Chapter 4

"Victoria! Enough!" Dylan stepped in, physically pulling her back. "That's enough out of you."

She let out a cold, incredulous laugh. "It's always like this with you. You beg for my help, and the second things get uncomfortable, I'm the one with the big mouth."

Grabbing her purse, Victoria sneered, "Fine. I'm done dealing with you two. If Dylan is pathetic enough to play the martyr and raise another man's kid in the dark, why should I give a damn?"

The front door slammed shut behind her.

Once the apartment fell silent, I retrieved the ultrasound printout from the folder and placed a freshly printed set of divorce papers on the table.

Dylan flipped through the first two pages, then pushed them away. "The lab results aren't in yet."

"This has nothing to do with the results."

"It does to me."

"If the baby turns out to be yours, what are you going to do?"

He looked at me earnestly. "I'll apologize. I'll spend the rest of my life making it up to you, whatever it takes."

"And if it's not?"

"Then you tell me who he is, and we close this chapter forever. We move past it."

A bitter laugh escaped my lips.

Dylan's brow furrowed tightly. "I've already compromised this much, Nora. What else do you want from me?"

"I want you to sign the papers."

"Not a chance."

He swept the documents off the table, shoved them into the desk drawer, and locked it. "I am not discussing divorce while your body is still healing."

"Give me the key."

"Stop it, Nora."

Without a word, I grabbed a heavy ceramic mug from the counter and smashed it against the drawer lock.

Ceramic shattered across the hardwood floor, but the drawer held firm.

Dylan lunged forward, wrapping his arms around me to pull me away from the jagged shards. In my struggle to break free, my nails raked across his forearm, leaving bright red welts that began to bleed.

He didn't let go. "Hit me, scream at me, do whatever you need to do," he breathed into my hair. "Just let your body heal first."

That night, Dylan stayed in the home office for hours.

Around two in the morning, I got out of bed to find painkillers. Through the crack in the office door, I heard his voice on the phone with Victoria.

"Have you really thought this through?" Victoria's voice drifted out clearly. "If the genetic review proves it's not yours, you're still staying with her?"

Dylan leaned back in his leather chair, the locked divorce papers resting on his desk.

"Yes."

"You're out of your mind! You honestly think you won't look at her every single day and feel sick to your stomach?"

"The baby is gone," Dylan said quietly.

A pause, then Victoria asked, "What about the guy?"

"If she's willing to tell me the truth, I won't pursue it."

"Dylan, what are you even getting out of this?"

He looked down, his thumb repeatedly tracing over my signature on the document. "We've been together for ten years."

"And?"

"I can't live without her."

Victoria scoffed with utter disdain. "That's not a marriage. You've turned yourself into her personal doormat."

"Think whatever you want."

"She's using divorce to manipulate you. The minute that paternity test comes back, she'll have you wrapped around her finger forever."

"She won't actually leave."

"You're that sure?"

"She can't bring herself to."

Dylan really did know me.

I couldn't bear to throw away ten years. I couldn't bear to let go of the man I had loved so deeply, nor could I easily part with the memory of the child that had only existed for seven short weeks.

But what he failed to understand was that when a person is pushed to the point where only lingering attachment remains, that love is already bleeding out.

I walked back into the master bedroom, pulled my rolling suitcase from the closet, and began packing.

The sharp zipping sound immediately alerted him.

Dylan rushed into the bedroom, his eyes wide. "What are you doing?"

"Moving out."

He stared at the suitcase, then glanced toward the open hallway. "You heard what I said?"

"Every word."

"Then why are you still running?"

Dylan reached out, his hand clamping tightly around the handle of my luggage.

"No matter what those tests say, I have never wanted to let you go."

I looked at the burst capillaries in his eyes, and the fresh scratches I had left on his arm.

He was terrified of losing me.

And in his own twisted way, he genuinely loved me.

But the Nora he loved was someone he envisioned as a liar, an unfaithful wife who needed his grand, magnanimous forgiveness to stay in this marriage.

Even if that other man existed solely in his paranoid imagination.

"Dylan, you still believe this is all about whether you decide to keep me or not."

His grip on the handle tightened. "Just give it two more days. Just two days for the final report."

"If the child has nothing to do with you, you get to keep a pardoned cheat."

"I told you, I won't hold it against you!"

"And what if the baby was yours?"

His lips trembled. "Then... I'll spend the rest of my life apologizing to you."

I let out a soft, mocking laugh. "And I'm supposed to stay married to a man whose first reaction to my miscarriage was asking if he could sample the dead tissue for a paternity test?"

Every drop of color drained from his face. "My head was spinning, Nora. I wasn't thinking straight."

"And are you thinking straight now?"

He had no answer.

Because the paperwork hadn't arrived to tell him what to think.

One by one, I pried his fingers off the luggage handle.

"Whatever that paper says, this marriage is over."

Dylan chased me all the way to the elevator. "At least stay at your parents' place for a couple of days! Once the report comes in, I'll—"

I hit the door-close button and looked him in the eye. "It ends here, Dylan."