Chapter 3

Ethan's jaw tightened, but he recovered fast. He always did.

He reached into his jacket and pulled out a slim velvet box.

"Here. I didn't forget you." He opened it to reveal a pearl bracelet—elegant, expensive, forgettable. "The sapphire suits Sienna's style. These are more you. Soft. Classic."

He fastened it around my wrist before I could pull away.

"Babe, a man knows the difference between a wife and a fantasy," he said, almost tenderly. "You're the one I come home to. You're too delicate for the rest of it. Sienna can handle me. You can't."

Sienna's face twisted. "Seriously? Two nights ago you said you'd die without me. Don't bother knocking on my door tonight."

"Like I'd want to."

They bickered the way they always had.

And I finally understood what I'd been watching for years. All those dinners where they sniped at each other across the table. All those fights about who got more of my time. I'd thought they were enemies.

It was foreplay. And I'd been the audience.

I ripped the bracelet off so hard the clasp sliced my wrist. Pearls scattered across the hardwood like hail.

"Get. Out."

Sienna stumbled backward, eyes wide. In twenty years, she had never once heard me scream. Not when kids called me a freak in middle school. Not when London "rejected" me. Not when I lost my first baby.

That's why they'd been so sure. Quiet Claire would swallow it. Quiet Claire always did.

Sienna clutched her stomach, breath going shallow.

Ethan moved in a blur. He shoved me aside to get to her.

My hip slammed into the corner of the gift table. Pain shot through my belly—a sharp, terrifying cramp that bent me in half.

I gripped the table, gasping.

Ethan didn't even look. He was cradling Sienna's face. "Hey, hey. Breathe. You okay? Did she hurt you?"

Then, over his shoulder, to me: "What is wrong with you? She's pregnant!"

So was I.

The man who once drove forty minutes at midnight because I craved peach sorbet was gone. Maybe he'd never existed.

The front door burst open.

"Ethan!" my mother cried, gripping the frame, breathless. "The livestream—Sienna set up the camera for the relatives who couldn't come. Everyone's watching. Everyone."

My eyes flew to the tablet on the mantel. The red light was blinking.

Recording.

My mother crossed the room and slapped Sienna so hard her head snapped sideways.

"We raised you. I sat by your bed through every nightmare. And this is how you repay us? With her husband?"

Ethan pulled Sienna behind him, his face hard.

"Don't play saint, Diane. She was your charity project, and she's been paying off that debt her whole life."

"And while we're being honest—" his eyes cut to me, cold "—your perfect daughter wasn't so innocent either. She was practically begging me to get her pregnant before we were even engaged."

My face burned. Whispers rose from the doorway, where guests had crept back in to stare.

My mother's hand flew to her chest. I grabbed her arm, terrified—her surgery was in six days. Her heart couldn't take this.

Then the TV mounted above the fireplace flickered on.

A voice filled the room. My voice.

"Ethan can never find out this baby isn't his."

The room went dead silent.

I'd never said those words. Never. But it was my voice—perfect, unmistakable.

Sienna gasped and covered her mouth. Her eyes, though, flicked toward me with something that looked a lot like triumph.

Ethan's face went white, then red.

"You bitch," he breathed. "You had the nerve to judge me?"

"I never said that," I whispered. "Ethan, that's not real—"

"Then prove it. Get a paternity test. Until then, don't you dare call that thing mine."

That thing. My daughter.

My knees buckled. Another cramp tore through me, and I tasted salt on my lips.

That's when a deep, steady voice cut through the room from the doorway.

"She won't need a paternity test."

Every head turned.

A tall man in a charcoal overcoat stepped inside, rain still beaded on his shoulders.

"Because in about an hour," he said calmly, "she won't be your wife."

Ethan's face drained of all color.

"Mr. Cross?"