Chapter 3

The house felt different when I walked through the front door that evening. Not just quiet—abandoned. The silence had weight to it, pressing against my chest as I climbed the stairs to our bedroom.

I found Forest in our walk-in closet, methodically folding his shirts into a leather suitcase I'd given him for our third anniversary. His movements were efficient, practiced, as if he'd been planning this for weeks.

"Going somewhere?" I asked from the doorway, though my voice sounded hollow even to my own ears.

He didn't look up from his packing. "I'm staying at the Marriott downtown for a few days. Lyla needs emotional support during this difficult time, and frankly, I can't deal with your dramatics right now."

The casual cruelty of his words hit me like ice water. "My dramatics? Forest, you publicly humiliated me in front of our entire company. You suspended me from the position I've held for six years."

"You brought that on yourself." His voice was clipped, dismissive. He moved to his dresser, pulling out underwear and socks with the same detached efficiency. "I made a business decision, and you turned it into a personal attack."

I watched him pack his favorite cologne—the one I'd bought him last Christmas—and something inside me finally broke. Not shattered dramatically, but cracked clean through like ice under pressure.

"A business decision," I repeated softly. "Is that what you're calling your affair with Lyla?"

For the first time since I'd entered the room, Forest's hands stilled. But he still didn't look at me. "I don't know what you're talking about."

"The late-night phone calls. The sudden business trips that coincidentally match her schedule. The way she touches your arm like she owns you." My voice grew steadier with each word. "Did you really think I wouldn't notice?"

Forest zipped his suitcase closed with more force than necessary. "You're paranoid, Brooke. Maybe if you spent less time inventing conspiracies and more time supporting the decisions that keep this company profitable, we wouldn't be in this situation."

He finally turned to face me, and the stranger looking back from his familiar features made my stomach lurch. This man who'd once promised to love me through everything now regarded me with the same cold calculation he reserved for difficult clients.

"I'll be back when you've had time to think about your priorities," he said, lifting his suitcase from the bed. "Hopefully by then you'll understand that some things are more important than your hurt feelings."

He walked past me without another word, his shoulder brushing mine as he headed for the door. I heard his footsteps on the stairs, heard the front door open and close, heard his car start in the driveway.

Then silence.

I stood in our bedroom—my bedroom now, I supposed—staring at the open closet where gaps between hangers marked his absence. His cologne still lingered in the air, but even that felt like mockery now.

My legs gave out suddenly, and I sank onto the edge of our bed, my hands shaking as the full weight of the day crashed over me. Ten years of marriage. Six years of building our careers side by side. All of it destroyed in a single morning because Forest had chosen his mistress over everything we'd built together.

The nausea hit without warning, sending me rushing to the bathroom. I barely made it to the toilet before my stomach emptied itself, the stress and shock finally taking their physical toll. As I knelt on the cold tile floor, gasping and shaking, another wave of sickness rolled through me.

But this felt different. Not just the sharp bite of stress-induced nausea, but something deeper, more persistent. I pressed my palm to my forehead, trying to remember when I'd last felt this particular combination of exhaustion and queasiness.

My period. When was my last period?

The realization sent a different kind of shock through my system. With trembling hands, I opened the bathroom cabinet, pushing aside bottles of aspirin and face cream until I found the pregnancy test I'd bought months ago during a brief scare that had turned out to be nothing.

This time felt different.

I sat on the bathroom floor, back against the cool tile wall, watching the test develop on the counter above me. Two minutes felt like an eternity, each second stretching as my entire future hung in the balance.

Two pink lines appeared with crystalline clarity.

Positive.

I was pregnant. Pregnant and abandoned, stripped of my career, my marriage in ruins. The man who should have been celebrating this news with me had just walked out to comfort his mistress instead.

My hand moved instinctively to my still-flat stomach, a fierce protectiveness surging through me despite the devastation. This child—our child—would never know the pain of watching their father choose someone else. I would make sure of that.

Forest had made his choice. Now I had to make mine.

And as I sat on that bathroom floor, holding the evidence of new life while surrounded by the wreckage of my old one, I felt something crystallize inside me. Not just anger or hurt, but a cold, clear determination.

Forest thought he could destroy everything we'd built and walk away unscathed. He was about to learn exactly how wrong he was.