I’m in such awe right now. Partly of Karina—I can’t imagine going through childbirth—and partly of Elle, who was so calm under pressure, so brilliant throughout the entire ordeal. Every time I see her at work, she leaves me breathless.

I take a step forward. I’m not sure if I should even be here, but even though everything with Karina has been a sham, I still feel a sense of responsibility for her. After watching what these two women just did, I feel like I should do something—anything—useful, instead of just standing here.

“Can I get you something?” I ask. I’m not even sure who I’m talking to, but Karina seems to be focused entirely on her child. Elle looks up at me, the strangest expression on her face.

“I’ll go,” my mother says behind me. “I need to make sure that everyone else is still carrying on as usual. And I’ll make arrangements for Karina to be transferred discreetly to the local hospital. In the meantime, I’ll have someone bring some blankets and other things you might need.”

I hear her slip out the door behind me, but I’m still looking at Elle, trying to read the look in her eyes.

“You should go look at your son,” she says, her voice flat.

Frankly, I’m afraid my presence might be something of an intrusion right now. Karina is looking down at the infant in her arms as if he’s the only thing in the entire world, and I have no intention of encroaching upon this private moment. Karina and I might have operated as partners these last few months, but I’m not the child’s father, nor does she actually think of me as such.

Elle is still looking at me, waiting.

I reach out and take her hand, helping her to her feet. “Let’s give Karina a little space.”

She looks like she wants to yank her hand out of mine, but she doesn’t. She just keeps staring at me, her blue eyes searching mine as if she might read all the answers on my face.

“Karina,” I say, glancing past Elle to her. “Elle and I aren’t leaving the room—we’re just going to give you some privacy. If you need anything, just call.”

Karina nods, her gaze still focused on her new son. She touches him gently on the cheek.

I pull Elle with me around the storage units to the far side of the room, away from Karina. If we speak quietly, we can have a private conversation here.

“Elle, I—”

“You knew that baby wasn’t yours.”

It’s not a question anymore. She knows.

“I knew,” I say softly.

“Then why…?” She shakes her head and looks away from me, trying to make sense of it all. “Why the hell did you do all of this? All the magazines and the…the… Fuck, Leo, do you have any idea what I’ve been through these past few months?”

“I have some idea,” I say. If she experienced even half the pain I did, these last few months were agony for her. “Elle, I had little choice.”

“There’s always a choice,” she says. “And you chose her. You chose her when it wasn’t even your baby she was carrying.”

I grab her hand again. “I know it looks bad from the outside, but Karina needed my help. She had no other options. Her family’s in terrible debt, Elle. Her father got himself in a dire situation, and she desperately needed money—not just for him, not just for herself, but for the baby. This story earned her a lot of money, mainly because I was a part of it. She would have gone ahead with the story whether I agreed to go along with it or not—at least if I were a willing participant, it gave me some control over the situation.”

She jerks her hand out of mine. “None of this makes any fucking sense, Leo.”

“Then maybe this will,” I say. “I saw how desperate and scared she was, and I couldn’t refuse to help her, not when I was the only one who could do so. You know why, Elle? Because you showed me that I can’t live my life thinking only of myself. That sometimes I have to sacrifice my own happiness for the sake of others. You’ve dedicated your entire life to helping others, Elle—it never mattered if they couldn’t pay you, or if you disliked them, or even if it put your reputation on the line. You help people because it’s the right thing to do, because it’s the only thing you’d even consider.”

She blinks, and I see tears welling in her eyes. But still, she shakes her head.

“You could have told me,” she whispers. “You’ve just admitted yourself that she could have accomplished what she wanted without you going along with it. But you did go along with it. You never once picked up the phone and told me what was going on. You just let me spend these last few months believing it really was your baby. That you’d decided to spend the rest of your life with someone else.”

“I did that for you, Elle. I thought… If I’d walked away from Karina, the press never would have left me alone. It would have been an even bigger scandal. And if I’d come and found you… You told me yourself that you refused to be painted as the other woman. There would have been no escaping this—you’d have been dragged into this mess along with us. I refused to do that to you.”

“You still could have called me and told me what was going on.”

“I could have,” I admit. “And maybe I should have. I just… How could I have asked you to sit back and wait a few months for me to play out some charade with another woman?”

“At least I would have known.”

“Elle, I thought this was what you wanted—for me to do the right thing, and to do it in a way that kept you out of it. You walked away from me that night, Elle. You didn’t stay with me to wait and see how everything played out. You needed to protect yourself, and I wasn’t about to tear down those walls and hurt you again.”

A single tear escapes from her lashes and slides down her cheek. “Then why do I feel like I’ve been kicked in the gut?”

I step forward and place a hand on either side of her face. My thumb brushes her tear away.

“You know how I feel about you,” I say.

“I thought I did… But then why the hell did you spend the last three months helping a woman who you don’t feel that way about? Who wasn’t even pregnant with your baby?” She pulls out of my grip again. “What she did was despicable, Leo, and rather than fight it, or talk to me about how we might work through this together, you chose to help her.”

“She was alone, and pregnant, and—”

“Other people can be those things too, Leo. People you claim to love.”

Wait—what?

At that moment, the door beside us swings open and a couple of attendants rush in, one with a stack of towels and blankets and another with what appears to be a basin of water. I’m slow to get out of the way, in part because my mind is still trying to process what Elle’s just said. She can’t really mean…

When I glance back at her, I realize she’s already lunged toward the door. She’s back out in the ballroom before I even have the chance to grab her arm.

“Elle!” I call after her.

She doesn’t stop. And she has a good head start on me, so when I step out into the ballroom, she’s already slipped into the crowd. I only see a glimmer of silver as she dashes through the dancing couples sweeping across the ballroom.

“Elle! Wait!” I call again. Several people near me look over in shock and surprise. I know I’m causing a scene, but I don’t care. I have to find her. Have to talk to her. I don’t care if the whole world knows it.

I dart across the room, dodging dancers and attendants and looking for any glimpse of that silver gown. Where is she? How did she disappear so completely?

And then I see it—a flash of silver, slipping out the door. I race toward it—

And I collide headfirst with a server carrying an entire tray of full champagne flutes. We both go crashing down, and glass shatters everywhere. Several dancers near us cry out in surprise, and one couple nearly trips over us before running into another pair. In a matter of seconds, the entire section of the room devolves into chaos, with dancers trying not to fall over us or slip on champagne and additional servers running over to quickly clean up the mess. I stumble to my feet.

“I’m sorry,” I mumble to the other man, reaching down and helping him up. “This is an emergency. I’m sorry.”

I don’t wait for his response. I dash across the ballroom, not even caring that a chorus of shocked gasps go up in my wake.

When I reach the door, Elle is nowhere to be seen. I have no idea where she might have gone—except away—but I will not rest until I find her. Even if it takes all night.