The voices were still raised when Sam and Preston returned, and when the two men heard the voices through the door, they looked apprehensively at each other and at Jules.

“Little talk’s not going well, huh?” Sam asked Jules.

She shook her head again.

“Not much of a conversationalist, are you?”

“That’s enough,” Preston said to Jules’s relief, and he rapped sharply on the door.

Then, without waiting for an invitation, he opened it just in time for Robert to yell, “It doesn’t make any difference! I didn’t ask for this.”

“Neither did I!” Vivian cried.

Jules had never heard Vivian raise her voice until today. She felt frozen to the chair.

“For God’s sake,” Vivian continued, “you don’t honestly think I wanted—”

“All right.” Sam stepped into the room and out of Jules’s sight. “What’s going on here?”

“Is it even mine?” Robert demanded.

“What?” Vivian said.

Preston’s eyes widened, and he entered the room behind Sam. Jules rose, unsure if she should follow them or not.

“Robert,” Jules heard Sam say urgently, “if this is what I think it is, then you and I need to consult priv—”

“No. It doesn’t matter. It’s over, okay? I don’t care if you’ve got quintuplets in there, we’re through. We’re done. Okay?”

“Robert,” Vivian said, and Jules could hear how hard she was straining for control. “I just wanted to tell you. We can’t decide anything right now. We just need to take some time to think, now that—”

“There’s someone else,” Robert said.

“Robert, please,” Sam interjected.

“No,” Vivian said, her voice trembling, “There isn’t. What do you want, a paternity test? I’ll—”

“I meant for me,” Robert said. “I have someone else.”

Jules stopped breathing. The room went deadly silent.

Then Sam groaned “Robert” right before Preston shut the door, leaving Jules alone in the corridor.

She collapsed back into the chair, her heart racing.

Nobody shouted after that. Sam must have calmed Robert down, and Vivian was likely in shock. Oh Jesus. Robert had been cheating on her. There was a lot about Vivian Jules didn’t understand, but she knew Vivian didn’t forgive easily. Or at all.

Jules’s head spun. It explained the apartment Robert had rented. He’d just spoken to his wife as though he hated her, so he hadn’t just been looking for a Vivian substitute. That was what their relationship had become.

Jules shuddered. Nope. She was never getting married, she was never having kids. She was going to move to Tibet and become a nun and dedicate the rest of her life to serving the poor or something.

The door flung open. Vivian bolted through it, wearing her coat and clutching her bag. Her face was bone white, and she didn’t seem to see Jules as she dashed down the hall.