Chapter 1
Edward Locke had never been able to keep his hands off me. Then we got married, and he turned cold overnight.
He stopped reaching for me. When I reached for him, he pulled away.
Even the news that I was pregnant got nothing out of him but a pause.
I told myself it was cold feet, that he needed time to get used to being a husband and a father.
Then, three months into the pregnancy, I drove out to pick him up from a bar because he was too drunk to get himself home.
I had barely reached the door of the private room when a voice carried out into the hall.
"Ed, you were out of your mind over Charlotte before the wedding. You went to war with your own family to marry her. Now you've got her and you're ducking her, and she's carrying your kid."
Before Edward could answer, his childhood sweetheart, Melissa Brant, cut in with a giggle.
"Ugh, Eddie, I warned you forever ago. Some girls play untouchable, and half the city's already had a turn.
"I'm a woman. I know exactly what that type is.
"Regretting it yet? You thought you were getting a blank page. Turns out she's a magazine the whole waiting room already read."
*****
The room went silent.
Someone finally spoke up for me.
"Come on. Charlotte is the original ice queen. Everybody knows she keeps guys at arm's length. She's never let one close."
Melissa pressed her lips.
"A room full of clueless guys, what would you know? Some girls put on the saint act, nose in the air, and it's a sales tactic. Drive the price up so he works harder for it."
I bit down until I tasted blood, my eyes fixed on the back of Edward's head through the crack in the door.
He sat dead center on the couch with a cigarette burning between his fingers.
Smoke curled around him and hid whatever was on his face.
Only one thought held me together.
If he said one word in my defense, even one, I could have walked away pretending I never heard any of it.
Instead, he crushed out the cigarette and pinched the bridge of his nose.
"Our wedding night. She didn't bleed."
Silence dropped over the room a second time.
A moment later, the same guy who had defended me spoke up again, quieter this time.
"I read somewhere that not every girl bleeds the first time. It's different for everybody, I think."
Melissa pouted and raised a hand at him like she was going to smack him.
"Which one of us is the woman here? A book doesn't know anything. I do.
"Any girl with respect for herself bleeds the first time. That's how it works."
The guy threw up his hands, laughing, and said he was wrong.
Melissa let out a small huff, glanced toward the door for half a second, then turned to Edward and dropped her voice into something coaxing.
"Eddie, are you sure that baby's yours? One time, on your wedding night, and it took? That's awfully convenient, don't you think?"
Edward went rigid.
When he lifted his head, his eyes had gone flat and dark, and his face looked worse than I had ever seen it.
Melissa's smile sharpened as she slid closer to him.
"Here's what you do, Eddie. Get her to the hospital without telling her why. My mom can set up an amniocentesis, we run a paternity test, and you'll know for sure."
Something closed around my chest and squeezed until I couldn't pull in air.
I stared at the back of Edward's head and dug my nails into my palms hard enough to leave a row of little crescents.
Edward took a long drag and let the smoke out in a slow ring that blurred the line of his jaw.
"Fine," he said.
Everything in me came apart.
I looked down at the small curve of my belly and cried until I couldn't see it anymore.
The noise inside the room kept going, but none of it reached me. All I could hear was my own heartbeat.
Each beat landed heavier than the last, and every one of them sounded like the end of something.