Chapter 300

The room seemed to spin as Layla’s confession hung in the air between us. I couldn’t breathe, couldn’t even think straight. My eyes widened as I stared at her, desperately searching for some sign that this was a bad joke, a dream—anything but reality.

But it was the truth. I could see it in Layla’s eyes.

“He’s really Nathan’s?” I stuttered, grappling with the enormity of her revelation.

Layla nodded, her eyes rimmed with red from crying. “I didn’t find out until recently. I thought he was Cade’s,” she said, referring to her bodyguard-turned-fiancé.

“How did this happen, Layla? Nathan and I—”

She cut me off with a wave of her hand, her face flushed with the stress of her confession. “I understand how complicated this sounds, but let me explain,” she said. “If you’ll hear me out, that is.”

I paused for a moment, unsure if I wanted the truth. But finally, I decided that it was better this way. Perhaps Layla did have a good explanation, something that would prove that Nathan hadn’t somehow been seeing her behind my back at some point.

“Go on,” I murmured.

Layla took a deep breath. “Nathan and I weren’t very… intimate when we were together. It was more of a political marriage than anything, but we knew that we should have a family together. So we did try to conceive for a long time, but I never got pregnant.”

There was a lull in Layla’s words, the silence only punctuated by the sounds of the crickets and the ocean gently lapping against the shore outside.

“I thought it was me,” she continued quietly, staring down at her hands in her lap. “Thought it was something wrong with my body. But then, very soon after our failed wedding, I found out I was expecting. So I assumed that it wasn’t me, but that it was… Nathan who was barren.”

I felt a lump forming in my throat, my thoughts tumbling over each other in a chaotic whirl. “So you assumed it was Cade’s child?” I asked.

Layla nodded solemnly. “Yes, and I had no reason to believe otherwise. But when the baby was born, he looked nothing like Cade,” she continued. “Those eyes. Those striking eyes. Cade’s eyes are brown. That’s when I knew something was off. We got a paternity test, and it confirmed that Cade isn’t the father.”

My heart pounded in my chest, every beat echoing the confusion and shock coursing through my veins. “So you’re saying it must be Nathan’s?” I asked. “There was no one else?”

Layla nodded again, her eyes meeting mine. “Exactly. There was no one else. I came back to town not only to help with the library but also to talk to Nathan. I need him to take a paternity test. I need to know the truth. And so does Cade.”

My emotions were a tempest, swirling and colliding within me. “But… why now?” I murmured quietly. Part of me wanted to say what was on my mind: that I feared she was coming to take Nathan back, to dismantle what we had built. But I restrained myself.

As though reading my mind, she shook her head vehemently, strands of her golden hair floating in the air as she did so. “I know what you’re thinking, Olivia, but you have nothing to fear. I don’t love Nathan in that way anymore. We were never like that. We were never like the two of you.”

She paused, licking her lips. “I love Cade, and I still plan to marry him. But he… he doesn’t trust me right now. I need to have Nathan take this paternity test so Cade can realize that it was all a misunderstanding, a coincidence. Nathan and I felt like we had no choice but to try to conceive a child, and it turns out we did.”

“What then?” I asked, standing and pacing across the room. I pictured Aurora and Elliot asleep in their cribs in the other room. Would they grow up to have another sibling? Would our strange little family tree grow another branch?

“Olivia, I…” Layla stood, crossing the room to come over to me. She took my hands in hers. Her fingers were cool and slender, and her eyes were gentle and filled with sincerity. “I don’t want to throw a wrench into what you two have. If you want me to leave, I would understand. But… I would like my son to know his biological father. I would like Nathan to have a chance to have some part in my son’s life. If my suspicions are true, that is.”

The room seemed to close in on me. My thoughts were a tangled web, each thread more confusing than the last. But then, a wave of empathy washed over me, dousing the fire of my initial reactions.

Layla's words, no matter how shocking, were laced with honesty. And as I considered her situation, I realized that if our roles were reversed, I would want to know the truth too.

The tension in the room was palpable, but in that moment, it felt as if the storm had finally begun to clear. A moment of understanding passed between us, woman to woman, mired in a complex web neither of us had woven but both had to navigate.

Finally, I smiled, placing my hands on top of Layla’s. “Alright,” I murmured. “We’ll figure this out. Together.”

…

I lay in bed that night, staring at the ceiling as shadows danced across the room. The conversation with Layla replayed in my mind, each word echoing like a haunting melody.

Nathan had a child with Layla—ironic how life could throw such curveballs when you least expected it. But unlike the nefarious scenario I had concocted in my mind, this was just a bewildering twist of fate, a byproduct of the overlapping timelines in their lives.

I was foolish to have accused Nathan of betrayal. Even though his past was complicated, so was mine. We had both made choices that led us here, and if I could accept the circumstances of my own past, then I had to afford him the same courtesy.

The sheet beneath me felt cool and indifferent, a stark contrast to the warmth Nathan used to provide. I thought back to the moment I found out I was pregnant, how scared and alone I’d felt.

Nathan had stood by me, offered his love and support without a moment's hesitation. He’d become my anchor, someone who’d held me tight when the world felt like a relentless storm.

I wanted Layla to experience that same sense of comfort and warmth. My heart went out to her; no woman should have to go through the labyrinth of motherhood alone, especially when the father was still in the picture.

I resolved then and there to accompany her in the morning, to help confront Nathan and hopefully clear the air. Cade also needed to know the truth, and maybe this would be the catalyst for him to stay in Layla’s life.

While my mind was a flurry of thoughts and plans, a wave of sadness washed over me, catching me off guard. I felt the ache in my chest intensify, a loneliness that was both mine and not mine. It was my wolf, and her grief was palpable. She had been feeling weaker and weaker over the past week, too.

“What’s wrong?” I mentally asked her, knowing full well that the division between us had widened during this tumultuous time.

“Being apart from our fated mate for so long is painful,” she replied, her emotional voice echoing in my mind.

I took a deep breath, my human side understanding her agony all too well. “I promise, we’ll work this out. Nathan will be home soon.”

Yet, as the words formed, a sliver of doubt cut through me. Could I even believe myself? After what I’d done, letting that witch manipulate me, endangering not just Aurora but our integrity, too—would he ever forgive me?

I clung to the covers, my fingers gripping the fabric as if it could anchor me to a reality I was no longer sure of.

My mind returned to the last few moments Nathan and I shared, the emotional tension, his evident love yet palpable distance. I thought about his eyes, how they’d looked at me, filled with love but shadowed by disappointment and hurt.

I closed my eyes, the weight of my decisions pressing down on me like a physical force. And as I lay there in the dark, alone yet surrounded by the echoes of my choices, I wondered if love would be enough to mend the rifts that had widened between us. Would he find it in his heart to forgive me?

And in forgiving me, could we reclaim the unity, the trust, the indefinable something that had made us… well, ‘us’?