Chapter 2

I locked my phone and faced him.

"No one."

Grant stepped onto the terrace and closed the door behind him.

"I heard you ask if an offer was still open."

"Rebecca invited me to visit Madison."

His jaw tightened. "You have not spoken to Rebecca in months."

"Maybe that was a mistake."

For one brief second, irritation showed through his concern.

Grant had never liked Rebecca. He said she treated marriage as if it were a contract designed to fail. Rebecca said Grant only disliked women he could not charm.

"This is our anniversary," he said. "Do not turn it into an argument about your friends."

I almost laughed.

He had made our anniversary about my sister's ultrasound appointment, but I was the one ruining the night.

"You are right," I said. "We should go back inside."

Relief softened his face.

He believed the danger had passed.

An hour later, Grant stood beneath strings of white lights and lifted a glass to me.

"Seven years ago, Lauren took a chance on a man who owned one suit and worked out of a rented warehouse," he told the room. "Everything I have now began with her believing in me."

People applauded.

I remembered signing the lease on that first warehouse because Grant's credit was too damaged to qualify. I remembered working full time at a children's rehabilitation clinic, then spending nights helping him prepare investor packets.

When Northbridge finally became profitable, Grant asked me to stop working.

"We do not need two exhausted people in this marriage," he had said. "Let me take care of you now."

I had mistaken dependence for rest.

Grant took a small velvet box from his pocket.

Inside was a narrow diamond band.

"I know the wedding ring I gave you was all I could afford then," he said. "Let me give you the ring you deserved."

The guests began clapping again.

He reached for my hand.

His phone vibrated.

Grant glanced down.

The blood drained from his face.

I saw only the first line of the message.

I am bleeding.

He closed the screen.

"There is a systems emergency at Northbridge," he said. "I have to go."

"Now?"

"The distribution platform is down."

"On our anniversary?"

His eyes flicked toward the room, checking who could hear us.

"Lauren, please. Not here."

"You promised me tonight."

"And I will make it up to you."

He touched my cheek. "Go home. I will be there as soon as I can."

Then he left with the anniversary ring still in his pocket.

I waited thirty seconds before following.

His car did not turn toward Northbridge's offices.

It crossed downtown and stopped outside Lakeside Women's Center.

I paid the cab and stood beneath the clinic's awning, hidden by rain and darkness.

Grant hurried through the glass doors.

Vanessa appeared in the lobby wearing a hospital bracelet. The moment she saw him, she ran into his arms.

He held her as if she were the one person in the world he could not afford to lose.

My nails bit into my palms.

A nurse led them down a hallway.

I entered through the side doors and followed far enough behind that they did not see me.

The door to Vanessa's exam room did not close completely.

"The doctor said the bleeding can happen," Grant said. "The heartbeat is still there."

Vanessa was crying.

"You said you would stay with Lauren tonight."

"You needed me."

"What happens when the baby comes?"

Silence.

Then Grant said, "We are not making decisions tonight."

"You mean you are not making decisions. I already know what I want."

"Vanessa."

"I want you. I want my child to have a father who is not hidden."

My breath caught.

Grant lowered his voice, but I still heard him.

"Lauren cannot know yet."

"And when she does?"

There was another long silence.

I pressed one hand against the wall to stay upright.

Finally Grant said, "She will be hurt. She will cry. Then she will calm down."

Vanessa gave a bitter laugh. "You are sure?"

"Lauren does not walk away from people she loves."

His answer came without hesitation.

"She always waits."

Something inside me went very still.

Not broken.

Not yet.

Just still enough to stop begging for an explanation.

I left the clinic without opening the door.

At home, I sat at Grant's desk and opened seven years of financial statements.

There were charges from Lakeside Women's Center going back four months. Hotel rooms charged on nights Grant claimed to be traveling for work. A furnished apartment in Vanessa's name, paid from an account I had never seen.

I printed everything and placed the pages in a plain blue folder.

Then I added copies of my passport, marriage certificate, professional license, and the deed to the small house my parents had left me in Wisconsin.

At two in the morning, nausea sent me running to the bathroom.

I knelt on the tile until my stomach was empty.

When I looked up, I saw the bottle of supplements Vanessa refilled for me every Sunday.

"For your hormones," she always said. "You still want a baby, do you not?"

I stared at the bottle for a long time.

Then I put it in a plastic bag and added it to the blue folder.

Grant came home just before dawn.

I heard his key in the door and his footsteps in the hall.

He stopped outside the study.

I had left one sheet on the printer tray.

The Lakeside charge.

The bedroom door opened.

"Lauren?"

I closed the blue folder and looked at him.

His tie was gone. Rain darkened his shirt. Vanessa's floral hand lotion clung to his hands.

He saw the paper beside me.

For the first time that night, Grant looked afraid.