Chapter Three

She noticed the lack of a flower she's gotten used to throughout the year whenever she arrived home, but she doesn't want to mention it. She's just glad to be home with him. These times spent apart while she's away in Springfield aren't easy, even though the court session keeps her busy enough. But she's gotten used to his everyday presence and not having him around at breakfast, dinner or during the night is something she doesn't want to get used to anymore.

She's learnt to love living with someone, sharing a life with the man she loves and she's proud to call him her husband. His presence makes her miss her previous life a lot less, even though it crosses her mind from time to time what difference would it make if she hadn't left Lockhart/Gardner. She knows there is no way back now, her firm, their firm is not on the map of Chicago anymore and it's painful to know that partly she was the one who caused its ruin. But until she has him, she has no reason to be unhappy and as she tastes the salmon he prepared for her she cannot help being grateful having someone to go home to.

"The dinner is delicious," she smiles at him and she cannot help noticing some uneasiness on his face before his lips curl up as well.

"Glad you like it," he says taking another bite from his plate.

"So what has happened in Chicago while I was away? I didn't have too much time to follow the news."

"I lost count of the people being shot," he tries to joke it off.

"That's potential new business for you," she plays along, but then she notices something on his face again that starts to worry her, "Is everything all right with you?"

"Not exactly," he says after a short pause, "But we should finish dinner first, I don't want to spoil your appetite."

"Has something happened?"

"You could say that," he shrugs and continues to eat, while Diane's appetite is already spoiled.

"You make me worry."

"I'm sorry, I'll explain everything after dinner."

"All right," she accepts and finishes her meal without another word to be done with it fast, because she's eager to know what's going on with her husband.

o-o-o

"I bumped into Miranda today, you know my protégé."

Obviously Diane remembers the redhead, who she found in Kurt's house one night when she visited him after a canceled date. They had a word-fencing about the presidential elections and she even teased Kurt about the girl whose presence in his house was more than unexpected for her.

"Hasn't she moved to San Diego?"

"I thought she has, but apparently she's back in town and she has a son."

"Did she get married?"

She tries to figure out why he is telling her all this. She couldn't care less about Miranda's whereabouts or marital status. If she hadn't felt guilty of showing up on Kurt's doorstep after being stood up by someone else she would have been jealous of finding her there at such a late hour, even if she had no right for that.

"No, but her sister approached me in private and told me that I am the boy's father."

"What?" the statement more than shocks Diane and she looks at him with disbelief, "Please tell me it isn't true," she hears how her own voice deceive her as she tries to keep her act together, hoping to hear an instant denial.

"Well, I cannot be a hundred percent sure, but the boy is a year old, so it is possible."

She knows what this sentence means, she can do the math. It means that he was with Miranda not long before they got engaged and considering she'd met the girl a year before already she can figure out the length of this affair, the existence of which she's always tried to deny, but she never asked him flat out. And now it seems like he's had a longer relationship with Miranda than they had before they got married.

"So this Miranda wasn't only your protégé after all?"

"We had an affair," he admits now what he should have done long ago, not that she ever expected from him to tell her about everything in his past. But Miranda was the one person from his life Diane met, so it would have made sense for him to mention this important detail that they slept together.

"But you let me believe the opposite."

"I know, I didn't want you to be jealous of her. That relationship never had a future and it was over before you came back to my life again."

"Then how did this happen?" she still finds it hard to believe, it sounds pretty much like a nightmare her husband having a child with another woman, something she could never give him herself.

"I don't know, she said she was on pills."

"What are you going to do now?" she asks, because there's no use in blaming him for being careless, it was a shared responsibility after all.

"I wanted you to know before I take the next step. Miranda doesn't know that I know yet."

She appreciates that he's telling her all this, instead of keeping it a secret as other men probably would. He might not be perfect, but he's always taken responsibility for his actions.

"How come she didn't tell you about the pregnancy?"

"According to her sister by the time she's noticed she was pregnant we were engaged and she didn't want to come between us."

"She should have told you. It would have been better to know back then, you would have had the chance to choose them instead of me."

It pains her to say that, because the time they have spent together since they got engaged has probably been the happiest of her life. And this happiness just got ruined, it would have been easier to handle the news back then, even if it would have meant her losing him forever.

"I don't want to choose them, I just want to get to know my son."

"I certainly won't stand in your way."

She couldn't do that to him, forbid him to see him or make a scene wouldn't change the fact that he has a son, and that kid deserves his father, especially a father like him.

"I saw him today. I think he takes after me, you should see him."

The thought of her being involved in this more than necessary scares her at once. It's one thing to know he has a son and another to actually see him with her own eyes.

"I'm not ready for this, Kurt. I need to get used to the idea of you having a kid on the first place. Someone else in your life beside me."

"You know I love you, right? It won't change anything."

Of course she knows that he does, he's told her countless times and shown her in many different ways, but she knows that nothing will ever be the same again anymore.

"It will change everything."