Chapter 6 Behind the Perfect Marriage

|•Marin• |

The silver executive town car was already waiting past the front portico of my parents' house when I stepped out onto the front steps in the late-morning light.

I expected the usual company driver, the polite, silent man Vane Enterprises always sent when Weston was too occupied to coordinate schedules himself. But as I reached the door, the glass slid down, revealing Weston sitting in the back.

My steps slowed before I could stop them.

He had sent the schedule and PR briefs exactly as promised, but he hadn't said a word about coming himself. Yet there he was, staring straight ahead, his tailored black suit filling the center of the leather interior.

Why?

Did he think I would run? Did he believe my family name was so fragile that I would break our written truce before the morning headlines had even dried? Or was this simply another way of making sure he remained in control until we reached the press hall?

I straightened and opened the door, slipping into the seat beside him.

He didn't turn toward me.

“The briefs are on the console,” he said.

"I've already read the digital file." I kept my gaze on the tinted window as the car pulled away from the gates. "I know where to stand, Weston. You don't need to monitor my breathing."

He said nothing.

The silence between us lasted as the city moved past the tinted windows.

My hand almost moved to my lower abdomen. I stopped myself and clasped my fingers around my clutch instead.

The medical slip from St. Gabriel's was safely locked in my bedroom drawer upstairs, but the memory of what I'd heard there was still fresh.

Two hours.

Fulfill my side of the agreement, endure the cameras, and move one step closer to the day he finally had to sign the papers.

The town car descended into the underground executive garage of Vane Enterprises.

Weston stepped out first. I followed him into the private executive elevator, and the doors closed, sealing us inside the polished steel and mirrors.

The ascent was rapid.

Weston stood with his eyes on the digital floor numbers above the doors. He didn't look at me, but his reflection was visible in the glass, his jaw set, a small muscle flickering near his cheek.

Four years of sharing a house, and somehow this small space felt more uncomfortable than any room we'd shared before.

"Grandfather asked about you this morning," he said.

My attention remained on his reflection.

"Tell him I'm all right." My voice softened despite myself. "Make sure he knows he doesn't need to worry about me today."

His gaze moved to my reflection for a moment.

Then the elevator chimed.

The doors opened onto the corporate corridor.

Instead of heading toward the press hall, Weston turned toward the executive green room. He pushed open the double doors.

My breath caught.

Eli was sitting alone on the plush rug beside the coffee table, completely absorbed in a coloring book. There was no sign of Serafina.

The boy looked up when we entered.

I held his gaze for a moment.

Seeing him again brought back the same uncomfortable ache I'd felt the first two times. My hand almost went to my stomach. I kept it at my side.

Weston walked past me and lowered himself beside the coffee table until he was level with Eli.

"We're going to take a short walk now," he said. "Hold my hand, stay beside us, and when we reach the podium, stay with me. All right?"

Eli nodded and slipped his small hand into Weston's.

Weston stood and held his other hand out toward me.

I didn't take it.

I simply moved to his side, and together, the three of us walked toward the press hall.

The moment we stepped onto the raised stage, fifty cameras turned toward us.

There were no chairs. Vane Enterprises wanted the image to be one of complete authority. We stood behind a large mahogany podium crowded with silver microphones, Eli positioned between us on a small fabric-covered riser.

The questions began immediately.

"Mrs. Vane! If the child is yours, why did you tell the media the rumors were completely unfounded?"

"Mr. Vane, did you hide your son's existence from the board until the birthday dinner?"

Weston leaned toward his microphone.

"The initial rumors were handled according to corporate security protocols. The timing of the announcement was an internal decision, not a reaction to leaks."

"But Mrs. Vane denied knowing the boy!" a reporter shouted from the center row. "Mrs. Vane, look at the cameras. Are you asking your investors to believe you simply forgot your own son?"

I placed my hand against the podium and leaned toward the microphone.

"I am saying that a high-pressure public ambush is not the place to negotiate our family's privacy. My response was a defense of my child's security, not a denial of his bloodline. The succession of Vane Enterprises remains entirely stable."

For twenty minutes, we held the line.

Weston handled the financial questions. I redirected the personal attacks toward corporate policy and investor confidence.

