Page 62 of Want to Know a Secret?

“So… what now?” I’m still pacing as I talk. “What does she want?”

He clears his throat. “She, uh… she’s saying she wants to keep it.”

“What?” I had assumed Brianna was just looking for a quickie abortion and a payout. “You can’t be serious?”

He nods miserably.

I look at his face. He’s wrecked by this. But part of me wonders if deep down, he’s happy. He and I have been trying for a baby for a long time. And now, miraculously, here’s a baby. With another woman, of course, but maybe that doesn’t matter to him.

Maybe this is the opportunity he’s been waiting for.

“So what are you going to do?” I say. “Are you going to run off with Brianna now?”

“No!” Elliot leaps to his feet. “Of course not! April, I love you. You know that.”

I snort. “Do I?”

“Of course I do!” He tries to reach for me again, and I jerk away. “I just need to figure out what to do…”

What to do? As far as I can tell, there are two options. He can stay with his wife, or he can leave me for the woman over ten years younger who’s pregnant with his baby.

Elliot hangs his head. “Do you want me to stay at a hotel tonight?”

Well, I don’t want him in my bed. I can barely even look at him right now. But at the same time, I have a bad feeling that if I tell him to leave, he’ll go straight to her. And I don’t want that right now. I don’t want her to be the good guy, while I’m the bad guy. Because the truth of the matter is that as angry as I am, I don’t want my family to fall apart. Not like this.

“You can sleep on the sofa,” I say.

“Thank you.” He pushes his hand against the cushion of our leather sofa. It’s a very comfortable sofa. “I just need a pillow and a blanket…”

“Wait,” I say.

He raises his eyebrows.

“I don’t want you to sleep on the sofa,” I say. “I want you to sleep on the floor.”

Elliot looks doubtfully at the hardwood floor. “Well, that’s fine. I’ll just lie on the carpet.”

“No. Not the carpet. The floor.”

He’s quiet for a moment. “Okay. I’ll sleep on the floor.”

“Damn right.” Except it’s not enough. Not even close.

Elliot chews on his lower lip. “I’m so sorry, April. I know I messed up. But I love you, and I promise, this is going to be okay. I’m going to fix it.”

How? How on earth is this going to be okay? I can’t even imagine it. But there’s no point in arguing. “Good night, Elliot.”

I head up the stairs, but there’s no chance of being able to sleep. I know Elliot claims he’s going to fix this, but I can’t figure out a way he could possibly do it.

Chapter 30

When I wake up the next morning, I get the surprise of my life: Elliot is cooking breakfast.

He’s scrambling some eggs in a frying pan. I didn’t know he was capable of such a thing. The other surprise is that Bobby is fully dressed and sitting at the kitchen table, eating the eggs. I feel like I’ve walked into an alternate dimension.

“Hi, honey.” Elliot lifts his spatula and waves at me. “I figured you might need to sleep in, so I got Bobby up and made breakfast.”

I get what he’s doing. He’s on his best behavior because he’s trying to get me to forgive him for what he did. Yeah, right.