He was halfway through promising Audra Sinclair a wedding in St. Lucia when the pregnant waitress walked to their table and made his face lose all color.
Audra had just tapped the diamond on her finger and said, "If your guest list gets any bigger, Jaylen, we'll need a second island."
Jaylen Mercer smiled the way men smiled when money had spent years rewarding their self-control. At 35, he was handsome, impeccably dressed, and famous in Atlanta's wealthy Black circles. Audra matched him perfectly: elegant, born into old money, and certain she knew the man she was about to marry.
Then the entrée arrived.
Jaylen saw the tray first, then the woman's hand, then the unmistakable curve of her stomach beneath the black apron. When he saw her face, something inside him dropped clean through the floor. His fingers locked around his glass. His shoulders went rigid.
The waitress paused for only a breath, but in that breath, recognition flashed between them, hard and immediate.
He looked at her stomach, then her eyes. "Is that you?" The words slipped out before he could stop them.
The waitress set Audra's plate down with careful hands.
Audra frowned. "Do you know her?"
The woman gave a polite smile that did not reach her eyes. "I'm sorry, sir. I don't believe we've met. Please enjoy your meal."
Then she turned and walked away.
Audra lowered her fork. "Jaylen, why do you look like you just saw a ghost?"
"I thought she was someone else."
"Someone else with the exact same face?"
He reached for his water, then stopped when he saw his hand shaking.
Across the room, the waitress never came back. Another server brought bread. A busser refilled their glasses.
Audra noticed immediately. "She's avoiding this table."
"You're reading too much into it."
"No, I'm reading exactly enough."
Jaylen tried to cut into his steak, but all he could see was that pregnancy and the exact amount of time it seemed to represent. A few minutes later, the general manager passed by. Jaylen stood so fast his chair scraped the floor.
"Excuse me."
Audra stared after him. "Jaylen, don't you dare make me chase the truth through a restaurant."
He stopped the manager by the wine wall. "The server who just waited on us, the pregnant one..."
The manager hesitated. "Miss Cole? Is there a problem?"
Jaylen swallowed. "How long has she worked here?"
"Almost eight months."
The number hit him like a blow. "What's her first name?"
"Zariah."
Summer rain. A bookstore doorway. A yellow dress under string lights. A woman whose eyes had once made him forget every polished woman he'd ever been introduced to.
"You know her name," Audra said behind him. He turned. She had followed, and from the look on her face, she had heard enough. "You know her last name. You're asking how long she's worked here. Why?"
"This isn't the place."
"It became the place when you stopped being able to look at me. Did you sleep with that woman?"
He didn't answer fast enough.
Audra gave one stunned laugh. "Wow."
The manager disappeared. Jaylen dragged a hand over his face. "It was before you."
"That is not what I asked."
He looked toward the kitchen corridor. "I knew her."
"And why did she pretend not to know you? Women only do that when the truth is uglier than the lie."
He had nothing safe to say.
Outside the restaurant, the night smelled like rain and expensive exhaust. Audra stood beneath the awning with one hand on her purse and the other resting on her ring.
"Tell me the truth."
"We dated," he said.
"For how long?"
"A few months."
"Serious?"
He thought of late calls and private jokes. "Yes."
Audra's face tightened. "Then why did you react to her pregnancy like that?"
"I don't know."
She heard the lie. Before she could answer, the restaurant door opened and a hostess hurried toward them with a folded check presenter.
"Mr. Mercer, Miss Cole asked me to give you this."
Inside was no receipt, only a single line written in neat, controlled handwriting:
Please stop asking about me while I'm trying to work.
Audra held out her hand. He gave her the note. She read it and looked up.
"'While she's trying to work.' So, whatever happened between you two, she has more dignity than you do."
She got into the car without him. He stayed beneath the awning with the note in his hand and one date pounding through his head: Almost eight months.
He did not sleep. Instead, he opened a photo folder he had not touched since before the engagement. Buried under business dinners and charity events was one picture of Zariah laughing on the hood of an old food truck with a paper cup of lemonade in her hand.
He remembered the day he met her. His driver had been trapped behind a summer festival on Auburn Avenue. Rain broke across the street and Zariah rushed to save a stack of used books from a sidewalk display outside a bookstore.
"You buying those or rescuing them?" he had asked.