The PR strategy was working.

Then the side entrance opened.

I glanced toward it, expecting security or another board member.

Serafina stepped into the hall.

My attention locked on her.

Why was she here?

Eli had been alone in the green room. If Serafina hadn't been there with him, why had she come to the press conference?

Eli stood under the lights, growing restless after so long on the riser.

Then he saw her.

His entire face changed.

The instructions Weston had given him disappeared from his mind.

He climbed down from the riser and ran across the stage.

"Mom!"

His voice carried straight through the microphones.

He reached Serafina and threw his arms around her.

The press conference collapsed.

"Mom? Did he just say Mom?"

"Serafina Cole is the biological mother!"

Reporters pushed against the security barrier, microphones rising over one another.

"Mrs. Vane! Is the boy a fraud?"

"Are you covering for your husband's mistress?"

"Is this entire marriage a corporate lie?"

The questions came from every direction.

I tried to step back.

Then a sudden, violent pain seized my lower abdomen.

My hand flew to my stomach before I could stop it.

No. Not this one. Please, not this one.

The lights above the stage seemed to tilt.

The faces in front of me blurred together. The shouting became distant, swallowed by a rising roar in my ears.

My knees gave way.

I never reached the floor.

Weston caught me.

I felt his grip close around me as he pulled me away from the cameras.

He didn't wait for security to clear the path. He lifted me and carried me out of the hall while the press continued shouting behind us.

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|•Marin• |

The familiar scent of Weston's office reached me before I opened my eyes.

I blinked against the dim lighting of Weston's top-floor private executive office.

The roar of the media was gone, replaced by the muffled sound of the building's security systems.

I was lying on the long sofa near the windows.

I sat up too quickly.

Panic tightened my throat.

My hand went straight to my stomach.

The pain was gone.

I held my breath for a moment.

The baby was still there.

Relief washed through me so quickly that my eyes stung.

I closed them.

Saturday.

I'd only known since Saturday.

And already, my body had exposed me in front of half the company.

I lowered my hand.

Weston stood near his desk.

His tie had been loosened, his jacket thrown over the back of a chair.

He picked up a glass of water and walked toward me.

"Stay down."

"I'm fine."

"You collapsed."

"It was the heat under the lights." I accepted the glass from him. "And the stress."

"You went completely gray, Marin. I told you the room doesn't dictate what you can endure."

"I was handling the room."

I drank some water and set the glass beside me.

"So I don't need a lecture on my limits. It was your secrets that destroyed the presentation. Your strategy is what brought the walls down."

He didn't argue.

He returned to his desk, picked up a pen, and turned it between his fingers.

"Are you still taking those medications?" he asked, his voice detached, almost as though he were checking something he happened to remember. "The ones your specialist at St. Gabriel's prescribed?"

I froze.

Of all the things he could have remembered, it was the medication.

Dr. Roland had been managing my fertility treatment for years. Weston knew that. I had told him about the specialist I was seeing at St. Gabriel's, and the medication bottles had always been around the house.

But he had never asked about them.

After my first loss, he said nothing. After my second, the subject still never came up. He had never accompanied me to an appointment or asked what Dr. Roland had told me. As far as I knew, my treatment had registered with him only as another part of the life we shared under the same roof.

So why had he remembered the medication now?

For one terrifying second, I wondered whether he knew something had gone wrong.

Whether he had somehow found out about the pregnancy.

I pushed the thought away.

He couldn't know.

He had no reason to know.

"I take what I'm prescribed," I said carefully. "The fertility medication can make me dizzy sometimes. It was probably that, combined with the heat and stress."

Weston gave a small nod, his attention returning to the pen in his hand. I couldn't read anything from his face that could tell me whether the question carried any meaning beyond what he'd made it sound like.

"Whatever happens with my treatment has nothing to do with the company."

"I'm simply asking," he said.

His attention remained on the pen in his hand.

"The company needs to know if its strategy is sustainable."

"It's perfectly sustainable," I replied, standing up and tucking a loose strand of hair behind my ear. "Don't look for problems where they don't exist."

I turned my back on him, walked through the private doorway, and left him standing there.