“I know where the ginger tea is,” she said.
He almost smiled.
Almost.
Then he was gone, leaving her alone with the echo of his touch.
At 7:00 a.m., Natalie emerged from the guest room, showered and dressed in her rumpled clothes from yesterday. She found Carter in the kitchen, wearing a perfectly tailored suit and arguing in rapid‑fire Japanese on his phone.
He gestured to the elaborate breakfast spread on the counter—fruit, pastries, eggs, bacon—and mouthed, Eat.
She picked at a croissant and tried not to stare.
How could someone look that put‑together at seven in the morning? His hair was perfectly styled, his jaw freshly shaved, his tie knotted with mathematical precision.
He looked nothing like the man who’d stood half asleep in his doorway holding ginger tea.
He ended the call and immediately poured her a glass of orange juice.
“How’s your stomach?” he asked.
“Better,” she said. “The tea helped. Thank you.”
“Good.” He hesitated, then said, “Dr. Reynolds will be here at nine for the paternity test. It’s just a simple blood draw.”
Back to reality.
Back to suspicion.
“Fine,” she said flatly.
“Natalie—”
“What?” She set down the croissant. “What do you want me to say? That I understand? That I’m fine with being investigated and doubted and treated like I’m running some kind of scam? Because I’m not fine with it, Carter. I’m really, really not.”
“I know,” he said.
“But you’re doing it anyway,” she added.
“Yes,” he said. No apology in his tone. Just fact. “Because I have to.”
She laughed once, a brittle sound.
“You know what’s funny?” she said. “That night, I thought…” She shook her head. “I thought it meant something to you. I thought you felt what I felt. But it was just a night to you, wasn’t it?”
“It wasn’t,” he said immediately. “Don’t you dare say it was ‘just a night.’ That night was—” He broke off, jaw tight. “It was everything.”
“Then act like it,” she said. She stood now, the words spilling out. “Act like you remember how you looked at me. How you touched me. How you said you’d never felt anything like that before. Because the man from that night would have believed me. The man from that night would have trusted me.” Her voice cracked. “He would have been naive,” Carter interrupted, his voice suddenly cold. “He would have been an idiot. He would have gotten his heart broken and his life wrecked again.”
The again hung between them.
Natalie picked up her small purse.
“I’m leaving,” she said. “The test will happen when I’m ready. On my terms, not yours.”
She headed for the door.
“You have my information now, right? From your investigation?” she added over her shoulder. “You can contact me when you’re ready to act like a human being instead of a paranoid machine.”
“Natalie—”
