<b>Chapter </b><b>97 </b>


    -CELINE’S POV-


    The silence was overwhelming. Hunter showed many different emotions on his face before finally looking resigned but relieved.


    “Yes,” he said quietly. “Like I’m his father.”


    My heart stopped. He knew. Somehow, he’d figured it out.


    “You remember,” I whispered, my voice barely audible.


    “Not everything. Not at first.” His voice was steady but tinged with regret.”


    I had some scattered memories from that night. I drank too much and then cked out. But when I was around Caesar and saw his face and movements, pieces of the night started toe back.”


    I sank onto the edge of the bed, my legs suddenly unable to support me. “When?”


    “I suspected from the beginning. The timing, his age, those blue eyes that match mine exactly. But I wasn’tpletely sure until recenuy. The memories finally became clear enough.”


    “Four years ago,” I said, my voice barely a whisper. “Caroline’s friend club. The night the lights went out.”


    Hunter nodded slowly, his jaw tightening.


    “You were sitting at the bar, looking so out of ce. You kept fidgeting with your drink, watching everyone else like you were studying them.”


    “I was terrified,” I admitted. “Caroline had dragged me there, and I’d never been to a ce like that before. All those people, the music, the


    atmosphere… it wasn’t me.”


    “We kept looking at each other across the room,” he continued, his voice soft with memory. “Like mas, you saidter. Even before we


    talked, there was this… pull.”


    “And then the ckout happened.” My throat felt tight. “Everything went dark, and somehow we ended up sitting next to each other in that


    corner.”


    “You smelled like vani and something sweet. Even in the dark, I knew you were there.” Hunter’s eyes were distant, lost in the memory.


    “We talked for hours once the lights came back on. About everything and nothing.”


    “You told me I was hot,” I said with a bitterugh. “So smooth.”


    “And you told me I was hotter. God, we were drunk.” He shook his head. “But underneath all that alcohol, there was something real. You told me about feeling invisible, about your dreams of art school that seemed impossible.”


    “And you told me about drowning under expectations, about feeling like you weren’t living your own life.”


    “When I woke up the next morning…” Hunter/s jaw tightened.


    “You were still asleep. You looked so peaceful, so beautiful. I wanted to stay, but I had an early flight. I thought I would find youter, <b>get </b><b>your </b>number properly.”


    “But you left,” I whispered, remembering the empty hotel room, the crushing disappointment.


    <b>1/3 </b>


    <b>13:15 </b>Mon, <b>4 </b><b>Aug </b>


    “I left you a note,” he said quietly. “With my nuraber. I told you to call me, that I wanted to see you again.”


    My heart stopped. “What note?”


    “I put it on the nightstand, right next to your phone. I made sure you’d see it when you woke up.”


    “There was no note, Hunter. When I woke up, you were gone. No note, no number, no way to find you”


    We looked at each other in shock, the weight of what was happening between us was clear.


    “The housekeeping staff,” Hunter said slowly. “They must have cleaned the room early, thrown it away before you woke up.”


    “So you thought I ignored you. And I thought you’d abandoned me.”


    “For months I waited for you to call. I kept checking my phone, hoping… When you never reached out, I figured you regretted it. That it meant nothing to you.”


    “And I found out I was pregnant three weekster with no way to find you,” I said, my voice breaking. “I didn’t even know yourst name.”


    “Our son?” Iughed bitterly. “Is that what you think this is? You think you can just im him because you share DNA?”


    “I think I can try to be the father Caesar deserves. The father I should have been from the beginning if I had known.”


    “He doesn’t need a father. He has me.”


    “He needs both of us, Celine. And whether you want to admit it or not, you need help. You’ve been struggling alone for three years.”


    “I’ve been managing just fine.”


    “Have you? Working multiple jobs, barely making ends meet, living in that tiny apartment with no heat half the time?”


    “How do you…” I stopped, fury building in my chest. “You’ve been checking up on me.”


    “I wanted to understand who you were, what Caesar’s life was like before you came here.”


    “You had no right.”


    “I had every right. He’s my son too.”


    “No.” I stood up, my hands shaking with anger.


    “No, he’s not. You don’t get to waltz back into our lives and im him just because it’s convenient now. You weren’t there when I was scared and alone and pregnant. You weren’t there for his first steps, his first words, his nightmares, his sick days. You don’t get to be his father just because you finally remembered sleeping with me.”


    “Celine, please….”


    “Please what? Please let you take him away from me. Please let you turn him into another Reid heir, another pawn in your family’s games?”


    <b>“</b>I would never<b>….</b>”


    “Wouldn’t you? Your mother certainly tried. And now I know why. She knew, didn’t she? She knew Caesar was your son, and she wanted to take him away from me.”


    Hunter’s silence was answer enough.


    <b>2/3 </b>


    13:15 Mon, 4 Aug A


    “Get out,” I said, my voice deadly calm. “Get out of my room. Get out of our lives. Just… go.”


    “I’m not leaving.”


    “Yes, you are. Because if you don’t, I’ll take Caesar and disappear, and you’ll never see him again.”


    The threat hit its mark. Hunter flinched as I pped him.


    “You wouldn’t.”


    “Try me.”


    We stared at each other across the small room, two people who’d created a child together but couldn’t find a way to share him.


    That’s when we heard it….the soft sound of bare feet on hardwood.


    “Mama?” Caesar’s sleepy voice came from the doorway. “Why are <i>you </i>yelling?”


    .65%#


    I spun around to find my son standing there in his dinosaur pajamas, his dark hair sticking up, his blue eyes wide with confusion and fear.


    Eyes that were identical to the man standing behind me.


    “Nothing, baby,” I said quickly, moving toward him. “Mama was just talking to Mr. Hunter. Go back to bed.”


    But Caesar’s gaze had shifted to Hunter, and something in his face changed. Not fear, exactly, but a kind of recognition that made my blood


    run cold. <fnd3dd> Checktest chapters at f?i?n?d?n?o?v?e?l?</fnd3dd>


    The same look he’d had that first day when Hunter had knelt to help him with his spilled crayons.


    “Mr. Hunter,” he said, his voice very small and uncertain. “Are you my daddy?”


    The question hung in the air like a bomb waiting to explode. I felt the ground shift beneath my feet as my worst fear emerged in the form of my three–year–old son’s innocent question.


    Hunter’s sharp intake of breath was loud behind me. I could feel his presence, could almost hear his heart racing as loudly as mine.


    Caesar looked between us, his young mind trying to piece together the tension in the <i>room</i>, the way we had both gonepletely silent, the way I had frozen in ce.


    “Mama?” he said again, taking a step toward me. “Why won’t anyone answer me?”