Chapter 4

The next morning, I called my family doctor. When I mentioned the unmarked capsules, Dr. Priya Shah told me to come in immediately.

She listened while I described the nausea, dizziness, missed period, and the supplements Paige had been giving me.

"How long have you been taking these?" she asked.

"About a year."

Her expression changed. She sealed the bottle in an evidence bag and ordered bloodwork.

"Do not take another one," she said. "I am sending these to the hospital lab."

"What do you think is in them?"

"I do not know yet."

"Could they be the reason I have not been able to get pregnant?" I asked. The question tasted like ash in my mouth.

Dr. Shah did not answer immediately. "Let us wait for the results before we decide what anything means."

The nurse drew six tubes of blood. When I left, the blue folder felt heavier beneath my arm.

Paige was waiting in my kitchen when I returned. She wore Adrian's gray sweatshirt and nothing on her feet.

My house key sat on the counter beside her—the same key I had once pressed into her hand while promising she could stay as long as she needed.

I set the blue folder on the table. "How long?"

"Does it matter?"

"It matters to me."

"Then almost a year."

The room seemed to narrow around us. My thirty-first birthday had been a year earlier. Adrian had left dinner halfway through because a warehouse alarm had gone off. He came home at four in the morning with a bruise on his neck.

"My last birthday," I said.

Paige pulled the oversized sleeves over her hands. "He was lonely. You were always so careful. So reasonable. You turned every feeling into a discussion."

"And you made him feel alive?" I asked. "Is that what he told you?"

"He said you manage this marriage like a contract," she retorted. "He wanted someone who actually needed him."

"If he loves you," I said, "why are you still sleeping in my guest room?"

Paige's smile disappeared. "He needs time."

"No. He needs you hidden. There is a difference."

She stood up so quickly the chair scraped the floor. "You just hate that you aren't the one fixing me anymore."

"I gave you a place to live. I got you your job at his company."

"Exactly," Paige snapped. "The room. The job. Every favor came from you. You liked being the one who saved me because it kept me grateful."

She leaned closer. "At least when Adrian chose me, he didn't do it out of pity."

"I didn't pity you," I said. "I loved you. I thought you were family."

"And I showed up for you, too," she fired back. "Who made sure you remembered your supplements every Sunday? I was the one paying attention to your body."

Her eyes flicked to the counter, searching for something.

"Where is the bottle, Nora? You really shouldn't skip them. Especially since you still can't give him a child."

Every sound in the kitchen disappeared.

I slapped her.

The sound cracked through the room. Paige stumbled into the edge of the table. A water glass toppled and shattered across the floor.

She stared at me, one hand pressed to her red cheek.

Then the front door opened.

Adrian stopped in the entryway. He saw Paige crying. He saw the broken glass. He saw my hand still raised.

Paige collapsed against him.

"I came to apologize," she sobbed. "She said she would make sure I lost the baby."

"That is a lie," I said.

Adrian wrapped an arm around her before looking at me.

"Are you out of your mind?"

"Ask her what she said about the pills."

"What pills?"

Paige clutched her stomach. "Adrian, it hurts."

His attention snapped back to her. "We need to go to the hospital."

"Of course," I said. "You always do."

He lifted her into his arms. At the door, he turned.

"Pack a bag and stay somewhere else tonight."

I stared at him. "You are throwing me out of my own house?"

"I am asking you to leave until you can be around Paige without attacking her."

"And if I do not?"

His jaw tightened. "Do not make me call the police, Nora."

There it was—the choice he had been avoiding.

He was willing to use the police to remove me from my own home so Paige could stay.

In his eyes, she and her unborn child were the family he needed to protect.

I was the threat.

I carried the blue folder upstairs and packed one suitcase.

I took a handful of family photographs, three changes of clothes, my laptop, and the small jewelry box my mother had given me at graduation.

Everything Adrian had bought me stayed behind.

When I stepped outside, rain was falling hard enough to blur the streetlights.

A dark sedan waited at the curb.

Tessa got out before I reached it.

She took one look at my suitcase and rain-soaked dress, and anger hardened every line of her face.

"Tell me he didn't throw you out in this weather."

I could not answer.

Her gaze snapped toward the front door, and both hands curled into fists.

"Get in the car," she said. "Before I do something stupid."

Then she opened her arms, and for the first time all day, I nearly fell apart.

"Not out here," she said, holding me tightly. "You can tell me when you're warm. But you are never going back into that house alone."

I put the suitcase in her trunk.

My phone rang.

Dr. Shah.

I answered while Tessa waited beside the driver's door.

"Nora," the doctor said, "your first results are back."

Something in her voice made my skin go cold.

"What did you find?"

She hesitated.

"Before I tell you the rest, I need to know whether your husband can hear me."