Chapter 4

Graham released Sloan on instinct and took a step toward me.

"Gen, what are you doing here?"

His first words were not an explanation.

They were not an apology.

He wanted to know why I was there.

As if I were the one who had done something wrong by refusing to stay where he had left me and let him keep lying.

Sloan hurried toward me. Her face was pale, tears already shining in her eyes.

"Gen, please let me explain. It isn't what it looks like."

"Then what is it?"

My calm made her falter.

"Did Graham not kiss you? Or was that someone else in bed with you in the photograph?"

The air seemed to freeze.

Graham's pupils contracted. "You saw that picture?"

I looked at him.

Even now, he had not denied it.

"How long?" I asked.

Sloan lowered her head.

Graham's lips parted, but no sound came out.

Their silence was crueler than any answer.

"You were planning my anniversary while you slept together." A quiet laugh escaped me, even as tears spilled without warning. "You got out of her bed and went shopping for a ring to put on my hand. Graham, what did you think our marriage was?"

"I never wanted to hurt you." His voice was hoarse. "I know this is a mess, but what I feel for you is real."

"Real?"

I pictured his hand around Sloan's waist.

I pictured him kneeling in front of her to fix her bandage.

"Then what do you feel for her?"

Graham fell silent again.

Sloan seized my wrist, crying. "Gen, I'm sorry. I never wanted to hurt you. At first, it was one mistake. Then neither of us knew how to stop. I've regretted it every day-"

"Let go."

"Please. At least hear me out."

Instead of releasing me, she gripped harder, her nails nearly breaking my skin.

A familiar wave of nausea surged through me.

I wrenched my arm free. "I said let go of me!"

Sloan cried out and stumbled back into the metal bench behind her.

The cut on her wrist split open again, and blood quickly soaked through the white gauze.

"Sloan!"

Graham rushed to her side and helped her up with great care.

Once he was sure she had not fallen, he turned on me, his face tight with anger.

"Genevieve, when did you become so unreasonable?"

Unreasonable.

The man I had loved for five years had slept with my best friend.

Yet because I had pulled my own arm out of her grasp, I was the unreasonable one.

The absurdity of it crashed over me.

"Apologize to Sloan," Graham said.

I thought I had misheard him.

"What?"

"Her wound opened again." His brow furrowed. "Whatever happened between us, you had no right to push her."

My best friend?

I nearly laughed.

Looking at the man I had loved for five years, I suddenly found him terrifyingly unfamiliar.

"Have you forgotten that the two of you are the ones who betrayed me?"

Guilt flickered across his face, and his voice softened.

"I know. Once Sloan's hand has been treated, we'll go home and talk. I'll tell you everything. If this bothers you that much, I can stop seeing her for a while."

For a while.

That was all he was willing to give me.

A sharp pain suddenly spread through my lower abdomen.

I braced one hand against the wall as my breathing began to shake.

"I don't need you to stop seeing her for a while." I held his gaze. "I need you to stay out of my life forever."

Graham's expression changed instantly.

He handed Sloan over to a nurse and strode toward me, seizing my arm. "What is that supposed to mean?"

"It means we're over."

"No."

The answer came too quickly, as though this decision still belonged to him.

"Gen, we've been together for five years. We haven't even been married one. You can't divorce me over one mistake-"

"One mistake?"

The pain intensified. Cold sweat slid down my back.

I tore my arm from his hand and turned to leave.

The hallway went black.

I staggered against the wall. My legs gave way, and I collapsed onto the cold floor.

"Gen?"

Graham took an instinctive step toward me.

Behind him, Sloan let out a muffled cry of pain.

He glanced back at the blood seeping through her bandage. The concern on his face quickly hardened into irritation.

"Stop this, Genevieve." His voice turned cold. "All I asked was for you to apologize. Do you really think fainting will force me to leave with you?"

I opened my mouth, but no sound came out.

Something warm and wet slid down my thighs.

When I looked down, bright red blood was spreading rapidly across my pale skirt.

Graham saw it too.

For one second, his face went blank.

Then Sloan sagged against his shoulder and whispered, "My hand hurts so much..."

Graham clenched his jaw.

"I'll get her inside first. Wait here. Don't go anywhere."

He lifted Sloan into his arms and carried her toward the treatment area.

He did not even look down as he passed me.

I watched his back disappear beyond the elevator doors.

He never turned around.

Before I lost consciousness, I finally understood one thing.

It was not that Graham did not know whom to choose.

He had chosen many times before.

I had simply never seen it.

When I opened my eyes again, the sharp smell of antiseptic filled the air.

My father stood beside the bed. His eyes were red, and the veins on the backs of his hands stood out as they trembled.

The doctor's voice was hesitant and heavy.

"I'm so sorry, Ms. Calder. We did everything we could, but we couldn't save the baby."

The baby.

I stared at the white ceiling, unable to make sense of the word.

The nausea, the exhaustion, my late period. None of it had been stress.

On the same day I chose to end my marriage, we had finally conceived a child.

I had lost that child before I even knew it existed.

The tears finally came.

Not because this changed anything between us.

The news had come too late. It could not make Graham turn away from Sloan. It could not erase five years of lies.

But that had still been my baby.

The last innocent thing that had belonged to both of us.

In an exam room, the doctor was stitching Sloan's wound closed again.

But Graham could not stop seeing Genevieve collapsed on the floor.

The blood on her skirt.

The hollow despair in her eyes when she looked at him.

The terrible stillness of her body as he carried Sloan past her.

An unfamiliar terror closed around his heart.

"She isn't really hurt, is she?" Sloan asked softly.

Graham spun toward her.

At that moment, the phone beside Sloan's bed lit up.

A scheduled email appeared on the lock screen.

It was from Genevieve.

"Sloan, guess what? It's a secret, so don't tell Graham yet!"

Graham stopped breathing.

Before Sloan could stop him, he snatched up the phone and opened the full message.

"My period is three days late, and I've been nauseated every morning. Dr. Avery squeezed me in for some tests today."

"If I really am pregnant, will you help me plan a New Year's surprise? I want to tell him myself. You have no idea how excited I am."

The words hit Graham like a fist.

He saw the blood on Genevieve's skirt again.

She had not staged a collapse to make him stay.

She had been pregnant.

And he had just carried another woman past her and their child.