Chapter 19

I glanced at the clock for the millionth time. It was five in the morning. Gia’s soft snores were the only sound in the otherwise quiet room. I pushed off the covers and went downstairs to prepare breakfast.

I derived immense satisfaction from cooking; I've always found it therapeutic, baking even more so. I put the croissants in the oven before cleaning the countertop. My head felt heavy; all the exhaustion was finally catching up.

Last night, with thoughts racing, I couldn’t sleep a wink. Everything replayed in my mind. I wondered how the next morning would go when I told Noah everything. I could sense an impending headache. God! Why was everything so messed up?

It was half past six, exactly an hour before Gia would wake up for school (not on her own, of course). I figured this would be the perfect time to talk to Noah. As if on cue, I heard footsteps. He came and stood in the kitchen doorway.

“Yeah, I wanted to talk to you as well,” he said. I followed him out of the kitchen. When we reached the living room (or wherever they went—the passage is unclear), he turned back and scratched his nose.

“So about last night… uhm… I just want us to forget everything. Fresh day, fresh start, right?”

I blinked, not quite understanding. That didn’t sound like an apology. Or should I have been expecting one?

“Right,” I muttered, and we stood awkwardly for a few more seconds.

“So, you wanted to say something!”

That’s when I remembered. “Yeah… uh… I don’t know how to…”

“No, it’s all good. You don’t have to,” Noah waved a dismissive hand, and I almost didn’t catch his meaning until I did. I let out an uncomfortable chuckle.

“Oh! No. I wasn’t going to apologize for last night.” I wouldn’t say sorry when I wasn’t wrong. At least, not in the matter he was referring to. A look of mild disappointment crossed his face.

While he struggled to process the lack of an apology, I decided there was no other way. Better to get straight to the point.

“I told you that I didn’t know much about Gia’s father.”

“The stranger you hooked up with.” Hearing that made me cringe internally. That rebound sex was a rather rash impulse. It wasn’t a habit.

“Well, that stranger is Aiden Knight.”

He snorted. “Huh, funny!”

I pressed my lips together and stared at him. Noah thought I was joking. This wasn’t going well. The silence stretched for what felt like an hour before his face fell.

“You’re not joking?”

“No,” I said softly.

“Fuck, so you weren’t meeting him for the first time at the company function.” He looked up at me, his eyes filled with accusations. Like I had been deceiving him.

Technically, no. But that’s the day I saw him after all these years. Before that, I didn’t know who Aiden Knight was. I trailed off.

“What? My boss? Fuck me! You’ve been pretending all this time.” That one, I couldn’t deny. I should have told Noah everything from the beginning. Then why didn’t I?

Now that I thought about it, a bitter realization filled me. I didn’t trust him to be understanding. That alone hinted at how shallow this relationship was. I’d been kidding myself into thinking we had something good. I hadn’t considered the bridge of my mind, how he would react.

“Tell me how I should be reacting now that I know you have a child with my boss!” Even though it wasn’t exactly my boss…

“Why tell me now?” Noah put his hands on his hips, waiting for my answer. I remembered Aiden’s words. It was obvious he wouldn’t want any loners. If I hadn’t talked to Noah today, I was pretty sure he would have shown up at our doorstep, and that wouldn’t have gone well. I wasn’t sure this was going well either.

I sighed. “He wants to be present in Gia’s life as her father.”

“You’re in touch?” He paused abruptly, his mouth falling open in realization. “Were you with him last night?”

“No. Not… not in that sense.” I barely got the words out.

“So you were with him?”

I told you, I went out with Aiden. He just happened to be in the same club. His mock laughter indicated he didn’t believe me. “Yeah, a fucking coincidence. You want me to believe that?”

I hated explaining myself so much, especially when the other person was behaving so uncivilly. I had to take deep breaths to calm down.

“I don’t want him waltzing into our lives when all this time I’ve been the one taking care of you.”

The revised passage corrects grammatical errors, improves sentence structure, and clarifies ambiguous phrasing. Some interpretations were necessary due to the original's inconsistencies. For example, the location after leaving the kitchen was unclear.