Chapter 2

I threw myself into the thick, thorny hedges just as the patio door swung open.

"Who's there?" Terrence barked.

I held my breath. The thorns tore at my soaked skin, but I didn't make a single sound.

I pressed my hands over my mouth, my heart hammering a frantic, terrifying rhythm against my ribs.

Terrence stood on the patio for a long, agonizing moment, his eyes scanning the darkness. Finally, he muttered a curse, blaming the wind, and went back inside to his perfect, stolen family.

I scrambled out of the bushes and ran. I ran through the freezing rain until my lungs burned, until I reached a main road and flagged down a passing cab.

By the time I walked through the front doors of our silent, empty house, my sorrow had completely vanished. It was replaced by a cold, lethal clarity.

Two hours later, the front door clicked open.

Terrence walked in. He looked exhausted, playing the part of the overworked, stressed husband to absolute perfection. But as he walked past me to take off his coat, the scent hit me like a physical blow.

Vanilla and sweet jasmine. Denise’s signature perfume.

"You're still awake," Terrence sighed, loosening his tie without even looking at me. "I told you, the board meeting ran late. It was a nightmare."

"Terrence," I whispered, my voice trembling with a perfectly calculated fragility. "Do you ever think about him?"

He froze. His broad shoulders stiffened.

"Do you ever think about our baby?" I asked, looking up at him with tear-filled eyes. "Today is his birthday. Do you ever wonder what he would look like?"

"Are you seriously doing this right now?" he roared. "I work a fourteen-hour day to provide for you, and I come home to this pathetic, suffocating guilt trip?"

"I just miss him," I choked out, playing the broken wife.

"He is dead, Shay!" Terrence shouted, stepping toward me with lethal aggression. "He is dead because your body was too weak to carry him! You failed as a mother before he even took his first breath!"

If I hadn't stood in the freezing rain and heard the truth with my own ears, those words would have destroyed me.

"You are completely unhinged," Terrence sneered, looking down at me with absolute disgust. "You are crazy, Shay. Your grief is a disease, and it is destroying this marriage. I am sick of living in a graveyard."

He turned his back on me and marched upstairs to the master bedroom.

I sat in the dark living room, listening to the heavy slam of the bathroom door and the hiss of the shower turning on.

A raw, agonizing memory flashed in my mind. Denise.

When I was pregnant, she was my rock. She was the sweet, innocent nanny we had hired in adHolls to help set up the nursery. She held my hair back when I was sick. She rubbed my swollen feet. She smiled at me with those wide, innocent eyes, telling me I was going to be the most wonderful mother in the world.

And the entire time, she was sleeping with my husband in my own home.

They were plotting to steal my child right out of my womb.

I walked silently up the stairs and slipped past the master bedroom. I pushed open the heavy oak door to Terrence’s private home office.

I didn't know exactly what I was looking for, but a man as arrogant as Terrence always kept his trophies close. I tore through his mahogany desk. I checked the drawers, the filing cabinets, the leather binders. Nothing.

Then, I looked up at the wall.

Hanging perfectly in the center was our massive, framed wedding photo. Terrence was smiling, holding my hands. It was the ultimate lie.

I walked over and pulled the heavy frame to the side.

A sleek, steel wall safe stared back at me.

My heart hammered against my ribs. I stared at the digital keypad. Terrence was a creature of habit, but he wouldn't use my birthday. He wouldn't use our anniversary.

I typed in Denise’s birthday.

Error.

I swallowed hard, my hands shaking. I thought about the balloons. The cake. The party I had just witnessed.

I typed in today’s date. Jiro’s birthday.

The heavy steel door swung open.

I reached inside, my fingers brushing against a thick folder. I pulled it out and dumped the contents onto the polished wood of the desk. Resting on top was a pristine, official birth certificate.

Name: Jiro.

Mother: Shay.

Beneath it was a certified DNA test from a private clinic. The black text at the bottom of the page was bold and undeniable.

Probability of Maternity: 99.9%.

I pressed my hand over my mouth, staring at the absolute proof that my boy was alive. He was mine.

But the betrayal didn't stop there.

I flipped to the next stack of papers. They were legal property deeds. Terrence had forged my signature. He was quietly, systematically transferring the deeds to my family’s generational estate—the home my parents left me—directly into Denise’s name.

I gathered the papers, my hands shaking with a terrifying rage. I was going to take these documents to the police. I was going to watch them drag Terrence out of this house in handcuffs.

Before I could take a single step toward the door, the heavy brass handle slowly turned.

The locked door swung open.

I froze, the documents clutched tightly to my chest.

Standing in the doorway was Denise. Resting on her hip, fast asleep with his small head buried in her neck, was a little boy.

He had my dark hair. He had my nose.

Jiro. My son.

Denise looked at me, her eyes dropping to the open safe and the papers in my hands. A cold, wicked smile curled across her perfectly painted lips.

"Terrence gave me a key," Denise whispered. She stroked my sleeping son's hair, looking me dead in the eye. "I just came to check on you, my sweet friend."