“She shouldn’t wake up until I’m back,” I tell Stana, grabbing my jacket from the couch and sliding it on. “But if she does, I have formula over there. It’s four scoops for two hundred mils—the directions are on the back of the container. She’s only been asleep for thirty minutes, so I really doubt she’ll stir.”
Stana is quiet, her big eyes uncertain as she looks me over, yet she says nothing. Her fingers knot together as she nods, giving me some indication she heard what I said.
“Lottie, are you sure you want to do this?” Em says, voice uncertain, her small frame sitting on the end of the couch. I don’t have time for uncertainties; I’ve been living with them for the past two weeks. I snap my head her way, not wanting to hear her worries.
“If you can’t do this, then it’s fine, Em, but I’m going.” My voice is firm, sounding a bit like how I used to before Beck, before Rosie. “You can stay here with Stana if you need to. I won’t take it personally.”
She sighs, her big green eyes showing her disappointment in the situation. “I’ll go get the car,” she relents, getting up and exiting the flat. I take a deep breath, quickly checking the monitor one more time. Rosie’s face is right up against the side of the cot, her eyes shut peacefully as she dreams of things I can only imagine are better than how I feel.
“I won’t be long,” I tell Stana.
“Lottie…” She finally speaks, her voice harder than usual.
I turn to her.
“I know you think he’s hiding something from you, but wouldn’t it be better if you just asked him? I mean, this is Owen we’re talking about. Owen, who followed you around like a lost puppy all those months ago. Owen, who raises your daughter like his own.”
I flinch at her words, them hitting their intended target. “It’s because of that I need to know, Stana. I never thought Beck would do it, but look at me now.”
Her face hardens. “We both know he isn’t Beck.”
I nod, understanding she doesn’t want to think poorly of her friend, but I have a daughter now and protecting her comes first, at all costs.
“I know what I’m doing, Stana. Okay?”
“If you’re sure.” She doesn’t bother to smile or hug me as I leave the flat, and I don’t expect her to. I’m accusing one of her friends, her and Emilia’s boyfriends’ best friend, of being a cheater. I don’t expect them to understand; they’ve never gone through the pain of trusting someone so deeply and then having them shove a hot knife into your side when you’re not looking.
I spot Em out front in Reeve’s idling car.
“So where to?” she asks.
“To his work,” I announce, my eyes latching onto the darkness outside my window. I wonder if it crept its way into my heart recently. Accusing Owen of this would be the highest form of offense to him if he found out. Worse than that, it would hurt him.
We drive into the night, eventually stopping outside his work building. Em finds a spot across the street, one covered in shadows.
“So now what?”
“Now we wait,” I tell her.
And wait we do. Twenty minutes later Owen walks out of the building, a woman in a tight pencil skirt and blouse by his side. I can’t see her up close, but it’s enough to know she’s beautiful. Tall, skinny, a luscious wave of dark hair.
“Lottie,” Em whispers from next to me, her voice laced with shock.
I put my hand up to silence her, my eyes still trained on the wreck I’m seeing in front of me. I’ve been in this position before. Only how come it hurts so much more with Owen?
I dig my nails into my flesh as I watch them approach a car. She leans in, hugging him tightly before pulling away and handing him something. The grin on his face when he looks at it could only be described as one he directs at me. At Rosie.
I flinch when Em’s warm hand comes down on my own, a stray teardrop betraying me and slipping from my face onto her hand.
“There has to be more to the story. I mean, they probably just work together.”
I shake my head, eyes still latched onto them as they talk. “I’ve been to his office with Rosie before. I know she doesn’t work there. Plus, he said he was the last one in the office tonight, wouldn’t be home for another two hours.” I sniff. “So tell me, Em, where could they be going for another two hours?”
She turns her head back to the car crash I’m watching, a small gasp leaving her lips as Owen gets into the passenger side of the woman’s car.
“Follow them,” I command before I swallow a few times to keep away the bile that wants to push its way out of my stomach.
Thankfully she says nothing, pulling the car onto the street and following the black Audi. We drive for ten minutes, the path they’re taking looking more and more familiar as we go. They stop at Owen’s apartment, where Em manages to find a spot across the street. We wait a few minutes before Owen gets out, his gray suit clinging to his body. The woman doesn’t appear, Owen waiting in the same place until she puts on her indicator and pulls out of the space.
Why didn’t she go in with him?
I briefly look away until Em’s voice cuts through my mind.
“Oh shit,” she says, and my attention snaps back to the window, beyond which a stern-faced Owen strides across the road. Right up to our car. He stops at my window before tapping on the glass.
“This isn’t good,” she whispers to me.
I tell myself to keep a strong, brave face, that perhaps he was
