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She wiped it at once.
“I don’t want your tears,” she said.
“I know.”
“And I don’t want your guilt.”
“I know.”
“Do you?” Her voice sharpened. “Because men like you turn guilt into action so fast you forget the person you hurt is still bleeding.”
He flinched.
She closed the door, removed the chain, and opened it wider.
Not as welcome.
As a challenge.
“Five minutes.”
Caspian stepped inside.
The apartment was small. A round table near the window held stacked bills, a half-empty glass of water, and a notebook filled with numbers. A secondhand crib leaned unassembled against the wall. A basket of tiny baby clothes sat on the couch, folded with care.
Beside it were black waitress shoes worn at the soles.
Caspian stopped.
Every detail punished him.
Naira saw him looking.
“Don’t,” she said.
His voice came low. “Don’t what?”
“Don’t turn my apartment into your punishment.”
“I deserve punishment.”
“No. You want punishment because punishment is easier than patience.”
Caspian had no answer.
Naira began stacking the bills face down.
He moved quickly. “I’ll pay those.”
She froze.
The room changed.
Caspian knew it the moment the words left his mouth.
“No. I didn’t mean—”
“Yes, you did.”
“I want to help.”
“You want to feel less guilty.”
“That’s not fair.”
Naira laughed softly, but the sound was full of pain.
“Fair was me calling you thirty-seven times and getting silence. Fair was me standing in your lobby with your child inside me while security treated me like a threat. Fair was me losing my clinic job because your family made me look like a thief.”
Caspian lowered his head.
“These bills are not the problem,” she said. “They are the result.”
“I can fix the result.”
“And that is why you still don’t understand.” Her voice shook, but she did not back down. “You can pay every bill in this room before midnight. You can buy this building. You can put me in a house with marble floors and guards at the gate. You can hire doctors, drivers, cooks, nannies. You can make life easier.”
She placed one hand over her belly.
“But you cannot purchase the moment I needed my husband and found a stranger.”
Caspian’s eyes burned. “The baby is mine?”
Naira closed her eyes.
“Yes,” she whispered. “The baby is yours.”
He stepped back as if the truth had weight.
His hand moved to his mouth. For one moment, he looked young, lost, bare.
Naira watched him struggle, and the old part of her heart ached.
That made her angry.
She did not want to care that he was breaking.
She had broken alone.
“May I?” he asked, looking at her belly.
“No.”
He stopped.
“You don’t get to touch my child because the truth arrived late.”
His eyes lifted. “Our child.”
“My child heard my heartbeat through every lonely night. My child felt me work double shifts. My child heard me cry in the shower so Marisol wouldn’t worry. You are the father, Caspian, but you have not been present.”
The words crushed him.
He nodded slowly. “You’re right.”
That answer surprised her.