, a whisper. “Sierra?”


    I don’t answer, but I notice she doesn’t look surprised.


    “You knew<i>,</i>” I mutter.


    “Of course, we are best friends,” she replies. “She told me yesterday after she found out.”


    “And


    you didn’t think to tell me or give me a heads up?” I growl, feeling anger bubbling inside me.


    “First of all, don’t you ever use that tone with me, Noah Wood,” she snaps at me. “And second, it wasn’t my ce to say anything. This is between the two of you.”


    Fuck it! I’m pissed but if I’m being honest, I’m not angry at her; I’m more angry with myself for fucking things up


    Lilly’s expression hardens. Her arms cross over her chest. “And what did you say to her?”


    I can’t look at her. She knows very well this couldn’t have ended in rainbows, so why the hell was she asking?


    <b>“</b>You didn’t<b>, </b>Noah. Tell me you didn’t say something cruel.”


    “I told her to leave,” I say hollowly. “Told her it wasn’t mine.”


    “You slept with her,” Lilly snaps, her voiceced with disbelief and fury. “And now you’re acting like she’s the viin? What the hell is wrong with you?”


    “She knew what she was doing!” I yell, leaping to my feet again. “She’s always been obsessed. Always hovering, always looking at me like I’m her damn savior or something. And now this?”


    Lilly flinches but stands her ground. “She didn’t even want to tell you. I had to push her. She was terrified, Noah.”


    I pace like a caged animal, dragging a hand through my hair. “I made a mistake. I was drunk. Grieving. She saw an opening and she took it.”


    “That’s bullshit and you know it,” Lilly hisses. “You keep trying to rewrite it so you can live with yourself, but it happened. You slept with her. And now there’s a baby. That’s on both of you.”


    I stop pacing. The storm in my chest brews deeper. The chaos drawing near, drowning me and wrecking everything in its path.


    “I’m going to see her,” I say, grabbing my coat. “I need to make it clear… Send me her address.”