Calm.
The kind that comes after you’ve already survived the worst thing someone could do to you.
Julian had abandoned me when I was pregnant.
He had called me manipulative.
He had told his family I invented the pregnancy to trap him.
Then he had disappeared before he could ever be proven wrong.
For years, I had carried the truth alone.
Now I was driving straight toward his Christmas table with four living pieces of evidence strapped into the back seat.
The Merrick family home sat behind iron gates and rows of perfectly trimmed desert trees.
Nothing had changed.
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