Chapter 288 Reveal

Chapter 288 Reveal
Sage's POV

Diego looked at me across the kitchen table.

"Before I tell you," he said, "I need to say something first."

"Say it."

"I know you are still furious," he said. "I know the fury is real and justified and not something you should talk yourself out of on anyone else's timeline. What he did hurt you. It hurt you in a place that was already damaged and it hurt you at the most vulnerable moment you have had in a long time." He held my gaze. "I am not here to tell you to forgive him or to tell you what to feel or what to decide. I am here because you are my friend and because I know things about this situation that you deserve to know."

"Okay."

"And I am here," Diego said, "because I think you already know what you are going to do and you are waiting for the right information to confirm it."

I looked at him.

"I am not going to argue with you about that," I said.

"I know. That is how I know I'm right." He put his coffee cup down. "He went to Reeves."

"Reeves," I repeated. "The club's lawyer."

"Yes. He had a document drafted. Yesterday. Signed and notarized before end of business."

I sat still and waited.

"A paternity commitment letter," Diego said. "His words for it, not a legal term. A document stating formally that he acknowledges this child as his. That he waives any future right to question the paternity. That he commits to this child completely and unconditionally regardless of any biological confirmation, any timeline, or any circumstance."

I looked at the table.

"He signed a legal document," I said. "Saying this baby is his."

"Before a DNA test," Diego said. "Before any biological confirmation. He had it witnessed and notarized and gave a copy to Reeves. He asked me to give one to you." Diego reached into his jacket and placed a folded document on the table in front of me.

I looked at it.

I did not pick it up yet.

"He also made a statement," Diego said. "Verbally. To me. He asked me to be the witness specifically because I was the person he had put in question at that kitchen table. He said I was the one who should hear it directly."

"What did he say?" I asked.

"He said he knew what happened in Arizona," Diego said. "That he knew before Sunday morning. That everything he knew about you and me and the history between you told him the truth and he let a simple thought override all of it." He paused. "He said the question came from fear. From a part of him that spent fifteen years preparing for things to go wrong. He said he found a reason to be afraid on the best morning of his life and he used it."

I looked at the document on the table.

"He said he is not asking you to forgive him," Diego continued. "Not yet. He said you told him to leave and he is respecting that. He said this is not a move to win you back. It is him dealing with the actual problem." Diego looked at me. "His words."

I picked up the document.

I unfolded it.

Reeves's letterhead at the top. The formal language of a legal commitment, precise and documented. At the bottom, Ryder's signature. His actual signature, the one I knew from club paperwork and leases and from the note he had left on the kitchen counter the morning he had to leave before I woke up. The one that was his and nobody else's.

His signature on a legal document saying this child was his.

Before any biological certainty. Before I had given him a single word of reassurance beyond I was never unfaithful to you.

Because he believed me.

Because underneath whatever his brain had done at that breakfast table, he had always believed me.

I folded the document and put it down and pressed both hands flat on the table.

"He's an idiot," I said.

"Yes," Diego said.

"A complete idiot."

"Also yes."

"This does not fix what he did," I said.

"No," Diego said. "It doesn't. It doesn't undo the question or the expression on his face or his doubts about my loyalty. Nothing fixes that. That happened." He looked at me steadily. "But this tells you something about who he is underneath what happened. About what he did when he understood how wrong he was."

"He did not have to do this," I said.

"No. He did not."

"He could have just apologized and waited. Most men would have."

"Yes," Diego said. "He is not most men. You know that. That is part of why you are sitting here with that ring still on your left hand."

I looked at my hand.

The sapphire. Three days on my finger through everything.

"I am still furious at him," I said.

"I know," Diego said.

"Both of those things are true at the same time," I said. "The fury and this."

"Yes," Diego said. "They are."

"I know," I said. "I have known that since Sunday. It is not the complicated part."

"What is the complicated part?" Diego asked.

"Deciding what to do about it," I said. "Not because I do not know what I want. Because I need to know that what I want is the right thing and not just the easy thing."

I sat in the quiet of the kitchen with the document in front of me.

"What do I do with this?" I said. To the room, not to Diego.

He said nothing. He knew the question was not for him.

I looked at the document one more time.

Ryder Kane had gone to a lawyer the day after I threw him out and signed a piece of paper before he had any proof of it. That was who he was when he was not being an idiot at a breakfast table.

I needed to think about both of those things a little longer before I decided anything. But I already knew the direction I was leaning with them in.