The Fake Heart Made of Gold (The love that lied)

Chapter 5

Jason found the blonde woman sitting in the same corner booth she had been watching him from the night before. She was nursing a glass of white wine, her short hair tucked behind one ear, and she didn't look the least bit surprised to see him walking toward her.

"You're the owner of this place?" Jason stood at the edge of her table without sitting down.

"I am." Her voice was calm, almost amused. "And you're the man who tried to drink my entire bourbon supply two nights ago."

"I need to pay you back for the hotel. The room, the deposit, all of it." Jason pulled out his wallet. "How much was it?"

"Don't worry about it." She waved one hand lazily without looking up from her glass.

"I'm not comfortable owing a stranger money. Just tell me the amount."

"You weren't in any shape to take care of yourself. I did what anyone would have done." Her eyes lifted to meet his, and there was something unreadable behind them. "Consider it a public service."

Jason's jaw tightened. He put both hands on the back of the chair across from her and leaned forward.

"Then at least tell me what happened that night. How did I get from your car to that hotel room? Because I don't remember a single thing after leaving this bar."

"You were very drunk." She swirled her wine slowly. "I drove you to a hotel, checked you in, and made sure you got to the room safely. That's it."

"The front desk said the room was booked under my name and paid in cash."

"I used the ID in your wallet. You weren't exactly in a position to do it yourself."

"And then what?"

"And then I left." She took a sip. "What else would I have done?"

Jason studied her face for a long time. Nothing about her expression gave anything away. She was either telling the truth or she was the best liar he had ever met.

"My wife showed up at that hotel room." His voice dropped lower. "She says I texted her and invited her over. She says we spent the night together."

"Sounds like a wild evening." The blonde woman's lips curved slightly, but her eyes stayed perfectly still.

"I was so drunk I couldn't stand up. I couldn't even open my eyes. There's no way I sent that text."

"Then maybe someone else sent it for you."

The words hung in the air between them like smoke.

Before Jason could respond, she stood up, smoothed her skirt, and picked up her glass.

"I have a bar to run, Dr. Hart. I'm glad you're feeling better."

She walked away without looking back.

Jason stood there watching her disappear behind the staff door, his mind spinning with more questions than he came in with.

She knows my name. I never told her my name.

He left the bar and checked into a small hotel six blocks from the house he used to call home. The room was nothing special. A bed, a desk, a window that looked out onto a parking lot. He sat on the edge of the mattress and stared at his hands.

Nina is not my daughter.

Every time the thought came back, it hit just as hard as the first time. Fifteen years of birthday parties, school plays, bedtime stories, and late night trips to the emergency room when she had a fever. Fifteen years of thinking this little girl had his blood running through her veins.

All of it was a lie.

And what had he given up for that lie?

Jason closed his eyes and let the memories he usually kept locked away come flooding back.

Eighteen years ago, he had been one of the most promising young surgeons at Eastport General. His department head had recommended him for a fellowship at Johns Hopkins that would have put him on the fast track to becoming one of the top cardiac surgeons in the country. The kind of opportunity that came once in a lifetime.

He turned it down because Lauren was three months pregnant and said she needed him at home.

Two years later, he was offered a research position at the Mayo Clinic. He turned that down too because Lauren was in the middle of pilot season and couldn't handle Nina alone.

Every single time his career tried to take off, he had clipped his own wings to keep Lauren's world running smoothly. And she had let him do it without a second thought.

I could have been somebody. Instead I spent eighteen years being Lauren Chase's invisible husband and another man's unpaid babysitter.

That thought was the one that finally broke something inside him.

Three days passed.

Jason didn't call Lauren. Lauren didn't call him. The silence between them was louder than any argument they had ever had.

On the fourth morning, someone knocked on his hotel door.

He opened it and found Lauren standing in the hallway wearing oversized sunglasses and a baseball cap pulled low over her face. The disguise of a celebrity who didn't want to be recognized.

"This is pathetic, Jason." She pushed past him into the room and looked around with visible disgust. "You're living in this dump to prove a point?"

"I'm not proving anything. I'm just not coming home."

"You've had your little tantrum. It's been four days. That's enough." She pulled off her sunglasses and fixed him with a look that had made directors and producers back down for the last eight years. "Come home. Now."

Jason walked over to the desk, picked up a manila envelope, and held it out to her.

"What is that?"

"Divorce papers."

Lauren stared at the envelope like it was a dead animal he had just dropped in her lap.

"You're not serious."

"I've never been more serious about anything in my life." Jason's voice was quiet but there was nothing soft about it. "You cheated on me. Nina is not my child. This marriage is over."

"For the last time, I did not cheat on you!" Lauren's voice shot up an octave, her composure cracking like thin ice. "One lab report that could be completely wrong, and you're ready to throw away sixteen years? What kind of man does that?"

"The kind of man who got played for sixteen years and finally woke up."

"You're delusional." Lauren threw the envelope onto the bed without opening it. "I am not signing those papers. Not today, not tomorrow, not ever."

"You don't have to sign them." Jason picked the envelope back up and tucked it under his arm. "I'm filing them whether you cooperate or not."

"You think you can divorce me?" Lauren stepped closer until they were barely a foot apart, her perfume filling the small room, her eyes burning with a fury that would have made him back down a week ago. "Do you have any idea what I can do to you in court? My lawyers will eat you alive. You'll walk out of that marriage with nothing."

"I walked into it with nothing." Jason didn't step back. "So that's fine by me."

"Jason Hart, you ungrateful, stubborn, foolish man." Each word came out sharper than the last, her lips trembling with anger. "I made you. Everything you have, every comfort you've enjoyed for the last decade, came from me. And this is how you repay me?"

"You made me?" Jason repeated the words slowly, tasting the bitterness of every syllable. "Who paid the rent for ten years while you couldn't book a commercial? Who worked double shifts so you could keep auditioning? Who held your hand through every rejection and told you not to give up?"

Lauren's mouth opened but nothing came out.

"I made you, Lauren. And you repaid me by having another man's baby and letting me raise her like a fool."

Lauren grabbed her sunglasses off the desk, shoved them onto her face, and stormed out of the room. The door slammed so hard the mirror on the wall rattled.

That afternoon, Jason walked into the county courthouse and formally filed for divorce.

He sat alone on a wooden bench outside the clerk's office, the filed papers in his hands, waiting for the next step in the process.

Lauren did not show up.

The courtroom doors opened, and a man in a tailored charcoal suit walked in carrying a leather briefcase. He was tall, polished, and moved with the kind of quiet confidence that only came from winning arguments for a living.

He stopped in front of Jason and looked down at him.