"Start talking," she says. "Before I start imagining things worse than a secret baby."
"I need to go back to the beginning." I turn my coffee cup between my fingers, needing something to do with my hands. "I told you Claire was pregnant and that she left. What I didn't tell you is why the relationship existed in the first place."
"You cared about her, and you said that."
"I did, genuinely. Claire is brilliant and kind and organized my entire professional life for years while asking for almost nothing in return."
My throat tightens around the truth I've never said aloud to anyone.
"But I didn't love her. I used her steadiness as a shield against my own chaos, wrapped myself in her stability and called it a relationship because the alternative was admitting I was too broken to function alone."
Caroline doesn't flinch. She watches me, waiting for the rest.
"She knew. That's the worst part—she knew the whole time and stayed anyway, hoping I'd eventually feel what she felt. Years of her pouring herself into something I couldn't reciprocate, and I let her do it because having someone who managed my world was easier than managing it myself."
"That's not a crime, Lysander. Plenty of people stay in relationships that aren't equal."
"It becomes close to it when you get her pregnant and still can't commit," I lean back in the booth. "She wrote me a letter from Boston. She wanted me to love her the way she loved me, and since I couldn't do that, she'd rather raise our child without the constant reminder of what she wasn't enough to inspire."
"It must have destroyed you."
"It should have. Instead, it clarified what I'd been avoiding for months," I meet her gaze. "I flew to Boston, found her at a motel near the bus station, and begged her to let me be involved. She looked me in the eye and asked if I'd still choose her over you, given the chance. I couldn't lie to her."
"What did you say?"
"Nothing, which was actually the answer," my voice goes rough. "I could have chased her, could have lied and told her what she needed to hear… I could have forced myself into a life built on obligation and called it noble."
"You chose me instead."
"The possibility of you. Of something real instead of something I'd be faking for the rest of my life."
I pull the pregnancy test back toward me, sliding it into my jacket pocket. "Claire deserves someone who wakes up every morning grateful she's there. I woke up every morning calculating how to be adequate. That's not love but a performance review."
Caroline exhales slowly. Her thumb traces circles on the back of my hand.
"You know what I noticed about you when we met?" She tilts her head.
"My devastating good looks and impeccable social skills?"
"Your relief," she says it quietly. "You looked relieved to be talking to someone who didn't need anything from you. Like I was the first person in years who wanted your company without an agenda attached to it."
The observation lands somewhere deep.
"I watched you vacillate for months," she continues. "Back and forth between Claire and me, between safe and scary, between the life you thought you should want and the one that actually lit you up. I won't pretend that didn't hurt."
"Caroline—"
"But you finally make a choice," her grip tightens on my hand. "You didn't run to the next safe option or hedge your bets or keep a backup plan warm in case this didn't work out. You just chose, and let the consequences land."
Her eyes are bright, fierce. "That matters more to me than perfection. Perfection is boring and dishonest, and I've had enough dishonesty from the men in my life to last several lifetimes."
"Your father?"
"My father kept secrets I'm still uncovering. Whole sections of his life that he never let me see, that I'm finding in file cabinets and locked drawers and conversations that go silent when I enter the room…"
She shakes her head.
"I don't need you to be perfect. I need you to be transparent, even when the truth makes you look terrible."
"I think I've demonstrated that skill today."
"You have," her smile is small, genuine, devastating in its simplicity. "So tell me what you want, Lys. Not what you think you should want, but what do you actually want?"
"You," the word comes out without hesitation or the careful weighing I've applied to every emotional decision for a long time. "I want to find out what we could be together. I want to stop treating happiness like a risk to be managed and start treating it like something worth fighting for."
"Good answer."
"It's the only honest one I have," I take a breath. "But there's one more thing. Something that might change everything you just said about wanting transparency."
Her expression shifts—cautious again, bracing. "More than a secret pregnancy?"
My wolf stirs in my chest, pressing against my ribs.
"Caroline, do you remember the first time we touched? At the store, when your hand brushed mine reaching for the same bag of apples?"
"You looked like someone had hit you with a live wire."
"Something happened at that moment. I've been trying to rationalize it for months as that doesn't fit into any framework you or I were raised to understand." My heart hammers against my sternum.
"My family... We're different. Not metaphorically or eccentric-rich-people different, you know. Biologically different from what you think we are."
"You're scaring me."
"I'm terrified right now, too," I hold both her hands now, anchoring myself. "There's a part of me that recognized you in that grocery store aisle. As mine. As my mate. My wolf chose you, Caroline."
Her hands are still in mine. Her breathing changes—shallow, controlled, her analytical mind trying to process a word that doesn't belong in a coffee shop conversation.
"Your wolf," she repeats slowly.
"The thing inside me that isn't human," I hold her gaze and let her see everything—the fear, the certainty, the desperate hope. "I know how this sounds, but before you decide I've lost my mind, I want to ask you something."
"What?"
"Are you ready to see what I actually am?"