He looked up at the ceiling, jaw tightening, a wave of hurt probably rolling through him. He was trying to fight the battle of his pain by himself, as I once had to do. “Go on,” he requested a moment later, not yet looking at me.

“My brother reached out to, um, a friend at the CIA. The guy could only get ahold of a profile shot of you, and he said it was too pixelated. I asked him to send it to me, but he wouldn’t. Something about already violating national security by helping me.”

“Juliette.” My name came out like a sigh as he lowered his chin.

A hundred if onlys climbed into my mind, unearthing the what-ifs I’d tried to bury long ago.

If only I gave you my name. If only the napkin hadn’t gotten wet. Never an if only we hadn’t met, though. Nor an if only I hadn’t gotten pregnant.

I needed him to understand the lengths I went to find him. I needed him to know—to believe—that I never wanted to keep his son from him.

“When that failed, I tried to get guest records for the hotels on the island. Flight manifests for that night. But hotels and airlines take privacy laws seriously.”

He said my name again, this time like it was the last breath left in his lungs. He leaned off to the side and set the bag on the nearby nightstand.

“What are you thinking?” My tongue pinned to the roof of my mouth as I waited for him to finish processing. “I’ve had seventeen years to accept what happened, so if you need time, I get it.”

He framed my cheeks with his hands, and I closed my eyes. He brought his mouth to my ear. “This is my fault.” I didn’t have time to absorb his words because he dropped another dose of heavy on me within seconds. “I could have had you found, and I didn’t.”

Had me found? How? I pulled back, removing his hands from my face to better look at him.