Something Nora could live with normally under routine monitoring.
Avery’s shoulders dropped in relief.
Then the cardiologist added, ‘These variations can sometimes run in families.
We’ll want a complete family cardiac history.’
Silence filled the room.
Avery closed her eyes.
Ethan looked at the blank section on Nora’s chart.
‘Her father’s history isn’t available,’ Avery said.
Ethan’s voice came quietly from behind her.
‘It might be.’
Avery turned.
The cardiologist sensed the tension and excused herself with Camila, promising to return after Nora changed.
The door closed.
For the first time in three years, Ethan and Avery were alone enough to stop pretending.
The twins were still there, but Nora was occupied with stickers Camila had left and Lila was whispering to her rabbit.
Ethan kept his voice low.
‘Are they mine?’
Avery’s face tightened.
He immediately hated the question.
Not because he didn’t need the answer.
Because of the way he had asked it—as if Avery were standing before a judge.
He tried again.
‘Avery, I need to know whether there’s a possibility I’m their father.
For Nora’s medical history.’
She stared at him for several seconds.
Then she said, ‘Yes.’
The room seemed to tilt.
Ethan gripped the back of a chair.
‘Yes, there’s a possibility?’
Avery looked directly at him.
‘You are their father.’
No dramatic crash followed.
No machine sounded an alarm.
Rain simply continued tapping the windows while Ethan Cole discovered that the most important fact of his life had existed without him for three years.
He sat down because his knees had stopped cooperating.
Lila looked over.
‘Is the doctor sick too?’
Avery swallowed.
‘I don’t know.’
Ethan covered his mouth with one hand.
His first emotion was wonder.
His second was grief.
Then came anger so sharp he had to lower his voice to control it.
‘Why didn’t you tell me?’
Avery’s entire body went rigid.
There it was.
The question she had apparently been waiting three years to hear.
‘I did.’
Ethan shook his head.
‘No.’
‘I did.’
‘I never got a call from you.’
‘I called twice.’
‘I would remember.’
‘Your office told me you were unavailable.’
Ethan frowned.
