Ben Cullen kissed my best friend’s fingertips in the kitchen I had once imagined raising children in, and six months of excuses collapsed inside me at once. I stood in the hallway with my coat still on, watching Jean Harper laugh as if the man touching her belonged to her. Ben looked at her with a tenderness I knew too well, because for four years that look had belonged to me.
Chapter 2
“Yes,” Ben said before Jean could answer the doctor’s next question. “We’re keeping the baby.”
He took the ultrasound picture from the physician as though it were a winning lottery ticket. Then he pulled Jean into his arms and laughed, his face bright with a joy I had once dreamed of giving him.
“We’ll get married before you start showing,” he said. “I’ll call Mom tomorrow. We can put something together fast.”
Jean saw me first.
Her face drained of color.
Ben turned, and for one unguarded second, panic flashed through his eyes. It disappeared almost immediately.
“Noelle,” he said. “What are you doing here?”
I looked at Jean. “You’re pregnant.”
She lowered her head.
Ben stepped in front of her, as if I were dangerous. “We’re engaged. Things happened. We weren’t careful.”
Engaged.
I almost laughed.
Three months earlier, while fully aware that I was the woman he had promised to marry, Ben had continued pretending he did not remember me. He had watched me suffer. He had accepted my care, my home, my patience, and my humiliation because the lie was convenient.
And Jean had helped him live it.
On the drive home, neither of them spoke. Ben kept watching me in the rearview mirror. Jean stared at her hands.
I opened an email from Human Resources.
Six weeks earlier, my engineering firm had offered me a position leading part of a new infrastructure project in Copenhagen. I had declined the first conversation because I could not imagine leaving Ben while he was recovering.
Now I typed four words.
I accept the transfer.
At home, Ben helped Jean onto the couch as if she were made of glass. “You rest. Noelle can help with dinner.”
Jean looked uncomfortable. “She doesn’t cook much.”
“She can learn.”
I walked into the kitchen without arguing.
Ben followed and shut the door behind us.
His voice dropped. “Listen to me. Jean’s pregnant. She doesn’t need stress. If anything happens to her or the baby because of you, we’re going to have a problem.”
For months, I had prayed for this man. I had washed blood from his hair after the accident. I had slept beside a hospital bed with my hand wrapped around his wrist because I was terrified he would stop breathing.
Now he was warning me not to harm the woman carrying his child.
I kept my back to him. “Jean is my best friend. Why would I hurt her?”
He studied me carefully.
Perhaps he wondered if I knew.
His expression softened. “I didn’t mean it like that. I’m saying she’ll need support.”
“Of course.”
He seemed satisfied.
Later, Jean asked me to bring her ice cream from the freezer. When Ben disappeared upstairs to make a phone call, she followed me into the living room.
“Noelle.”
I turned.
Her eyes were swollen.
“When?” I asked.
She knew exactly what I meant.
Jean’s shoulders began shaking. “A little over two months ago. We’d been drinking. I know that doesn’t excuse anything. I took the morning-after pill. I thought—I thought it would be fine.”
I stared at her.
“You slept with him knowing he had his memory back?”
Her face twisted.
That answer was enough.
“I didn’t know at first,” she whispered. “He told me afterward.”
A cold emptiness spread through my chest.
“So you knew.”
Jean dropped to her knees and caught my hand. “I’m sorry. I swear I’m sorry. It happened once, and then everything got complicated. If you want me to end the pregnancy, I will. I’ll make the appointment tomorrow.”
I pulled my hand away.
“No.”
She looked up.
“The baby didn’t betray me.”
Jean began crying harder. “Then what are you going to do?”
Before I could answer, Ben entered carrying a plate. He saw Jean kneeling and his face changed.
“What did you do to her?”
Jean jumped up. “Nothing. I tripped.”
Ben shoved himself between us.
“I warned you,” he snapped at me. “Jean let you stay here out of kindness, and this is how you repay her?”
The absurdity was so complete that I almost smiled.
Jean let me stay.
In my house.
Ben turned to Jean. “That’s it. She’s leaving tonight.”
Jean stared at him. “Ben—”
“No. We’re having a baby. We can’t keep living like this.”
He faced me.
“You need to move out.”
I expected the words to hurt.
They didn’t.
“Okay.”
Ben blinked.
Jean looked more frightened by my calmness than she had by my anger.
I went upstairs, packed one suitcase, collected my passport and laptop, and placed my grandmother’s jewelry case in my purse. Everything else could wait.
Jean followed me to the front door.
“I’ll talk to him,” she whispered. “Give me tonight. I can convince him to let you come back.”
“Don’t bother.”
I stepped onto the porch.
The evening air smelled like wet leaves and chimney smoke. A streetlamp flickered at the curb, throwing pale light across the house my parents had bought for me.
I called Ian Mercer, the real-estate agent who had handled the purchase.
“Noelle?” he answered. “Everything okay?”
“I need to sell my house.”
There was a pause.
“The house on Willow Creek?”
“Yes.”
“You love that place.”
“Not anymore.”
Another pause.
“How fast?”
“Cash buyer. Quick closing. Price it aggressively.”
Ian’s tone became professional. “I know an investor who’s been looking in your neighborhood. He can probably close within two weeks.”
“Call him tonight.”
“Noelle, is Ben aware?”
I looked through the front window.
Ben was kneeling beside Jean on the couch, one hand resting protectively on her stomach.
“No,” I said. “But he will be.”
I checked into a small hotel near my office. I did not cry. I had spent six months crying for a man who had been healthy enough to lie to me the entire time.
The following morning, I signed the Copenhagen transfer agreement.
At ten-thirty, my phone rang.
Ben.
I let it ring twice before answering.
“What the hell is going on?” he demanded. “There’s a realtor walking through the house.”
“I know.”
“He says you’re selling it.”
“I am.”
“You can’t sell our house.”
I leaned back in my office chair.
“Our house?”
“Yes, our house. Jean’s crying. She’s pregnant, Noelle. Do you understand what kind of stress you’re causing?”
“You told me to leave.”
“That doesn’t mean you get to punish us.”
“I’m not punishing you. I’m selling an asset I own.”
Silence.
Then he gave a nervous laugh.
“Come on. My name is on the house.”
“No, Ben.”
Another silence.
“My parents paid cash for it. Only my name is on the deed. You bought the couch and the television. You’re welcome to take both.”
His breathing changed.
“You’re serious.”
“Yes.”
“Where are we supposed to live?”
“Yesterday you told Jean you had already found two apartments for me. I suggest you choose one.”
“You’re doing this out of spite.”
“No. Spite would require me to care what happens to you.”
I ended the call.
Three minutes later, Ben’s mother called.
“Noelle, honey, Ben is saying something about you selling the house.”
“That’s correct.”
“But his accident—”
“His memory came back before Thanksgiving.”
She stopped speaking.
“He told Dr. Campbell himself. He remembered me when he threw my parents out of the house. He remembered me while he pretended Jean was his fiancée. He remembered me while he slept with her.”
A faint gasp came through the phone.
“Jean is pregnant,” I continued. “Eight weeks.”
“Oh, dear God.”
“I’m leaving for Denmark in two weeks. You should probably call your son.”
I hung up before she could answer.
For the first time in six months, I felt as if I had stepped outside a burning house.
