Chapter 3

The nurse froze mid-step.

Her eyes flicked back and forth between me and Liam.

Liam's outstretched hand — the one already reaching for the chart — hung in the air, suspended.

His face darkened.

"Emily. Don't do this." He lowered his voice. The warning underneath it was sharp.

"This is a hospital. Not the place for one of your scenes."

I didn't look at him. I kept my eyes on the nurse and offered her a polite, almost apologetic smile.

"I'm sorry — I don't know these people. They followed me in. My husband is on his way. He'll be here any minute."

The nurse nodded smoothly — the way nurses do when they've seen worse — and tucked the chart back under her arm.

"Of course, Mrs. Lockwood. Please wait out here until he arrives. Some of these forms have to be signed by the spouse in person."

She turned and disappeared back into the exam suite.

Liam's hand fell slowly to his side. He slid it into his trouser pocket — that same casual, in-control gesture I'd watched him use in a hundred boardrooms.

But his eyes had changed. There was something dangerous in them now.

"Mrs. Lockwood. Strangers."

He let out a short, brittle laugh.

"Three years, and look at you, Em. You won't even let me sign as next of kin?"

Chloe shot to her feet and clutched at his arm. Her white roses were forgotten on the seat behind her.

"Liam, please. Don't get worked up."

Then she turned to me. Right on cue, her eyes filled with tears.

"Em — are you still upset about that silly little joke three years ago?"

She sniffled. Voice quivering at exactly the right register.

"I just made a bet with him. I was trying to make the reception more fun. How was I supposed to know you'd take it so personally and run off for three whole years?"

She had reduced a man walking out on his bride at the altar to a silly little joke.

She had reduced my breaking point to not being able to take a joke.

I stared at her tear-streaked, doe-eyed face.

I almost admired the sheer nerve of it.

"Turning a wedding into a bet — that was a joke?"

I turned to Liam.

"Leaving me at the altar in front of my parents and two hundred guests — that was a joke?"

I looked back at Chloe.

"Stepping on my dress. Yanking the veil off my head. Putting it on yourself and laughing all the way out of the chapel. Was that a joke too?"

Chloe shrank back and ducked behind Liam.

Liam's brow tightened. He stepped between us — putting himself in front of her like a shield.

"Enough."

His voice was hard now.

"Chloe grew up with everything handed to her. She doesn't always think before she acts. You're older than her, Em. Just once, can't you be the bigger person?"

He looked at me with open disappointment.

Like a parent at a child who'd let him down.

"You take one small thing and turn it into a three-year grudge. You weren't always this petty."

This petty.

I held his gaze.

For that wedding, I had stayed up half the nights of an entire month. Hand-stitching his initials — L.F. — into the inner cuff of his groom's shirt. By candlelight. Because I'd wanted something only the two of us would know about.

I'd waited until two in the morning for him to come try on his tux. He'd never showed. Just a text. Too busy.

I'd thought our wedding day was the start of everything.

It turned out to be the glass of poison he handed me with a smile.

"Liam."

I said his name quietly.

"Do you really believe that all you have to do is crook your finger, and I'll come crawling back to you on my hands and knees?"

His eyes flickered.

"That's not what I said." He shifted, recalibrating. "I just don't think you needed to marry some random man to make a point."

He paused. Softened his voice — that low, coaxing tone he used on his investors when a deal started slipping.

"This so-called husband of yours can't even make it to a prenatal appointment on time. You really think he knows you better than I do?"

He even remembered.

"You hate needles. Someone always has to talk you through a blood draw. Does he know that?"

I looked at him — that arrogant, self-satisfied tenderness on his face, like he thought he was being deep.

Something close to pity prickled along the inside of my chest.

"He doesn't need to know."

I rested a hand on my stomach.

"Because he's never let me face any of this alone."

The door to the exam suite opened again.

The nurse stepped out with a slim stack of papers.

"Mrs. Lockwood — these are from your previous intake. Could you confirm the information is correct?"

She held them out to me.

Liam was taller. He read over my shoulder in a single glance.

His eyes snagged on the spouse signature line. And stayed there.

Two words. Black ink. Confident, slanting strokes.

Damien Lockwood.