Chapter 2

"Why do you have to be so vicious about it?" Clive paused. "You only want the pendant because of the abortion, don't you?"

There was a sneer in his voice. "It's a minor operation. Was all this really necessary?"

Jade loses a little sleep and he treats it like a crisis, stealing the one thing that mattered most to me. The surgery that would kill our child, in his eyes, wasn't worth a second thought.

The cold swept through me. I shut my eyes, hung up, and drove straight for the county clerk's office.

On the way, Clive called.

I didn't answer. A text came through instead.

*I shouldn't have ignored how nervous you must be before the procedure. I apologize. You'll get the pendant back. Millicent, just pick up the phone.*

My phone buzzed again. I answered, and his voice was there at once.

"I ran into someone I know at the clerk's office just now. Since our wedding fell through today, I'm worried people will start talking about Jade. I need you to step forward and clear things up."

"Just say that Jade and I used to be together, that you schemed your way between us and broke us up, and that now you've come to your senses and want to admit you were the other woman. Apologize to Jade in front of everyone."

"Don't worry about people calling me a cheater over it. Taking a little blame is nothing to me. I just can't let Jade suffer for this."

"Handle it well, and when the child grows up I'll give you the pendant back."

My hands tightened on the wheel, and then I started to laugh.

Laughed until the tears spilled over.

He'd shielded Jade so completely that nothing could touch her, and thought a few harmless insults thrown his way made him some kind of martyr.

I was the one who'd actually been wronged. I wanted only to take back what was mine, and he was shoving me out to carry a crime I never committed, to stand there and be condemned by everyone.

And he didn't care at all.

I said nothing. I just hung up.

When I reached the clerk's office, Clive's car was already pulling away. I went after it at once.

I followed it all the way to an upscale restaurant, and watched with my own eyes as Clive got out of the driver's seat and opened the passenger door.

A foot came out of the car. He dropped to one knee, took that slender ankle in his hand, carefully tied the loose lace, brushed the dust off the toe of the shoe, and only then gently helped Jade out.

The sight drove into my chest like a knife, and my eyes were wet in an instant.

In the Sanchezs' worst days, an investor humiliated him on purpose, stuck out a foot as he got out of the car, and made him shine the man's shoes.

"What I do with Millicent Maddox is none of the business of a lowly servant like you. Understood?"

That became the deepest scar he carried. From then on, he never bent for anyone again.

Once I only asked him to drape a blanket over my mother's legs while she sat in her wheelchair, and he flew into a rage, with no regard for my embarrassment or how it made her feel.

But it only made me ache for him more. From that day on, every morning before he left, I bent down and shined his shoes and slipped them on for him myself.

I had guarded his wound so carefully, and now the sight in front of me threw it all back in my face.

I got out of the car and walked toward them, one step at a time.

"Clive."

His head snapped around. His eyes darted away, his face awkward and panicked, and without thinking he stepped in front of Jade.

"Millicent, what are you doing here?"

The moment Jade saw me, her eyes went red. "It's all my fault! I'm the one who wronged you. Don't blame Clive. If you have to blame someone, blame me..."

Her little performance lit the fuse on his anger.

Gone was the shrinking from a moment ago. He shoved me, hard.

"That's enough, Millicent! I already apologized. What more do you want? You can't have children yourself, so you want to force Jade to go die carrying a Sanchez child?"