He said he wanted to scream for never having known she existed.
Audrey asked questions.
Callie explained it all in a voice Greg described as hollow. She had found out she was pregnant after they broke up. That she had been dating someone else — the rich man she eventually married — and told him the baby was his.
She had convinced herself it was the best choice. Greg didn’t need to know that, and her husband would be a better father, anyway.
And maybe he was, for a while, until Audrey got curious and ordered a DNA test from one of those ancestry sites.
She did it just for fun.
She did it just for fun.
Greg ran his fingers through his hair, looking both stunned and angry. “She found out the truth last month and demanded answers. Callie panicked. That’s when she sent the photo.”
I sat down slowly. “So she knew this whole time and just… never told you?”
“She said she thought she was protecting everyone. But Audrey wasn’t just a name on a piece of paper. She was real. She looked at me like… like she had been waiting her whole life.”
I sat down slowly.
“She wanted Audrey to meet me,” he said quietly. “But she also didn’t want her husband to find out. She was terrified and angry. Audrey was angry, too. But she wanted answers, and she wanted them from me.”
I felt everything inside me twisting. “Is she yours?”
“I took a DNA test. I mailed it off right after I left the café. She took one too. We’ll get the results in a few days, but… honestly, I don’t need a test. I saw it in her face.”
“Is she yours?”
I rubbed my temples, the weight of it all crashing down. “Do you still have feelings for Callie?”
He looked at me with a sharp kind of clarity. “No. Absolutely not. After what she did? Keeping something like this from me? She destroyed more than just my past. She wrecked Audrey’s life, too.”
He reached for my hand.
“I don’t know what’s going to happen next,” he said. “But if she is my daughter, I want to be in her life. She deserves that. I need to be there.”
He reached for my hand.
I stared at our Christmas tree, at the twinkling lights that suddenly felt like they belonged to a different life. My world had just shifted, but how could I look at that photo and turn my back on a girl who had only just learned her truth?
I nodded. It was the only answer I could give.
Over the next few weeks, the truth came barreling in like a freight train. The DNA results arrived, and there was no doubt left. Audrey was Greg’s daughter.
I nodded.
Greg’s voice broke. It was a mix of relief and heartbreak.
The man who brought up Audrey later went mad after finding out the truth. That same week, he filed for divorce. The revelation wasn’t just a crack in their marriage — it was a shattering.
But then, Callie did something none of us expected. Greg received a letter from her lawyer, asking for child support arrears!
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