Chapter 3: What Chloe Didn't Know
Every person at that table was looking at my phone.
I picked it up.
I read the message once.
Then I set it face-down and looked at Daniel.
His eyes were fixed on the phone.
His jaw was tight.
Whatever color had been left in his face was gone now.
"Who is she?" his father asked.
Not loudly.
That was almost worse.
"She's nobody," Daniel said.
"She's an old friend.
This is all being taken completely out of context."
"An old friend." His mother was still holding the bank transfer page.
Her knuckles had gone white around the edges of the paper.
"You sent an old friend fifteen thousand dollars while your wife was pregnant."
"It was a loan—"
"From our joint account," I said.
"The account we opened together for Lily's birth.
For emergencies."
The coworker at the end of the table pushed back his chair slightly.
Not enough to stand.
Just enough to create distance.
Daniel turned to me.
His voice dropped low, the way it always did when he wanted to sound reasonable and in control.
"Jennifer.
I need you to stop.
Right now.
You're making a scene in front of people who matter, and you're going to regret this."
"I've been regretting things for four months," I said.
"I think I'm done."
I picked up my phone and placed it in the center of the table, screen up, so his mother could read the message Chloe had just sent.
*Daniel, I'm outside.
You said you'd come out after the party.
The baby is in the car.
It's hot.
Please hurry.*
The silence that followed was different from the one before.
Before, people had been shocked.
Now they were very, very still.
"She's here," Daniel's mother said.
The words came out barely above a whisper.
Daniel moved first.
He stepped away from the table, reached for his jacket on the back of his chair.
"I'll handle it," he said.
"Everyone just stay calm.
I'll handle it."
"You will not walk out of this room." His father's voice was quiet and absolutely final.
Daniel stopped.
His father had never once raised his voice in the twelve years I had known that family.
He had never needed to.
When Robert spoke in that tone, people listened.
Daniel turned back slowly.
"Dad—"
"Sit down."
Daniel sat.
His mother placed my phone back on the table in front of me.
Her hand rested on it for a moment before she pulled away.
"How long?" she asked me.
"The messages go back eight months," I said.
"She was already pregnant when I found out.
I was six months along."
She closed her eyes.
"Jennifer." Her voice broke on my name.
Just slightly.
"I didn't know."
"I know you didn't," I said.
And I meant it.
Whatever I felt about Daniel, I had never believed his mother was part of it.
The way she was sitting now, the way her shoulders had curved inward, the way she was holding the paper like she didn't know what to do with her own hands — that was not a woman who had known.
Daniel tried again.
"Mom, let me explain—"
"You sent money to another woman while Jennifer was carrying your child." She opened her eyes and looked at him directly.
"You used the money set aside for that baby's birth.
And you brought that woman here today.
To this hotel.
To this party."
"I didn't invite her.
She came on her own."
"Because you told her you'd come out after." I slid my phone across the table toward his mother again, the message still visible.
"Read it again."
She didn't look down.
She kept her eyes on Daniel.
"Is the baby yours?" she asked.
The table went completely silent.
Daniel's jaw worked.
His eyes moved to me, then to his father, then back to his mother.
"I don't know," he said finally.
His mother stood up.
She picked up her handbag from the back of her chair, smoothed the front of her dress with both hands, and walked to where Lily was sleeping near my mother.
She leaned down and kissed Lily's forehead very gently.
Then she straightened up and walked toward the exit without looking at her son.
Daniel watched her go.
His father stood next, slower, and paused beside Daniel's chair.
"You'll hear from our attorney Monday morning," he said quietly.
"There are accounts in both our names.
I'll be reviewing all of them."
He walked out after his mother.
Daniel's coworker cleared his throat, folded his napkin, and set it on the table.
"I think we'll head out," he said to no one in particular.
The others followed.
Within four minutes, the only people left in that banquet room were Daniel, me, my mother holding Lily, and a hotel staff member standing near the far wall pretending not to exist.
Daniel looked at the empty chairs around us.
Then he looked at me.
"You planned all of this," he said.
"You planned it first," I said.
"I just planned better."
He reached into his jacket pocket and pulled out his phone.
His thumb moved across the screen.
I watched his face as he read whatever had just arrived.
His expression shifted into something I hadn't seen before.
Not fear.
Something closer to panic.
He looked up at me.
"Chloe just sent me something," he said slowly.
May you like
"Jennifer.
There's something you need to know about Chloe."
