Avery reached into her purse.
For a moment he thought she was leaving.
Instead she removed her phone, opened an old archived folder, and held it out.
‘I emailed you after the second test,’ she said.
‘I told you I was pregnant.
I said I didn’t expect anything from you, but I thought you deserved to know.’
Ethan took the phone.
The message was dated three years earlier.
It was addressed to an account that had once been publicly listed for correspondence connected to Ethan’s family office, before Cole Memorial centralized his professional communications.
Avery swiped to the reply.
Ethan read it once.
Then again.
The language was polished and merciless.
Their evening together had been a mistake.
Further contact would be unwelcome.
Any claims regarding a pregnancy should be directed through formal channels.
It ended with his name.
Ethan’s stomach turned.
‘I never wrote this.’
Avery laughed once, without humor.
‘Of course you didn’t.’
‘I didn’t.’
‘You expect me to believe that now?’
Ethan enlarged the message header.
Something immediately bothered him.
The address displayed his name, but the underlying routing line was unfamiliar.
‘Forward this to me.’
Avery pulled the phone back.
‘Why? So it can disappear properly this time?’
He flinched.
She noticed.
Good, her expression seemed to say.
At least one of them finally felt it.
Ethan looked toward the twins.
He could have defended himself.
He could have listed the reasons he would never abandon his children, even children he hadn’t planned for.
But Avery had already spent three years living with what she believed was his answer.
Words would not erase that.
So he said only, ‘You don’t have to trust me.
But Nora deserves an accurate family history.
And both of you deserve to know whether someone used my name to make that decision for us.’
Avery’s anger faltered.
Not gone.
Just interrupted.
She forwarded the email.
Ethan sent it to the hospital’s legal and information-security team with instructions to preserve every record connected to the obsolete account.
Then he put his phone face down.
He did not make another call.
He did not summon attorneys into the room.
He did something harder for a man accustomed to controlling outcomes.
He waited.
Nora’s fever turned out to be viral and unrelated to the cardiac finding.
Fluids, rest, monitoring, and follow-up would likely be enough.
The heart abnormality was mild, but the cardiologist recommended screening Lila because twins could share congenital traits.
Lila objected to the gel being cold.
Nora informed her that doctors lied about that part.
