He Stopped His Fiancée's Hand and Claimed the Salesgirl as His Wife

CHAPTER 3 - THE CHILD HE NEVER KNEW

The small café across the street was nearly empty.

Elena had chosen the table farthest from the window, but it did nothing to settle the storm inside her.

Nathan sat across from her, not touching his coffee.

Margaret had been left in the salon office. For once in her life, Elena did not care whether the older woman was comfortable.

"I lost the baby," she said quietly.

Nathan shut his eyes.

The pain on his face was real. Not polished. Not controlled. Real enough that Elena had to look away.

"It happened two months after I signed the papers. Stress, the doctor said. Maybe that, maybe not. I was alone."

He pressed a hand over his mouth. For a long moment he couldn't speak.

"When I came back from Chicago," he finally said, "my mother told me you'd left with someone else. She showed me a letter."

Elena stared at him. "A letter?"

He nodded. "Typed. Cold. It said you'd made a mistake marrying me and wanted a clean break. It was signed with your name."

She almost laughed from the cruelty of it.

Instead she pulled a small leather wallet from her bag. It was old now, softened at the edges. From inside, she slid out a photocopy of the divorce papers she had kept all these years, not because she believed them anymore, but because throwing them away had felt like erasing proof that the marriage had existed.

Nathan looked at the page.

Then at the signature.

"That's not mine," he said at once. "It's close, but not mine."

He turned the page over and frowned. "This law firm closed fifteen years ago."

A chill moved through Elena.

He leaned back, thinking hard. "My mother volunteered at their charity board then. She knew one of the partners."

The waitress arrived with pie neither of them had ordered. "From the gentleman at the counter," she said.

Elena turned.

An older man in a maintenance jacket lifted a hand awkwardly. "Sorry to interrupt. I couldn't help hearing the name Vale."

Nathan stood.

The man came over slowly. "I worked security at your mother's house years ago. I remember you, son."

Nathan's eyes narrowed. "Do I know you?"

"Frank Deluca. I was there the day a young woman came to see you. Your mother paid me to tell her you'd already left town."

Elena went cold.

Frank looked at her with shame. "You were carrying a small blue suitcase. You cried all the way back to the gate."

Nathan gripped the back of the chair so hard his knuckles whitened.

Frank swallowed. "I kept something I should've turned over. Thought one day I'd need to make it right."

He reached into his coat and placed a sealed envelope on the table.

Across the front, in Nathan's handwriting, were four words:

For Elena. If found.