Chapter 3 - Six Months Earlier
Grant Kingsley raised his champagne glass and said, "My wife will never give this family a child."
The crystal slipped from my fingers.
It shattered across the ballroom floor.
Two hundred people heard him.
At least twelve journalists heard him.
And by midnight, all of Manhattan had.
Six months earlier, I had walked into the Kingsley Foundation winter gala believing my marriage was wounded.
I left knowing it was dead.
Grant stood beneath the chandeliers in a tuxedo, immaculate as always.
His father stood beside him.
Charles Kingsley didn't smile.
He rarely did.
"Elena," Grant said after the room emptied around us.
I looked at the broken glass.
"Why?"
"We were going to announce the separation anyway."
"So you decided to announce my infertility too?"
"I didn't use that word."
"You didn't need to."
He reached for me.
I stepped back.
"Don't."
"Elena."
"How long?"
"How long what?"
"How long have you wanted out?"
His silence answered.
I removed my wedding ring.
For one terrible second, I expected him to stop me.
He didn't.
I placed it in his palm.
"Congratulations."
His fingers closed around it.
"On what?"
"Getting what you wanted."
I walked away.
The next morning, photographs of me leaving the gala covered the internet.
Grant's representatives released a statement about "irreconcilable differences following a painful private struggle to build a family."
Private.
That word almost impressed me.
Three days later, divorce papers arrived.
One week later, I vomited in a coffee shop.
I blamed stress.
Two weeks after that, I fainted.
And then a doctor turned a monitor toward me.
"There."
A tiny flicker.
My baby's heartbeat.
I cried so hard the technician had to stop.
The first person I called was my mother.
The second was Mara Bennett.
The third person found me before I could decide whether to call him.
Roman Vale was waiting outside the clinic.
"Are you following me?"
"No."
"Then why are you here?"
"Your mother's worried."
"My mother called you?"
"Yes."
I wiped my face.
"Why?"
"Because she knows I'll come."
That irritated me.
Mostly because it was true.
Roman drove me home.
Halfway there, he said, "Are you pregnant?"
I stared through the windshield.
"Yes."
"Does Kingsley know?"
"No."
"Are you telling him?"
I placed both hands over my abdomen.
"No."
Roman nodded once.
He never questioned me.
That frightened me almost as much as Grant would have.
Within forty-eight hours, Roman had arranged a new doctor.
A private apartment.
Security.
A driver.
I refused most of it.
He ignored me.
"Why are you doing this?"
"Because Grant's family will care."
"He said I couldn't have children."
"Grant says many things."
"What do you know?"
Roman looked at me.
"Not enough."
That became our strange arrangement.
I carried Grant Kingsley's child while Manhattan believed I was barren.
Roman Vale quietly kept the secret.
And Grant prepared to marry Claire Beaumont.
But there was one thing Roman didn't know.
At twelve weeks, I received a letter.
No return address.
Inside was a photocopy of a laboratory report.
Grant's name.
A diagnosis.
Severe male-factor infertility.
And beneath it, a handwritten warning.
YOUR BABY CHANGES EVERYTHING.
I hid the letter.
Even from Roman.
Especially from Roman.
Because the final line frightened me most.
ASK ROMAN WHAT HAPPENED TO YOUR FATHER.
Back in the hospital six months later, the elevator opened.
Roman stepped in front of my bed.
The door remained locked.
A shadow crossed beneath it.
Then Grant's voice came from the hallway.
"Elena."
Roman didn't move.
Grant knocked once.
"I know you're in there."
My daughter slept against my chest.
"Go away."
"I need five minutes."
"You've had six years."
"Elena."
Roman looked at me.
I shook my head.
Then Grant said something neither of us expected.
"I know what Roman did to your father."
Roman's face went blank.
May you like
My blood turned cold.
And the lock clicked from the outside.
