Chapter 2

Imogen glanced at me out of the corner of her eye.

"Calvin, this mattress is too firm. Barry doesn't like it," she said.

"Then we'll replace it." Calvin waved a hand back toward the door, summoning the housekeeper to handle it.

I rushed into the room, my voice urgent. "You can't do that. I decorated this room for our child."

"You know you can't get pregnant," Calvin said.

Those words cut through me like a knife, twisting deep and sending searing pain through every part of my body.

The words stuck in my throat, impossible to speak around, as a dull ache bloomed in my chest.

I couldn't take it anymore.

I shoved all three of them out of the nursery.

"Kiara, don't make a scene here," Calvin snapped.

It was true. I had never accompanied him to the Newman Group office in all those years, because he said I didn't dress well enough.

He had told the world he was single.

Every member of his family and every friend had helped him hide the fact that he was married.

Calvin called two bodyguards, who dragged me away and held me down in the traditional medicine room.

"Clean this place out tomorrow. If you want to keep using it, move to the side cottage out back. We're turning this room into a playroom for Barry," he said.

He had never stepped foot in this room once since I had started using it.

Now he was willing to walk in, even holding his nose against the smell, just to remodel it for someone else.

I wrenched my hands free from the bodyguards' grip.

I stepped in front of Calvin, staring at the man I had loved for ten years.

My voice shook, but my gaze stayed steady as I spoke. "Are you serious about this?"

But Calvin ignored me, refusing to answer.

I nodded again and whispered a single word. "Fine."

Just then, Imogen picked up a bottle of medicine, swirling it around under the light.

"Kiara, shouldn't we throw this bottle away? There are so many items in it," she said.

I stared in horror at the bottle of medicine I was supposed to take that day, now in the hands of Imogen.

I watched as she twisted the cap, ready to pour it all out.

"No!" I cried out.

I shoved Calvin aside and lunged at Imogen, snatching for the bottle in her hand.

But Imogen stumbled back, and the bottle slipped from her grasp, shattering on the floor.

Shards of glass sliced into both of our calves.

Just then, Barry yelled, "Mom!"

His shout snapped both of us out of it.

Without thinking, I shoved Imogen aside. She stumbled into the corner of the table and collapsed.

I couldn't care less about her.

All I could look at was the medicine on the floor. It had been brewed for me by Gordon Fisher, using rare herbs he had dug up a month prior, after weeks of preparation.

And now it was gone.

Before I could even get a word out, Calvin strode over to Imogen, helped her up, and sat her on the couch.

Then, wearing an icy expression and not saying a single word, he slapped me hard across the face.

A high-pitched ringing filled both of my ears, and my head spun with dizziness.

I struggled to open my eyes and saw my right hearing aid lying by the floor-to-ceiling window, knocked there by him.

I wanted to get up and grab my hearing aid.

But Calvin wouldn't let me.

"Kiara, was it really worth risking everything for a bottle of medicine? Imogen is a public figure, and her legs are covered in cuts," he snapped.

Calvin's eyes raked over me, full of disgust, as he kicked me back into the floor-to-ceiling window.

The back of my head slammed against the glass, and white spots exploded across my vision.

Calvin picked Imogen up from the couch.

His voice was cold and venomous. "You're such a vicious woman. You pushed your own sister over a bottle of medicine."

Calvin shot a look at the two bodyguards behind him.

"Lock her in the basement. Let her think about what she's done," he ordered.

He didn't give a damn about my condition.

The two bodyguards dragged me away and threw me into the basement.

No one noticed the blood trickling down the back of my head.

In that lightless basement, burning tears rolled down my cheeks.