Chapter 1 - The Night He Walked Away
Sophia crashed to her knees beside the bed and screamed, “Daniel, help me!”
Her billionaire husband stopped at the doorway with a leather document folder in his hand.
A hospital bracelet was sticking from the folder.
Two words had been written across it:
“BABY B.”
Sophia realized Daniel had known.
The pain under her ribs tightened until she could barely breathe.
For several seconds, she stayed on the marble floor with one hand pressed against the side of her enormous belly and the other braced against the bed.
Thirty-four weeks.
Twins.
Her obstetrician had warned her that morning not to ignore severe abdominal pain, bleeding, dizziness, or contractions.
Sophia had promised she wouldn't.
What she hadn't expected was to face the emergency alone.
“Daniel.”
Her husband's expression didn't change.
Daniel Whitmore stood in the doorway wearing the dark green suit he'd worn to dinner. At forty-one, he had the kind of face business magazines loved—controlled, handsome, impossible to read.
Tonight it looked almost carved from stone.
Sophia stared at the hospital bracelet protruding from his folder.
“Why do you have that?”
Daniel glanced down.
For the first time, something flickered in his eyes.
Fear.
Not fear for her.
Fear of being caught.
Sophia's stomach turned.
Another contraction seized her.
She gripped the bedspread.
“Please.”
Daniel took one step forward.
Then stopped.
Sophia had spent seven years learning the meanings of her husband's silences.
The silence before he fired an executive.
The silence before he destroyed a competitor.
The silence before he told someone a decision had already been made.
This was that silence.
“No,” Sophia whispered.
Daniel's jaw tightened.
“I can't do this anymore.”
She stared at him.
“What?”
“This marriage.”
A strange laugh escaped her because the words made no sense.
She was on the floor.
She was carrying his children.
And Daniel was discussing their marriage.
“Call the doctor.”
“Sophia—”
“Call an ambulance.”
He didn't move.
Her disbelief became fear.
“Daniel.”
“I've arranged everything financially.”
She looked at him as though he'd begun speaking another language.
“You've arranged what?”
“The penthouse remains available to you temporarily. Your personal accounts won't be touched.”
Another contraction began.
Sophia folded forward.
“Stop talking about money!”
Daniel flinched.
She had almost never shouted at him.
“Something is wrong with your babies!”
The words landed.
His babies.
Daniel looked at her belly.
For half a second, Sophia saw the man who had once knelt beside her in a doctor's office and cried when two heartbeats appeared on an ultrasound screen.
Then he disappeared again.
“I can't be here.”
Sophia slowly reached toward him.
She hated herself for it.
“Don't leave me.”
Daniel looked at her trembling hand.
“I can't do this anymore.”
“Then hate me tomorrow.”
He said nothing.
“Divorce me tomorrow. Destroy every photograph. Tell every lawyer in Manhattan that you never want to see me again. But right now…”
Her voice cracked.
“…please don't leave me alone.”
Daniel turned away.
Sophia's hand fell.
Something inside her became strangely quiet.
“All right,” she whispered.
Daniel looked back.
Perhaps he'd expected another plea.
Instead Sophia nodded.
Calmly.
“Go.”
“Sophia—”
“Go.”
His fingers tightened around the document folder.
Then he walked out.
The bedroom door closed.
Sophia listened to his footsteps disappear.
She waited until she couldn't hear them anymore.
Then she cried.
Not because her husband was leaving her.
There wasn't time for that.
She cried because she was suddenly terrified her children might die.
Sophia reached for her phone.
It was on the nightstand.
Too far.
She pulled herself upward.
Pain exploded through her abdomen.
She fell.
Her shoulder struck the side of the mattress.
“No.”
She breathed quickly.
“Come on, Sophia.”
She crawled.
One movement.
Then another.
Her fingers were inches from the phone when the screen illuminated.
DANIEL.
Hope surged through her.
He was calling.
He had changed his mind.
Sophia dragged the phone down.
“Daniel?”
Silence.
Then a woman's voice.
“Sophia?”
Sophia froze.
She knew that voice.
Vanessa Cole.
Daniel's chief legal officer.
The woman who had spent more evenings with her husband during the last year than Sophia had.
“Where's Daniel?”
A pause.
Then Vanessa said, “He shouldn't have left the folder.”
Sophia looked toward the leather folder.
Daniel had dropped it beside the doorway.
“What folder?”
Vanessa inhaled.
“Sophia, listen carefully. Don't sign anything.”
“I don't know what you're talking about.”
“Daniel has been lied to.”
Another contraction hit.
Sophia gasped.
Vanessa heard it.
“What was that?”
“I think I'm in labor.”
“At thirty-four weeks?”
“Yes.”
“Where is Daniel?”
“He left.”
Vanessa went silent.
“He did what?”
Sophia couldn't answer.
Her vision blurred.
“Sophia, call emergency services.”
“I—”
The phone slipped.
It hit the carpet.
Sophia reached for it.
Then she heard the penthouse elevator.
Someone was coming up.
Daniel.
It had to be.
Relief almost made her sob.
The elevator doors opened.
Footsteps crossed the living room.
Fast.
Sophia tried to call out.
The bedroom door flew open.
But the man standing there wasn't her husband.
Adrian Cross stared at her from the doorway.
May you like
Daniel Whitmore's greatest rival had come to her bedroom.
And there was blood on Sophia's dress.
