Chapter 2

The hospital scan confirmed that Elara was two months pregnant. Sitting in the corridor, she recorded a message: "Rowan, we're having a baby." She meant it as one last chance to forgive him.

Rowan texted to say he had a business trip. Right after that, Maeve put a new photo up on Facebook, the two of them by a lake. Rowan was fastening a necklace around her neck, smiling gently. Elara deleted the recording and signed the consent form to end the pregnancy. She was not going to let a child become the chain he kept her on.

After the procedure, Rowan arrived with hallway footage and accused her of putting wolfsbane in Maeve's IV. Maeve offered to leave the project, and Rowan, determined to prove his wife could not control him, forced Elara to surrender the deal the Voss family had spent a year negotiating. Elara signed, but quietly kept the patents and the core team.

When the surgical lamp came on, Rowan was still on her screen, out on a date with Maeve. What she lost was not a blurred shape on a scan. It was the shared future she had once believed in.

A fine rain fell outside the hospital window, but the tiny outline on the scan was sharp and unmistakable. Elara had imagined so many ways to tell him, imagined Rowan pulling her into his arms in delight. Then the photo of his date made her understand that hope was not an obligation and a child should never become leverage to win someone back. Her fingers were cold when she signed the form, yet for the first time, a quiet, unshakable resolve settled inside her.

The day after the procedure, Elara returned to the estate for her documents. Maeve was sitting in her seat, while Rowan cracked king crab for her and even wiped the sauce from her fingertips exactly as he once had for Elara.

That dish had been their celebration after Elara closed her first deal. Rowan had once promised that he would do the messy work only for her. Maeve rose, saying she should not spoil a memory that belonged to them. Rowan responded by telling Elara to take a bite and prove she was not singling Maeve out.

To keep the surgery hidden, Elara forced it down. The cramping and bleeding worsened at once. Maeve gently urged Rowan to stay with his wife, somehow making herself sound like Elara's defender. Rowan accepted Maeve's version: Elara was jealous and faking it. He told her coldly to stop putting on such a pitiful act.

He had her changed into a white gown and took her to the charity gala. When Elara looked in the mirror, the dress felt like an epitaph written before she was even dead.

The dining room at the estate was still set in the old order, as if Elara's place were only temporarily empty. Watching Rowan pick the crab meat out for Maeve, she remembered how clumsily he used to get sauce on his own cuffs. The dish was never what hurt. He had taken a memory that belonged to the two of them and made its tenderness available to anyone. Elara held back her tears. She would no longer offer her vulnerability up for judgment.