Chapter 5

Nina never saw Claire coming. It was three days after she'd gotten home from the hospital. Jayden was at the office, and Sarah had gone out to pick up groceries.

She was resting on the sofa, miscarriage prevention pills on the coffee table beside her, when the doorbell rang.

Claire stood at the door in a white dress, grinning sweetly. "Nina, can I come in?"

Before Nina could say no, Claire pushed past her and wandered straight into the living room.

"Jayden's not home?" Claire looked around, as if she was inspecting her own territory.

"What do you want?" Nina didn't bother offering her water, standing by the stairs, ready to show her out at any second.

Claire laughed, all the fake sweetness gone from her face, only raw malice left. "Nina, you know why Jayden won't divorce you?"

Nina said nothing, just stared at her.

Claire said, stepping closer, "Guilt. That kidnapping two years ago. You were the one who saved him, weren't you?"

Nina's head shot up in shock.

"You really thought I didn't know?" Claire moved in closer. "I did my homework. You were there that day, and that scar on your wrist? That's proof. But Jayden has no clue. He thinks I was his savior."

"You... " Nina's voice shook with anger.

"I told him I carried him out, that I called for help. He's so grateful, so trusting that he even gave me five percent of Landon Group's shares. And you? What'd you get? A scar, and a marriage colder than ice." Claire's smile was triumphant.

Nina's knuckles whitened as she gripped the banister.

She'd known Claire was scheming, but never this cruel. Stealing her credit, stealing her man, and now rubbing it in her face?

"What do you want?" she asked, her voice tight.

"I want you gone." Claire dropped her smile, eyes sharp. "Nina, Jayden doesn't love you. He loves me. He's just too stubborn about keeping his promises to ask for a divorce. But if you'd just disappear... "

"Like how?" Nina asked.

"Like this." Before Nina could react, Claire grabbed her hand and pressed it hard against her own chest, then threw herself backward.

Nina reached out instinctively, but only caught a scrap of Claire's dress.

"Ah!" Claire tumbled down the stairs, her white dress blooming with bright red blood.

She lay on the living room floor, clutching her stomach, her face as pale as a ghost. "My baby... my baby..."

Nina froze on the stairs, her mind completely blank.

The front door swung open, and Jayden stood there, flanked by Vincent and the driver.

His eyes swept over the scene, from Claire on the floor, to Nina's face, to her hand still hanging in mid-air, frozen in the motion of "pushing".

"Jayden, Nina pushed me. It hurts so bad..." Claire cried, stretching out a hand.

Jayden strode over, lifting Claire into his arms in a hurry. His voice was so gentle it stung Nina. "Don't be scared, I'm taking you to the hospital right now."

As he turned to leave, he glanced at Nina.

That look, filled with disgust, anger, hatred so intense it made her feel like she was drowning in ice.

"It wasn't me. Jayden, it wasn't me..." she whispered.

But Jayden was already rushing out the door with Claire, leaving only a cold command hanging in the air. "Vincent, watch her. Don't let her run away."

Vincent stood by the door, his expression conflicted. "Mrs. Landon, Mr. Landon... "

"He what?" Nina laughed, tears streaming down her face. "He wants me to wait here, so he can come back and judge me?"

Vincent hung his head and said nothing.

Nina stumbled down the stairs, her legs weak. The blood on the floor stared back at her—bright, glaring, familiar. It looked just like the blood she'd seen three days ago, the blood that had seeped from her own body in the hospital.

Claire was pregnant. The thought made her want to throw up.

Jayden and Claire had a baby, while she lay in bed trying to save her own, and she felt guilty for lying about being infertile.

Her phone rang suddenly. It was the hospital.

"Ms. Evans, your test results are in. Your HCG levels are doubling well, and we can see a heartbeat. We recommend continuing miscarriage prevention treatment—" the doctor said.

However, Nina hung up without a word.

She stared at the sunshine outside the window, feeling a bitter irony. The baby she was fighting so hard to keep—his father was off comforting another woman, saving their baby.

