Chapter 10: The Lie He Almost Told
Rowan stood with Selina’s message glowing on his phone and waited for Phoebe to tell him what to do.
She didn’t.
Leo slept against her chest, his cheek tucked beneath her collarbone. Each tiny breath stirred the cotton of her shirt. Phoebe lowered a hand to his back, feeling the steady warmth there.
“Go if you’re going,” she said.
Rowan’s eyes lifted. “You want me to?”
“I want you to decide what you can live with. I’m not sending Dad after you. I’m not chasing you down the street.” She looked at the message again. “But don’t tell her I sent you.”
“I won’t.”
He sounded certain. Phoebe wanted to believe the certainty. She also remembered the payments he had approved, the questions he had chosen not to ask, and the message he’d sent from Selina’s birthday dinner while their son was being born.
Rowan tucked his phone into his pocket.
Then he left.
The front door clicked shut. No slammed door, no grand declaration. Just a soft, ordinary sound that seemed too small for the choice he had taken with him.
Gideon stood near the window in his old gray coat, watching the street.
“Do you want me to call anyone?” he asked.
“No.”
“Phoebe—”
“I don’t want the family warned off or persuaded. If Rowan comes back with the truth, I want it to be his.”
Gideon nodded, and let the silence stand.
Leo stirred. Phoebe adjusted him, careful of his fragile neck, and breathed in the milky sweetness of his hair. Her son’s whole world was warmth, hunger, and the arms holding him. She wanted to keep it that simple for as long as she could.
The hours dragged. A bottle cooled on the counter. The phone stayed quiet. Phoebe didn’t check Rowan’s location or send a message asking what Selina had said. She had once mistaken silence for a problem she could solve by trying harder.
Not this time.
When the front door finally opened, Rowan came in alone.
His jacket was damp at the shoulders. He stood in the entryway as if he wasn’t sure he had the right to cross the room.
Phoebe was on the sofa with Leo asleep beside her in the bassinet.
“What happened?” she asked.
Rowan looked at the baby first, then at her.
“She wanted me to say you knew about the payments.”
Phoebe felt her fingers tighten around the edge of the blanket.
“What exactly did she want you to say?”
“That you approved them. That you understood Cedar Bridge was helping her business, and the signature was some kind of misunderstanding between us.” His mouth twisted. “She said nobody needed to hear the word forgery.”
“And you?”
“I almost agreed.”
The answer hit harder than a denial would have.
Rowan stepped farther into the room, then stopped again. “She said it would keep the family from tearing itself apart. That you’d be fine. That it was just a sentence.”
“Just a sentence that makes me responsible for what she did.”
“I know.”
“Do you?” Phoebe’s voice came out low. “You’ve already let her make decisions with our money because you didn’t want to ask her uncomfortable questions.”
He looked down. “Yes.”
The admission didn’t mend anything. But it didn’t ask her to mend it for him, either.
“She said she’s going to send something to the family,” he continued. “A message that supposedly proves you knew about Cedar Bridge.”
Phoebe’s gaze sharpened. “What message?”
“She didn’t show me. She said people would understand once they read it.”
“Understand what?”
“That you approved it. That you’re changing your story now because you’re angry.”
For a moment, the room held only the soft hum of the refrigerator and Leo’s small, uneven sigh.
“Did you tell her I didn’t write that invoice?” Phoebe asked.
“I told her you said you never signed it.”
“That isn’t what I asked.”
Rowan swallowed. “I told her I wouldn’t say you approved the payments. I told her I wouldn’t lie for her.”
Phoebe searched his face. She saw fear there, and shame, and something like relief that he had finally spoken before the lie became permanent.
“I’m glad you came back and told me,” she said. “That doesn’t make it fixed.”
“I know.”
“Good. Because I’m not giving you credit for almost doing the right thing.”
He flinched, but didn’t argue.
The doorbell rang.
Phoebe looked toward the hall. Rowan glanced at her, waiting. She rose carefully, leaving Leo asleep in the bassinet, and opened the door.
A woman she recognized as Rowan’s cousin Marla stood on the porch with a paper bag tucked against her coat.
“I brought soup,” Marla said, then paused. “I’m sorry. I wasn’t sure if this was a good time.”
“It’s fine.”
Marla stepped inside and set the bag on the hall table. Her phone buzzed in her hand. She looked down, and her expression changed.
“What is it?” Rowan asked.
Marla hesitated. Then she turned the screen toward Phoebe.
A message sat beneath a string of family replies. It claimed Phoebe had known Cedar Bridge was making temporary advances to Selina’s business. It said she had approved the arrangement and wanted everyone to stop treating a private family matter like a crime.
Phoebe read it once.
Then again.
May you like
The wording was smooth, careful—almost exactly the way she wrote when she wanted every word to be understood and none of them to be twisted.
For one sickening second, it sounded like her.
