Chapter 2 - The Two Pink Lines Liam Wasn’t Supposed to See
The bathroom door opened before my fingers reached the pregnancy test.
Liam stopped.
I stopped.
For one ridiculous second, both of us stared at each other as if the correct response might be pretending the white plastic stick beside the sink was something else.
A thermometer.
A toothbrush.
Anything.
Then Liam looked down.
His eyes found the two pink lines.
“Oh.”
I closed my eyes.
That was it.
No dramatic gasp.
No shouting.
Just one small word that somehow made the entire situation real.
“Get out.”
“Emma—”
“Liam.”
He immediately stepped backward and closed the door.
“I’ll be in the kitchen.”
I sat on the edge of the bathtub.
My hands were shaking again.
Five minutes later, I emerged wearing an oversized sweatshirt and carrying the pregnancy test inside a folded paper towel.
Liam had turned off the coffee maker.
Good.
The smell had already betrayed me once.
He sat at the small kitchen table with two glasses of water between us.
I lowered myself into the opposite chair.
Neither of us spoke.
Finally, Liam pointed toward the paper towel.
“How sure are those things?”
“Pretty sure.”
“You taking another one?”
“I bought three.”
His eyebrows rose.
“Prepared.”
“Terrified.”
“Same family.”
I looked at him.
“You’re not family.”
“Rude.”
“You know what I mean.”
“I know.”
Liam Carter had known me since I was fourteen years old.
Before Emma.
Before prepaid phones.
Before I learned never to put my address on anything unless legally necessary.
He was one of only four living people who knew the name written on my first birth certificate.
Evelyn Reed.
Most people who remembered that name either believed I was dead or had been told I disappeared overseas after my parents’ accident.
Neither was completely true.
When I was seventeen, my parents died after their car went through a highway barrier in heavy rain.
The official report said mechanical failure.
The federal investigators who appeared three days later did not believe that.
Neither did Liam’s father, who had been my father’s closest friend.
Aaron Reed had worked as a forensic accountant.
My mother, Rachel, was a corporate compliance attorney.
For most of my childhood, their jobs sounded boring.
Spreadsheets.
Contracts.
Audits.
Meetings.
Then one night my father came home with blood on his shirt from a cut across his forehead and told me never to answer the door unless I saw either parent through the window.
Two weeks later, they were dead.
Afterward, I learned pieces.
My father had discovered money moving through shell companies attached to a major Manhattan real-estate group.
My mother had helped document it.
They were preparing to speak to federal investigators.
Then the crash happened.
The evidence disappeared.
Someone searched our home before I returned from school.
And a man I had never seen before waited outside Liam’s house asking whether anyone had heard from Evelyn Reed.
That was when a federal victims’ protection team helped me disappear.
Not forever.
Just long enough to survive the investigation that collapsed when witnesses backed out and records vanished.
Evelyn Reed became Emma Collins.
I never changed back.
Liam knew because his parents had helped me during the transition.
After they died, he became the only piece of my old life I kept.
Now he looked at the pregnancy test.
Then at me.
“Who?”
I stared at him.
He waited.
“Don’t make me guess.”
“You can’t guess.”
“New York is eight million people.”
“Yes.”
“You look like you’re about to tell me the baby belongs to the mayor or Batman.”
I almost laughed.
Then I said:
“Ethan Harrison.”
Liam stopped breathing.
The humor vanished so quickly it frightened me.
“What?”
“You heard me.”
“No.”
“Liam.”
“No. Absolutely not.”
I folded my arms.
“You’re behaving like I scheduled it.”
“You slept with Ethan Harrison?”
“Yes.”
“The Ethan Harrison?”
“How many billionaire Ethan Harrisons are there?”
He stood and walked toward the window.
“Jesus Christ.”
“Very supportive.”
He turned.
“Do you understand what that name means?”
“I know who he is.”
“No. I mean to you.”
I looked down.
Yes.
That was the part I had tried not to think about.
Harrison.
My father’s last major audit before he died had involved Harrison Urban Holdings.
Ethan’s family company.
I had spent years avoiding anything with that name.
Hotels.
Foundation scholarships.
Apartment developments.
Even a Harrison-funded nursing grant I desperately needed.
Then I had walked into a ballroom, looked directly at Ethan Harrison, and somehow allowed one night to make the past irrelevant.
Until now.
“Your father was investigating his family,” Liam said.
“His company.”
“Same thing when the family owns it.”
“Ethan was twenty-seven when my parents died.”
“He worked there.”
“Yes.”
“Do you know whether he knew Aaron?”
“No.”
