Chapter 1 - Twenty-Nine Weeks
Kate cried out as another contraction seized her.
“Don’t let him come near me!”
Luciano Aruri stopped in the doorway with a leather document case lying open behind him.
A cream-colored page had slipped halfway out.
In the lower corner, beside Kate’s printed name, someone had written one number.
Luciano suddenly understood that he had arrived at Hawthorne Ridge for the wrong reason.
For several seconds, nobody moved.
Luciano stood framed by the massive wooden doors, one hand still wrapped around the brass handle. His black coat hung open over his dark shirt. The tattoos along his forearm disappeared beneath his cuff, but the tension in that hand was unmistakable.
Seven months.
That was how long he had been gone.
Seven months since he had left for Europe after the ugliest argument of their marriage.
Seven months since Kate had looked him in the eye and told him she could no longer live inside a marriage built around unanswered phone calls, unexplained absences, and people who treated Luciano’s name like both a privilege and a warning.
Seven months since he had walked out believing she wanted freedom.
Now Kate lay in their bedroom with damp brown hair against the pillow, her full, exhausted face pale from pain. Her white nightgown disappeared beneath the blankets covering her plus-size body. One hand gripped the sheet. The other rested protectively across her abdomen.
Luciano stared.
He had prepared himself for anger.
He had prepared himself for tears.
He had even prepared himself for the possibility that Kate would sign the divorce papers without reading them.
He had not prepared himself for this.
The gray-haired midwife stepped between his line of sight and the bed.
“Mr. Aruri?”
His eyes remained on Kate.
“How far along?”
Kate closed her eyes.
The midwife hesitated.
“Approximately twenty-nine weeks.”
Something changed in Luciano’s face.
Not dramatically.
He did not stagger.
He did not raise his voice.
His jaw simply tightened.
Twenty-nine weeks.
He had left seven months ago.
His eyes dropped to Kate’s abdomen.
Then returned to her face.
Kate was already watching him.
She knew.
Of course she knew.
She had always been able to read him faster than anyone else.
Luciano took one step toward the bed.
“Kate.”
“Don’t.”
He stopped.
Another contraction tightened through her, and she drew a sharp breath. The midwife immediately turned toward her.
“Slowly,” the woman said. “Stay with me. Breathe.”
Luciano’s instinct was to move.
Kate saw it.
“No.”
His hands curled at his sides.
The room was full of people, yet suddenly it seemed to contain only the two of them.
“What happened?” he asked.
Kate laughed once, but there was no humor in it.
“You mean besides you showing up with divorce papers while I’m in labor?”
Luciano glanced behind him.
The leather case.
He had dropped it when he heard her scream.
A corner of the legal stationery protruded from the opening.
Kate had seen it.
Of course she had.
“Kate, I didn’t know.”
“That I was pregnant?”
He said nothing.
Her eyes hardened.
“Exactly.”
Luciano looked toward the midwife. “Is she safe?”
The woman studied him before answering.
“We’re doing everything we can to keep things stable until transport is appropriate. She needs calm.”
“Then why isn’t she in a hospital?”
Kate answered.
“Because the storm closed the lower road after the ambulance was called.”
Luciano looked toward the window.
He had barely noticed the worsening November weather during the drive. His attention had been fixed on the leather case beside him and the words he intended to say when Kate opened the door.
This is better for both of us.
A clean ending.
No more hurting each other.
Now those rehearsed words felt obscene.
“I can get a helicopter here.”
“No,” the midwife said immediately. “Not in this weather.”
Luciano pulled out his phone anyway.
Kate stared at him.
There it was.
The Luciano she remembered.
A problem appeared, and he immediately tried to command the world until it obeyed.
“Put it away,” she whispered.
His eyes lifted.
“I’m trying to help.”
“I didn’t ask you to.”
“You’re twenty-nine weeks pregnant.”
“Yes.”
“And I left twenty-nine—”
He stopped himself.
Kate’s expression changed.
“You can say it.”
The attendants in the room suddenly found reasons to look elsewhere.
Luciano lowered his voice.
“Is the baby mine?”
The question seemed to wound her more deeply than anything else he could have said.
Her eyes filled, but she refused to let the tears fall.
“What do you think?”
“I don’t know what to think.”
“That has always been your problem.”
“Kate.”
“You came here to divorce me.”
“I came here because you stopped answering.”
“For seven months?”
“You told me not to contact you.”
“I told you I needed time.”
“You changed your number.”
Kate stared at him.
“No, I didn’t.”
Luciano went still.
The midwife looked from one to the other.
Kate continued.
“I never changed my number.”
“I called it.”
“And?”
“It was disconnected.”
Kate’s breathing slowed for an entirely different reason.
“That number still works.”
Luciano’s gaze sharpened.
“No.”
“Yes.”
He pulled out his phone.
Kate watched him search.
He pressed her contact.
Everyone heard the automated response.
