Mine For One Night...Yours Forever

Chapter 8 - A Secret On Shaky Ground

Tessa

When my phone buzzed at nearly midnight, I thought it was an emergency. Calla never called this late—she texted, at most.

Her voice came through tight, trembling. “Can you come over?”

I didn’t ask questions. I grabbed my keys, threw on a jacket, and drove.

By the time I let myself into her apartment, I found her pacing in the living room, clutching a crumpled piece of paper like it was a grenade.

“Calla.” I closed the door. “What happened?”

She turned to me, eyes wild, hair loose from its clip. “It’s over, Tess. He knows. Or he will.”

I walked forward carefully. “Okay, slow down. Who knows what?”

She thrust the paper into my hand. “This. Lucas drew this. He showed it to Eli.”

I smoothed the drawing open.

A crude but sweet spaceship. Stars. A boy and a man, hand in hand. One smaller. One taller. Both with the same mop of curls.

“Lucas,” I whispered.

“Lucas,” Calla echoed, sinking into the couch. “He told Eli he put him in the picture because he belonged there. Because I hadn’t put him there. Tess, he basically told him he’s his father without saying it.”

I sat down beside her. “But he’s four. To Eli, it might just look like—”

“No.” Her voice cracked. “You didn’t see the way he looked at me when we ran into each other earlier. Like he was trying to put the pieces together. Like he already suspected.”

I exhaled slowly, choosing my words. “Calla, secrets don’t stay secrets forever. And this one—” I touched the drawing gently. “—it’s been living on borrowed time since the moment you decided to keep it.”

Her hands covered her face. “I’m not ready. He’ll take him from me. Or hate me. Or both.”

“Hey.” I pulled her hands away. “Look at me. You’re not alone in this. Whatever happens, I’ll be right here. And Eli—if he really is the man you once cared about—he deserves the truth, Calla. He deserves to know his son.”

Her eyes filled. “But what if Lucas loses me in the process?”

I hugged her tight, the drawing crushed between us.

“That won’t happen,” I whispered. “But hiding forever? That will destroy you before he even gets the chance.”

Eli

I couldn’t get that drawing out of my head.

It sat there behind my eyes like a brand—Lucas’s messy crayon lines, two figures standing side by side under a crooked sun. One small. One tall. Both with the same damn curls.

And then his voice, sweet and unassuming:

“I put you there because you belong, Mr. Eli.”

Belong.

The word dug into me like a thorn.

I poured myself a drink, but it didn’t take the edge off. No amount of bourbon could dull the nagging suspicion that had been quietly gnawing at me since I met the boy. His laugh. His eyes. His stubborn streak.

I had brushed it off at first—chalked it up to coincidence, to familiarity. Kids resembled strangers all the time, didn’t they?

But now?

Now I couldn’t ignore it.

I thought back to three years ago. That night with Calla. A single night, reckless and unforgettable. The timing lined up too perfectly.

And she’d vanished afterward. No calls. No explanation. Just… gone.

My chest tightened.

Could she really have hidden something like this from me?

Could she have hidden him from me?

I leaned forward, elbows digging into my knees, glass forgotten in my hand.

It was impossible that Lucas wasn’t mine. The way he looked at me—like he knew, somehow, deep down. Like he’d been waiting.

But why hadn’t Calla said anything? Out of shame? Fear? Distrust?

I swallowed hard. Anger simmered beneath my ribs, but beneath that was something else. Something rawer.

If Lucas was mine—if I’d lost three years of his life—I wasn’t sure who I was angrier at. Calla… or myself for not realizing sooner.

One thing was clear: I needed answers. And this time, I wasn’t letting her run.

Calla

The house was finally quiet.

Lucas had fallen asleep clutching his stuffed dinosaur, his drawing left on the nightstand. I slipped it into my drawer before turning back to my journal—the one place I let the truth breathe.

He knows. Or he senses something. Kids always do.

My pen hovered before scratching across the page.

And Eli… Eli looked at him today like he had already guessed. God, what have I done?

The words blurred as tears welled up, hot and sharp. I pressed the pen harder, digging grooves into the paper.

