Caleb looked around the thinning lobby, clearly uncomfortable with the venom in my tone, though his face remained a mask of polished composure. “Look, Sarah, I know you’re angry. You have every right to be. I was a kid. I was terrified, and I did a terrible thing. But I’ve spent the last decade building a life. A real life. I’m a senior partner at a firm in the city now.”
“I don’t care if you’re the king of the world,” I whispered, tears of rage burning my eyes. “Get away from us. If Adrian sees you—”
“Adrian needs to see me,” Caleb interrupted, his tone shifting, becoming sharper, more authoritative. He stepped closer, lowering his voice so it wouldn’t carry. “I listened to his speech, Sarah. He’s smart. He’s got fire. But he’s also an idiot who just sabotaged his entire future before it even started. A baby? At eighteen? He thinks he’s being a hero, but he’s just anchoring himself to the bottom of the ocean.”
“He is doing what you didn’t have the guts to do!” I hissed, my chest heaving.
“And look what it did to you!” Caleb snapped back, a flash of irritation breaking through his calm facade. “Look at you, Sarah. You’re thirty-five and you look exhausted. You’re wearing a dress from a discount rack and you’ve got grocery-store shoes on. You gave up everything for a mistake we made when we were kids. Do you really want him to do the same thing? Do you want him to throw away that scholarship to change diapers and work minimum wage?”
Every word he spoke felt like a physical blow, stripping away the armor I had built over nearly two decades. The worst part—the absolutely terrifying, sickening part—was that a tiny, dark voice in the back of my mind knew he wasn’t entirely wrong about the hardship. Adrian’s life was going to be brutally hard.
“I can help him,” Caleb said, his voice dropping into a persuasive, seductive purr. He reached into his breast pocket and pulled out a sleek, matte-black business card, holding it out between two fingers. “The university he’s going to? My firm funds a major endowment there. I know the dean of admissions personally. I can set Adrian up. A luxury apartment near campus, a monthly stipend, a guaranteed internship at my firm when he graduates. He can have the life he deserves.”
I stared at the black card. It felt like a piece of coal straight from hell. “And what’s the catch, Caleb? Because guys like you don’t give away charity for free.”
Caleb’s eyes drifted past my shoulder, locking onto something behind me. A cold smile touched the corners of his lips.
“The catch is simple,” Caleb whispered. “He goes to college alone. The baby stays here with you. Or better yet, they put it up for adoption. He can’t have a anchor dragging him down if he wants to swim with the sharks. I’ll fund his entire life, Sarah. I’ll give him the world. But he has to leave the baggage behind. Just like I did.”
Before I could scream at him, before I could throw his card back into his handsome, arrogant face, a shadow fell over us.
“Mom?”
Adrian was standing there. He had his phone in his hand, his eyes darting between me—pale, shaking, and holding a crying Lily—and the wealthy stranger in the expensive suit holding out a business card. Adrian’s gaze locked onto Caleb’s face, tracing the identical jawline, the identical gray eyes.
The silence that followed was louder than the ovation in the auditorium.
Caleb didn’t flinch. He extended the card toward Adrian instead. “Hello, Adrian. I’m Caleb. I think it’s time we had a talk about your future.”
Adrian looked at the card, then at me, the confusion on his face slowly hardening into a terrifying, realization.
