Chapter 3

I slapped him across the face.

The sound cracked loud, and the whole execution hall went silent in an instant.

Cecily cried out. "Adrian!"

She rushed over to hold him up.

The staff around us froze in place. No one dared to speak.

Adrian turned his face slowly, his left cheek already red, and stared at me without a word.

The girl ran out of the hall in tears. I didn't look at either of them. I went to my office.

Half an hour later, the girl's father arrived at the company with his lawyer.

A commission that was supposed to run seven years was terminated on the spot.

He asked me only one thing.

"Ms. Carrigan, you gave my wife your word that this letter would never become anyone's gossip. What is this now?"

I didn't explain. I only said one thing.

"We breached the contract. The company takes full responsibility."

After they left, Cecily sat beside Adrian, the tears never stopping.

"I'm sorry. I really didn't know she'd mind this much."

Adrian handed her a tissue.

"It's your first time. Of course you didn't understand."

I raised my eyes and looked over.

The confidentiality level of this wish, the designated executor, the family's authorization—all of it was written on the first page of the file.

She didn't even need to understand it. She only needed to read it.

Adrian turned to me. "Handle this first."

I didn't move. "Handle it how?"

"Contact the family, apologize, compensate them, get the video taken down."

I opened my laptop and pushed a document toward him. "This morning, after the executor was changed, I already withdrew my personal guarantee authorization."

Adrian's face changed.

"You withdrew it?"

"Mm."

"Why didn't you tell me?"

"When you changed the executor, you didn't consult me either."

He stared at me. "Yvonne, this isn't the time to throw a tantrum."

"I'm not throwing one."

I turned the laptop toward him. "Executor, Cecily Sutton. Approver, Adrian Prescott. Compensation or apology, you two handle it yourselves."

Cecily bit her lip. "Yvonne, did you already know something would go wrong?"

I looked at her. "I said this morning this commission couldn't go to you. You didn't listen. Now something's gone wrong and you're asking me why I didn't stop it."

She had nothing to say to that.

Adrian's face darkened completely. "What is wrong with you lately? You've been snide since yesterday."

I gave a small laugh. "Maybe I'm dying soon."

The muscle at his brow jumped hard. "Yvonne."

I didn't answer him. I picked up my things and left. The moment I stepped out of the conference room, my lower belly clenched.

I braced a hand against the wall and stood there for two seconds.

The feeling was too familiar. So familiar I didn't dare look down.

Not until I got to the bathroom and saw that trace of blood did the cold sink through my palms.

I made myself go to the hospital. When the results came back, the doctor handed me the report.

"Six weeks pregnant."

"Are you sure?"

"Yes."

The doctor flipped through my chart again.

"But it's not stable. Three prior miscarriages, and this time there are already signs of a threatened miscarriage. You need to rest from now on, avoid overexertion as much as possible, and no major emotional swings."

I looked down at the ultrasound slip.

A fourth child. Adrian's and mine. The fourth.

My phone rang then. It was Adrian.

I stared at the screen for a long time, then answered anyway.

"Where are you?"

"The hospital."

The line went quiet for a moment. "What's wrong?"

I opened my mouth. "Adrian, I…"

"Cecily, don't touch that."

His voice broke off suddenly on his end, then came a rush of footsteps.

A few seconds later, he came back to me. "What did you just say?"

I looked down at the report. "Nothing."

"Do you still have that wedding gown?"

My fingers stilled. "What?"

"Cecily wants to do a wedding-photo shoot. The doctor says her surgery is very high-risk, and she's afraid she won't get another chance to wear one."

I said nothing.

He added, "Just for one day."

I suddenly remembered what I'd asked him that morning.

He'd said back then there would never be a wish like that.

And not even a day later, she was already wearing my wedding gown.

That gown was no ordinary gown.

The year we married, Adrian brought in a designer from overseas and reworked it through more than a dozen versions.

He chose the embroidery himself. The band of pearls at the waist, he picked out one by one, at my side.

At the last fitting, he stood behind the mirror and looked at me for a long time.

I asked him if it looked good.

He said it didn't.

I was so annoyed I started to take it off, but he wrapped his arms around me from behind and laughed under his breath.

"It's not the gown that looks good. My wife looks good in anything."

The night before the wedding, some woman slipped it on while I was away and took a few photos.

When Adrian found out, he had it stripped off her right then and there.

The next day, the company her father had run for over twenty years lost its funding, every partner canceled their contracts at once, and even the family's emigration paperwork was forced to a halt.

The woman knelt outside the hotel and cried all night, begging.

I thought it was too much and told him to let it go.

Adrian only said one thing. "She touched something she shouldn't have."

Afterward the gown was sent overseas to be remade, and the original one was destroyed.

He said he wouldn't have me wearing something someone else had worn.

But now he was asking me, in his own voice, where the gown was—only because Cecily wanted to wear it.