The Officer's Runaway Wife & Secret Son novel Chapter 603

In the blink of an eye, Annie was already three months old.

Clara's postpartum recovery was going exceptionally well, and she had bounced back to her glowing self.

Over at Star-Walker Media, Alex and Simon were handling all the business operations flawlessly, giving Clara plenty of time to stay at Riverside Court and savor this hard-earned, peaceful chapter of her life.

But as time went on, Rhys started lying to her.

According to what Chief Sean had said earlier, Rhys was currently on a two-year paid medical leave.

The devoted father, who had been home around the clock and refused to leave his daughter's side, suddenly started making up terrible excuses to leave the house every afternoon for the past couple of weeks.

He needed to take a walk for some fresh air, the groceries at the store were fresher than delivery, his protégé got promoted and invited him to dinner so it would be rude not to go.

He cycled through every flimsy excuse in the book.

Clara hadn't thought much of it at first. Rhys had been cooped up in the house for so long; it was only natural he'd want to get out.

But she quickly noticed that things weren't adding up.

He said he was going to the supermarket, but came back empty-handed. He claimed he was going to his protégé's dinner, but he didn't smell like food at all. He said he was just taking a walk downstairs, but would be gone for an entire afternoon.

Not even retired grandpas took walks that long.

And it wasn't just Rhys—the people around him were acting strange, too.

Twice she clearly spotted documents from Daniel and long voice memos from Simon on Rhys's phone screen.

But the second she got close, Rhys would lock his screen and bring Annie over to distract her, changing the subject with painfully obvious awkwardness.

Clara's immediate assumption was that something was wrong with Rhys's health.

He had made it through the critical observation window for organ rejection, but the risk of his body rejecting the new lungs was a lifelong battle. It could be managed, but never truly eliminated.

He had to take so much medication every day. What if one of his blood markers was off? What if Dr. Black had privately told him he needed a secondary intervention?

Panic gripped Clara's chest, and that old, familiar terror of waiting outside the ICU crept back in, making her heart ache.

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