“Does he know your real name?”
“No.”
Liam stared at me.
“So from Ethan Harrison’s perspective, a waitress named Emma appears at one of his events, sleeps with him once, disappears for six weeks, and then potentially tells him she’s pregnant.”
“When you say it like that, I sound like a lawsuit.”
“You sound like someone every private investigator in Manhattan is going to research.”
My stomach tightened.
That was the danger.
Not Ethan becoming angry about the pregnancy.
Not really.
The danger was curiosity.
One background check.
One discrepancy.
One security officer discovering Emma Collins had no childhood records before eighteen.
Then someone would look deeper.
Evelyn Reed would return.
And if the people who searched for me after my parents died were still alive, they would know exactly where to start looking.
“What do I do?” I whispered.
Liam sat again.
“First, confirm with a doctor.”
“I know.”
“Second, decide what you want regarding the pregnancy.”
I looked at him sharply.
He raised both hands.
“I’m not telling you what to do.”
“I’m keeping the baby.”
The answer came faster than I expected.
Liam studied me.
“Okay.”
I pressed a hand against my stomach.
There was no visible change.
Still, something had already changed completely.
“I’m scared.”
“I know.”
“I’m not scared of the baby.”
“I know.”
“I’m scared of what happens when Ethan finds out.”
Liam leaned forward.
“Then don’t tell him until you have a plan.”
That should have comforted me.
Instead, guilt settled beneath my ribs.
Ethan had a right to know eventually.
The baby had a right to more than fear deciding everything.
But I needed facts first.
That afternoon, I called a women’s clinic and scheduled an appointment for the following morning.
I used Emma Collins.
The legal name on my current identification.
No lie there.
Technically.
The appointment confirmed what the test already had.
Six weeks and four days.
The nurse practitioner printed information about prenatal vitamins, nutrition, appointments, warning signs, and insurance.
Then she handed me an ultrasound referral for later.
I walked outside into cold Manhattan sunlight holding a folder that seemed impossibly important.
My phone buzzed.
Unknown number.
I froze.
Then answered.
“Hello?”
A man’s voice.
“Emma?”
My pulse stopped.
Ethan.
I had not heard his voice in six weeks.
“Hi.”
“I hope this isn’t unwelcome.”
I looked around instinctively.
“Where did you get my number?”
“The catering company.”
My fear sharpened.
He immediately added:
“I asked them to pass my number to you first. They said you had already given permission to guests to contact temporary staff for gratuity issues. I used that process.”
Of course he would explain.
That somehow made it worse.
“Why are you calling?”
A pause.
“I’ve been trying not to.”
I leaned against the clinic wall.
“That’s an interesting opening.”
“I thought you wanted distance.”
“I did.”
“Do you still?”
I looked at the folder in my hand.
Pregnancy information.
Ethan’s child.
“I don’t know.”
He exhaled softly.
“Can I see you?”
My instinct screamed no.
Then another voice entered my head.
You cannot hide this forever.
“Why?”
“Because six weeks is a long time to keep wondering whether one night mattered to the other person.”
I closed my eyes.
It had mattered.
Too much.
“When?”
“Whenever you’re comfortable.”
I looked across the street.
A black sedan sat beside the curb.
For one insane second, I thought it belonged to him.
Then it drove away.
“Tomorrow,” I said.
“Dinner?”
“No.”
“Coffee?”
“Somewhere public.”
“Your choice.”
I gave him the name of a small café near Bryant Park.
Two p.m.
He agreed without argument.
Before hanging up, Ethan said:
“Emma?”
“Yes?”
“I’m glad you answered.”
I could not say the same.
Not because I did not want to see him.
Because I did.
That was more dangerous.
When I returned home, Liam was sitting on the sofa with a white envelope in his hand.
No stamp.
No return address.
My stomach tightened.
“What is that?”
“It was under the apartment door.”
I stopped.
“When?”
“Ten minutes ago.”
“Did you open it?”
“It has your name.”
Emma Collins was not written on the front.
Neither was Emma.
The envelope contained only two words.
EVELYN REED.
For a second, the room disappeared.
Liam stood.
“Emma?”
I turned the envelope over.
Nothing.
Inside was one photograph.
My parents.
Taken outside our old house three weeks before they died.
Someone had drawn a red circle around me.
On the back, one sentence had been printed.
THE HARRISONS SHOULD HAVE FINISHED THIS YEARS AGO.
I sat down because my legs no longer trusted me.
May you like
Tomorrow, I was supposed to tell Ethan Harrison I was carrying his child.
Tonight, someone had just proven my dead name was no longer buried.
