Chapter 3

That evening, the foundation's website posted an announcement.

Star & Grace Children's Trust would, effective immediately, be represented by Ms. Nora Shaw as interim brand ambassador. Ms. Grace Miller was stepping back from all related duties due to health reasons.

I sat in the back of a taxi and read that line.

For the first time, I didn't bother explaining that it wasn't because of "health reasons."

I simply moved the divorce consultation my lawyer had sent me to the following morning.

I rented a small apartment near the hospital.

It wasn't much. One bedroom, one living area.

When I moved, I took only my documents, my bank cards, and a few changes of clothes.

I didn't even take the music box Adrian had bought for the baby.

That afternoon, Adrian finally came back from the mountains.

He didn't go to the hospital. He went straight to the villa.

Half an hour later, Miles called to say the Boss had already tracked down my address.

"Mrs. Moretti, the Boss would like to see you. He says you're welcome to bring your lawyer and come back to the villa to talk."

I sat on the floor beside boxes I hadn't yet unpacked, a loose-knit cardigan draped over my shoulders.

The wound on my abdomen ached faintly. I pressed my hand against it without thinking.

"Tell him I'm not going back."

"Mrs. Moretti, the Boss just got home and he's not in a good mood. This will only make things harder to resolve."

"The things that are hard to resolve aren't my doing."

Less than ten minutes after I hung up, the doorbell rang.

Adrian stood outside, Miles and a stylist behind him, a few beautifully wrapped boxes in his hands.

He wore the black overcoat he'd changed into after returning to the city, the cold of the mountains still clinging to his shoulders.

When he stepped inside, though, the first thing he looked at was my feet.

"The floor's cold. Why aren't you wearing socks?"

He frowned and began to take off his coat to drape over me.

I stepped back.

The coat landed on the arm of the sofa.

His hands hung suspended in the air, as if it were the first time he realized I was no longer standing where I used to be.

His gaze traveled from my pale face to the oversized cardigan, and the crease between his brows didn't smooth out.

"Have you been to the hospital?"

"Yes."

"What did they say?"

"The doctor told me to rest."

I wasn't lying.

I just didn't tell him that the rest the doctor meant was recovery after losing a child.

"Why didn't you have the doctor send the report to Miles?"

"It's my medical file."

"Grace, I'm just worried about you and the baby."

I looked up at him.

"When I called you seventeen times, you weren't this worried."

His face stiffened slightly.

"I told you, I didn't know it was serious. Last week you also—"

"So this time, you chose not to believe me."

He lowered his voice. "I didn't not believe you. I just thought there were people at home. The driver and the nurse were both there. You'd be fine."

But the driver had been reassigned to pick up Nora's filming equipment, and the nurse had taken the day off yesterday.

I looked at him and said nothing more.

Even now, he was still searching for an acceptable reason for that night.

But that night no longer needed a reason.

Miles held out a photograph.

In it, a misty-blue crib sat in the room next to the master bedroom, the mobile I'd picked out six years ago hanging from its frame.

"The crib's been delivered," Adrian said. "The color and dimensions are exactly what you chose. If you don't like the rest, we can swap everything out."

I didn't take the photo.

"Take it back."

"Why?"

"I don't need it."

He took that as something said in anger.

"If you don't want it right now, just leave it. Once the baby's born, you'll need it."

My fingers curled tighter and tighter inside my sleeve.

He still believed the baby was going to be born.

Still believed that as long as the room, the crib, and the gifts were ready, those seventeen unanswered phone calls could be reduced to an ordinary argument.

I didn't correct him.

Not to punish him. Not to wait for him to humiliate himself in front of everyone.

I simply realized, all at once, that I was no longer obligated to fill in the truth he had missed with his own hands.