Chapter 3 I'd be back...m

The note stayed in my hand long after my legs had gone numb from sitting on the bed.

"I'll be back." Just three words-and yet they had more weight than Cullman's entire fake proposal.

The stranger from last night, the one who touched me like he'd known me forever, had disappeared before the sun came up, leaving behind nothing but a note and a wad of cash like it was payment for services rendered.

It should've made me feel cheap. It didn't. Instead, it left me... confused. Disoriented. Like I'd just woken up in someone else's life.

I stood slowly, stretching out muscles that were sore in all the right ways and all the wrong ones. My reflection in the mirror looked different.

Not drastically-just... softer. My eyes less guarded, my skin still flushed from what happened hours ago.

Who the hell was he? And why did it feel like he'd left with a piece of me? The cash sat on the nightstand, thick and neat, bound in crisp hundreds.

I didn't touch it. Not yet. I needed to get out of there before I started making up stories in my head about what last night meant. Because it didn't mean anything. Right? He didn't even tell me his name.

I took a shower, let the water pour over me until it rinsed off the sweat, the heat, the lingering taste of his skin.

But even after scrubbing until my fingers pruned, I couldn't wash him off. Not really. His scent still lingered in the sheets. His heat still echoed on my skin.

I dressed in the same clothes I'd worn to the club the night before-wrinkled and shamefully clingy-and shoved the envelope into my purse, not knowing why I kept it.

The ride home was quiet. I couldn't even remember how I got back to my car.

I walked into my apartment like a ghost, dropped my purse on the floor, and curled up on my couch with a bottle of water and a half-eaten muffin I didn't remember buying.

I should've been mad at myself. But all I could feel was... hollow.

Like I'd opened a door that couldn't be closed anymore. Days passed. Then a week. And another. No call. No stranger. No knock on my door with a crooked smile and a half-assed apology. Just silence.

I tried to shake it off. Went back to work at the precinct, drowning myself in reports and traffic stops, pretending like I wasn't checking my phone every two seconds for a number that didn't exist. Cullman called once.

I ignored it. I didn't even let it ring twice. His voice, his face, the way he'd crushed me without blinking-it all felt like a bad dream now. The kind you remember pieces of but can't really feel anymore.

That's what happens, I guess, when someone else touches your soul deeper than you expected. But still, the emptiness stayed.

And then... the nausea started. At first, I thought it was stress. Maybe I was just tired, overworked. My stomach twisted in the mornings, and smells started making me dizzy.

I couldn't finish my coffee, and don't even get me started on eggs-I couldn't look at them without gagging. I chalked it up to nerves.

Until one morning, I threw up three times before 8 a.m. That's when something clicked. Something terrifying. Something impossible.

No. No, no, no. It had only been one night. One time. That stuff didn't happen to me. I'd always been careful. Always took precautions. Except... That night, I hadn't. Not really.

I remember him whispering in my ear, "I want to feel all of you." And I'd let him. Every. Single. Bit.

I rushed to the pharmacy on my lunch break. Picked up three tests. Just to be sure. Just to prove myself wrong.

Back in the station's staff bathroom, I waited for the results, pacing like a madwoman. My palms were sweaty. My breath short. I glanced down once. Then again. Then I sat on the toilet and cried. All three tests had two pink lines. Two lines. Pregnant.

I don't know how long I sat there, staring at the floor, willing the universe to fix this. To rewind the clock. To make it un-happen.

But life doesn't do rewinds. It doesn't care if you're a law enforcement officer with a strict moral compass and a shaky past. It doesn't care if the father of your baby is a stranger you met in a club. A man whose name you don't even know. I was pregnant. And alone. And terrified.

I went home that night and curled up on the bathroom floor.

Everything inside me felt scrambled. I wasn't ready for a baby.

I didn't even know who I was anymore, let alone who I was becoming.

But there was no denying it-this life growing inside me, it was real. I placed my hand on my stomach, barely able to believe it. How the hell was I going to explain this? To my boss? To my father? To myself? More importantly... how would I find him? The man who'd turned my life upside down with one kiss.

One night. I didn't even have a name. No contact. No trail. He was a ghost. A memory that now lived under my skin and, apparently, inside my womb. The thought made me laugh through the tears. Of course this would happen to me.

Of course the one time I let go, gave in, dropped every wall I'd spent years building-this is what I got. A baby. And no clue what came next. Days passed again. My body started changing in tiny ways. My clothes felt tighter. My energy dropped. I made an appointment at a small clinic across town-one with zero ties to my job or my family.

The nurse was kind. She held my hand. She smiled at the sonogram screen while I stared at it like it was an alien.

I left with a printed image and a folder full of pamphlets I wasn't ready to read.

That night, I lay in bed holding the sonogram like it was a secret note from the universe.

Still no sign of him. Until one week later. I was locking up my car in the underground parking garage, heading into my apartment building when I felt it. A chill.

That gut-deep instinct that someone's watching you. I turned.

He was there.

Leaning against a black luxury car like he belonged in a movie. Same piercing eyes. Same expensive suit. Same unreadable expression. My heart did something stupid. It flipped. Stumbled. Almost collapsed.

He hadn't changed at all. But I had.

"You," I whispered, almost breathless.

"I told you," he said coolly, sliding his hands into his pockets. "I'd be back."