And she? She was accused of pushing the woman down the stairs and was abandoned by everyone.

*****

Jayden came home that night. He was icy, his suit stained with blood, exhaustion and fury carved deep into his eyes. Nina sat in the living room with the lights off, unmoving like a statue.

"Claire lost the baby. She was two months pregnant with my child," he said, his voice as cold as ice.

Nina didn't say a word. From the moment he walked in, she knew exactly what he was going to say.

"Why?" Jayden walked over, standing over her, his gaze sharp. "Nina, didn't I tell you Claire means everything to me?"

"You did," Nina answered.

"Didn't I tell you to stay away from her?" Jayden pressed.

"Yeah," Nina said.

"Then why did you push her?" Jayden suddenly grabbed her chin, his grip so tight it made her wince. "Because she was having my baby? Are you that vicious?"

Nina looked at this man she'd loved for seven years and felt like she didn't know him at all.

She thought back to when she was eighteen, when he'd stood in her home's backyard and said, "Girls shouldn't smell cigarette smoke," his voice as gentle as a spring breeze. Now, those same hands were choking her, accusing her of hurting his child.

"If I told you that I didn't push her, that she fell on her own, would you believe me?" she said softly.

Jayden's hand paused for a split second. Only a split second.

"Claire would never risk her own child. Nina, I never thought you could be this cruel," he said.

Nina closed her eyes. Tears slipped down and fell onto the back of his hand, the heat making him jerk his hand back a little.

"Jayden, I'm pregnant too," she said, her voice barely above a whisper.

Jayden's face froze.

Nina continued, "Five weeks. I had signs of a miscarriage, so I spent three days in the hospital on bed rest. The day you called, I was in the obstetrics ward."

She opened her eyes, saw the shock on his face, and suddenly laughed. "But now I don't want it anymore. Jayden, I don't want your baby."

"You... " Jayden's voice shook, like he couldn't believe what he was hearing. "What did you say?"

Nina stood up, staring him straight in the eyes, her voice clear and firm, "I said let's get a divorce. This time, I mean it. I want nothing. Just sign the papers, and I'll be out of your life forever."

Jayden looked at her, his eyes a jumble of anger, confusion, and a hint of panic she couldn't understand.

"No way. Nina, you're not going anywhere," he said.

"Why?" Nina finally broke down. "You don't love me. I can't give you a child and pushed your beloved Clair. I'm cruel, despicable, and shameless! Why won't you just let me go?"

"Because... " Jayden trailed off, his voice faltering.

He couldn't put it into words.

All he knew was that when Nina said, "out of your life forever," his heart felt like it was being squeezed tight, so hard he could barely breathe.

"Lock her in the storage room. Let her think about what she did," he said suddenly, his voice hardening.

Vincent froze. "Mr. Landon, Mrs. Landon—"

"Didn't you hear me?" Jayden's voice was icy. "Lock her up. No one lets her out unless I say so."

Nina didn't fight as they dragged her away.

She stared at Jayden's back, her mother's last words echoing in her head. "Nina, don't be like me. Loving someone who doesn't love you will kill you."

She didn't understand back then. Now, she did—down to her bones.

The storage room door slammed shut, and darkness swallowed her whole.

Nina curled up in the corner, her hand resting on her still-flat stomach. There had been a tiny life there once, a flicker of hope, but now, she felt something warm and sticky seeping out, soaking through her nightgown.

It was warm, thick, and sticky blood.

"Help... " she tried to scream, but her voice came out as a whisper, barely audible.

In the dark, Nina thought of the scar on her wrist, of the mile she'd carried Jayden two years ago, of the words he'd said when he woke up. "Claire, thank you."

It had all been a mistake from the very start.

She'd loved the wrong person, trusted the wrong person, and now she was going to die for it.

Nina closed her eyes, and in the last moment before she lost consciousness, she told herself, "If I survive this, I must leave this place and Jayden for good."