The number you have dialed is not in service.
Kate slowly reached toward the bedside table.
One of the attendants handed her phone to her.
Kate unlocked it.
“Call me.”
Luciano did.
Her phone remained silent.
No incoming call.
Nothing.
Kate stared at the screen.
Luciano ended the call.
Then Kate dialed his number.
His phone did not ring.
The silence inside the bedroom changed.
Luciano looked at his screen.
“No call.”
Kate swallowed.
“I sent you messages.”
“I never received them.”
“I sent dozens.”
“I sent you emails.”
“I never received those either.”
The midwife stepped closer to Kate.
“Not now. Whatever this is, it can wait.”
Kate nodded, but her eyes remained fixed on Luciano.
Luciano looked as though someone had quietly removed the floor beneath him.
Seven months.
Seven months of silence.
Except perhaps there had never been silence.
Only a wall neither of them knew existed.
Luciano looked back toward the leather case.
“What did you send me?”
Kate shook her head.
“It doesn’t matter.”
“It matters now.”
“You decided what my silence meant.”
“So did you.”
“Yes.”
Her voice cracked.
“I decided you were relieved.”
That hit him.
Luciano took another step toward her.
This time Kate did not immediately tell him to stop.
“I wasn’t relieved.”
“You stayed away.”
“You asked me to.”
“And you were always very good at leaving when things became difficult.”
His face tightened.
“That isn’t fair.”
“No?”
“No.”
Kate looked toward the leather case.
“You brought proof.”
The midwife checked her watch.
“We need to stop this conversation.”
Luciano nodded.
For once, he obeyed without argument.
He removed his coat and placed it over a chair.
“I’m staying downstairs.”
Kate’s head snapped toward him.
“No.”
“I won’t come back into this room unless you ask.”
“I want you gone.”
“I heard you.”
“Then leave.”
Luciano looked at her for a long moment.
“I can’t.”
Something vulnerable flickered across Kate’s face before she buried it.
“Why?”
He glanced at her abdomen.
He could have said because that might be my child.
He did not.
Instead he said, “Because you’re here.”
Kate turned away.
Luciano walked toward the doorway.
Before stepping out, he looked back.
The woman he had spent seven months trying to teach himself to stop loving was lying in the bed where they had once planned their future.
And she was carrying a child conceived just before that future had shattered.
Luciano descended the stairs slowly.
His leather case remained where he had dropped it.
He picked it up.
The cream-colored divorce documents were still inside.
He stared at them.
For months, attorneys had transformed his marriage into paragraphs.
Assets.
Property.
Confidentiality.
Division.
Termination.
Words designed to make heartbreak administrative.
He closed the case.
“Mr. Aruri?”
Luciano turned.
A young housekeeper stood near the entrance hall.
“What?”
“Someone came here earlier.”
His attention sharpened.
“Who?”
“I don’t know.”
“When?”
“Before Mrs. Aruri went into labor.”
“What did they want?”
The housekeeper looked nervous.
“They asked whether you had arrived yet.”
Luciano became very still.
“Did they give a name?”
“No.”
“Man or woman?”
“Man.”
“Did Kate speak to him?”
“I don’t think so.”
Luciano glanced toward the stairs.
“Describe him.”
The housekeeper began to answer.
Then a crash sounded from the study.
Luciano moved instantly.
He crossed the hall and pushed open the door.
Nobody was inside.
A window stood partly open.
Cold air moved the curtains.
On the floor lay several papers.
His papers.
Luciano looked down at the leather case in his hand.
He had closed it.
He opened it.
The divorce documents were there.
But something else had been placed beneath them.
A white envelope.
His name was written across the front.
LUCIANO.
He pulled it out.
The handwriting was Kate’s.
His pulse changed.
He opened the envelope.
Inside was a photograph from an ultrasound.
A date was printed across the top.
Behind it was a letter.
Luciano unfolded the first page.
The opening sentence stopped him cold.
Luciano, if you are reading this, then someone finally let one of my letters reach you.
He read it again.
Then again.
Footsteps sounded behind him.
Luciano turned.
The gray-haired midwife stood in the doorway.
She looked at the letter.
Then at him.
Her face lost its color.
“Where did you get that?”
Luciano’s eyes narrowed.
“You’ve seen it before.”
The midwife did not answer.
He stepped toward her.
“Tell me.”
She glanced toward the staircase.
Then she whispered:
“That letter was supposed to reach you twenty-eight weeks ago.”
Luciano looked down.
Something fell from between the pages.
A second photograph landed faceup on the floor.
It was not an ultrasound.
It was a photograph of Kate standing beside a man Luciano knew.
A man who had personally delivered the divorce papers to Luciano’s attorney.
Luciano stared at the face.
Then at the handwritten date beneath it.
The photograph had been taken yesterday.
May you like
Behind him, the study door slowly began to close.
Someone was on the other side.