I told myself it was to protect Lucas. To protect myself. To protect us both from a man who wasn’t ready to be a father. But what if I stole something from him, too? What if I stole years he’ll never get back?

I dropped the pen, pressing trembling fingers to my temples. The guilt never left me—it just shifted, reared its head when Lucas laughed like Eli, or tilted his chin with the same stubborn angle.

But hearing Lucas casually say Eli “belonged”? That broke something inside me.

Because maybe he does.

I closed the journal, tucked it under the drawer, and whispered into the darkness:

“I don’t know how much longer I can keep this secret.”

Workplace Scene – The Next Day

The conference room was supposed to be neutral ground.

Bright glass walls. Polished table. Numbers and designs are projected neatly onto the screen. But the air between Eli and me was anything but neat.

“Calla,” he said, his tone clipped, controlled, but simmering with something I couldn’t mistake. “These projections don’t line up with the original proposal. Care to explain?”

I straightened in my chair, clutching the folder a little too tightly. “They line up exactly. You’re just not looking at—”

“Don’t tell me I’m not looking at something.” His eyes locked on mine, sharp, unyielding. The air crackled between us. “I see plenty.”

Heat climbed up my neck. He wasn’t just talking about the numbers, and we both knew it.

I tried to keep my voice steady. “If this is about work, then let’s keep it about work.”

But Eli leaned forward, hands braced against the table, voice low enough that only I could hear:

“Work is the only thing keeping me from demanding answers right now.”

My throat went dry. Around us, the team shuffled papers, exchanging nervous glances. The tension was obvious, but no one dared step in.

I forced my eyes back to the screen, even as my heart pounded so loud I could barely hear myself think.

Because I knew—sooner or later—this fragile wall between us was going to shatter.

The meeting ended in a blur of polite handshakes and rustling papers. I kept my gaze fixed on the screen until the last person left, praying Eli would follow them out.

But the door clicked shut.

And when I turned, he was still there—leaning against the table, arms crossed, jaw tight. Waiting.

“Eli…” My voice cracked. “I have another appointment, I—”

“Sit down.” His voice was calm, too calm, the kind that pinned me harder than if he’d shouted.

I froze, clutching my folder like a shield. “There’s nothing to—”

“Stop lying to me, Calla.” His voice sliced through the silence. He pushed away from the table, closing the space between us in three strides. “I’m done dancing around this. That little boy—”

My heart lurched. “Don’t,” I whispered.

“—he’s mine, isn’t he?”

The room seemed to tilt. My lungs seized, and for a moment, I thought I could pretend I didn’t hear him, that I could keep deflecting like I had for three years. But his eyes—God, his eyes—were fierce, burning, desperate.

I forced a laugh, brittle and weak. “You’re imagining things. Lucas is—”

“Don’t you dare.” His hand slammed onto the table beside me, making me flinch. “Don’t stand there and insult both of us. Do you think I’m blind? He has my eyes, my smile—hell, even the same stubborn streak. You think I can’t feel it when I look at him?”

Tears blurred my vision. I backed away, pressing myself against the glass wall, wishing I could melt right through it. “It’s not that simple.”

“It is that simple!” His voice cracked, and for the first time, I saw the raw hurt bleeding through his anger. “You had my son, Calla. And you kept him from me.”

The word—son—hit me like a blow.

My chest heaved, my hands trembling at my sides. “I was scared, Eli. You don’t know what it was like—finding out, alone, after one night, with you halfway across the world chasing your empire. I couldn’t risk you rejecting him. Rejecting us.”

His expression faltered, but only for a moment. Then his jaw clenched. “So you made that choice for me? You decided I didn’t get to know I was a father?”

My tears spilled, hot and unstoppable. “I decided to protect Lucas from being unwanted.”

The silence that followed was deafening. His chest rose and fell, his eyes burning into me, searching for something I couldn’t give.

Finally, his voice came out rough, low:

“You had no right, Calla.”

And with that, he turned and walked out, the door closing hard behind him—leaving me shaking, shattered, my secret no longer safe.