Chapter 51 Fifty One
The apartment door closed behind them with a soft click, but the sound felt far louder in Antonia’s chest.
Home.
Usually, the word brought relief. Familiarity. Safety.
Tonight, it felt like a cage.
Austin quickly loosened his tie, glancing back at her almost immediately. “You okay?” he asked, though the answer was written all over her face.
Antonia didn’t respond.
She stood just inside the doorway, her handbag still clutched in her hand, her shoulders hunched as if she were bracing for impact. Her eyes looked distant, unfocused, like she was still standing outside that building, still seeing Kennedy’s face, still hearing his voice.
Austin frowned. “Antonia?”
She inhaled shakily, then kicked off her shoes and walked toward the living room. Her steps were slow, deliberate, like each one required effort.
Austin followed, unease settling deep in his gut.
They sat on opposite ends of the couch at first, the space between them unusually wide. Antonia placed her bag down carefully, then folded her hands together in her lap.
Her fingers were trembling.
Austin noticed immediately.
“Hey,” he said gently, shifting closer. “Talk to me. Please.”
She swallowed hard, staring straight ahead at the blank television screen. Her reflection stared back at her, pale, drawn, afraid.
“I didn’t want today to happen like this,” she began quietly.
Austin’s chest tightened. “Like what?”
She closed her eyes.
The silence stretched, heavy and thick, pressing in on both of them.
“When you asked me to come with you,” she said slowly, “I thought it would be uncomfortable. Awkward, maybe. But I didn’t expect… this.”
Austin waited.
“I didn’t expect my past to walk into that room,” she whispered.
He froze.
Her hands clenched tighter. “Austin… I need to tell you something. It's important you know the truth.”
His heart began to race. “Antonia—”
“Please,” she said, finally turning to face him. Her eyes were glossy, rimmed with unshed tears. “Just let me say it.”
He nodded slowly. “Okay.”
She took a deep breath.
“The CEO’s son,” she began. “Kennedy Walton.”
Austin nodded. “Yes.”
“I didn’t just know him,” she said softly. “I was with him.”
Austin’s brow furrowed. “With him how?”
She hesitated, then forced the words out. “I was his employee. Then we got engaged.”
The room seemed to tilt.
Austin stared at her, stunned. “Engaged?”
“Yes. A fake one, just like the one we have now.”
His mind scrambled to catch up. “Why… Why would you get in a fake engagement with your boss?”
“It was his plan,” she whispered. “To get his mother off his back about marriage.”
She looked down at her hands again. “In the process, I fell for him. Deeply. And his mother, Priscillia Walton, knew me. She welcomed me into their world. She thought I was going to be her daughter-in-law.”
Austin’s chest felt tight now. “This… this is a lot.”
“There’s more,” Antonia said, her voice breaking.
He went still.
She lifted her gaze to his face, searching for something, understanding, maybe mercy. “Austin… Kennedy is the father of my baby.”
The words hung in the air like shattered glass.
Austin didn’t speak.
Didn’t move.
Didn’t breathe.
Antonia watched his face carefully, bracing herself for the moment everything would collapse.
Austin finally blinked. Slowly. “ And he doesn’t know,” he said.
“No,” she shook her head. “He doesn’t. I never told him.”
“Why?” The question was quiet. Careful.
“Because by the time I found out, he had already shut me out,” she replied. “He's mind was made up. Our deal was over, and he didn't want anything else to do with me.”
Austin looked away, rubbing his palms together slowly.
“And his mother?” he asked.
“She doesn’t know either,” Antonia said. “Not the truth. She thinks I cheated. Or at least, that’s what Kennedy let her believe.”
The pieces clicked together in Austin’s mind with sickening clarity.
The tension in the room.
Priscillia’s stare.
Kennedy’s haunted look.
“Oh God,” he murmured. “That meeting…”
“I know,” she whispered. “I felt like I was suffocating.”
Austin leaned forward, elbows on his knees, his head dropping briefly into his hands.
“I’m so sorry,” he said quietly.
She looked at him. “For what?”
“For putting you through that,” he said, lifting his head to meet her eyes. “For not seeing how hard that was for you.”
Tears finally spilled over her lashes. “You didn’t know. You did nothing wrong,” she said quickly. “This is my mess. My past.”
A brief silence passed between them.
Then Austin asked the question he had been holding back since the moment Kennedy stepped out of that building.
“Do you still have feelings for him?”
Antonia’s breath hitched.
Her mouth opened.
Closed.
She looked away.
The answer was there, in the way her shoulders tensed, in the way her fingers curled into the couch cushion.
But she didn’t give it voice.
Instead, she swallowed and asked, “Why did Kennedy think you knew his late wife?”
Austin frowned slightly, startled by the sudden change in direction. “What?”
“He asked you about Ruth Walton,” she said. “And he said you looked like someone she knew. Someone important.”
Austin leaned back slowly. “Yeah. That was… strange.”
“You don’t know her?” Antonia pressed.
“No,” he said firmly. “I’ve never heard that name before today.”
She studied him. “You’re sure?”
“Absolutely,” he replied.
Antonia frowned. “Then why would Kennedy think that?”
Austin hesitated. “He said I looked like a man in a picture she had.”
Antonia’s mind raced.
A picture.
A resemblance.
Ruth Walton was dead.
And yet, somehow, her belongings held a photo of a man who looked like Austin.
“That doesn’t make sense,” Antonia murmured.
“Nothing about today did,” Austin replied quietly.
He turned toward her fully then. “Antonia… we need to talk about what this means for us.”
She stiffened. “I know.”
“I care about you,” he said. “And I won’t pretend that this is looking harder for you than I presumed.”
Her throat tightened. “I just have to survive that dinner, and that would be all, right?”
“I promise,” he said gently. “You won't have to meet up with the Waltons again after the dinner.”
She looked at him, and nodded. “Okay.’”
“But I am… concerned.”
“About me?”
“About you,” he nodded. “About that baby. About Kennedy Walton.”
Her stomach twisted.
“Because whether you like it or not,” Austin continued softly, “he’s not just your past. He’s your child’s father. And now he’s in our lives again.”
Antonia leaned back against the couch, exhausted.
“I was running,” she whispered. “And today… it felt like he finally caught up to me.”
Austin reached out, placing a tentative hand over hers. “We’ll figure this out.”
She wanted to believe him.
But deep down, she knew.
Kennedy Walton was a reckoning.