Chapter 3 - Eden

“What…?” I could only blink, wondering for a moment if this was all just a nightmare, not knowing where my daughter was while Connor just stared at me with anger and resentment “What are you talking about…?”

“How do you even have the nerve to ask me that? Do you have any idea what you’ve done?” Connor ran his fingers through his hair, as he always did when he was frustrated. “Is that the kind of person you’ve always been? Sneaky? Or did you just think I wasn’t smart enough to see the obvious?”

“What’s going on, Connor?” I tried to ask again, scared. “Why are you acting like this?”

“How could you do this to me?” he growled, turning to look at me with a painful hatred in his eyes. “I trusted you, Eden! I was going to give you everything! For our baby!” His voice cracked. “Did you even think about how I would feel when Bowman showed up at that meeting and presented my formula as his, word for word? You know what that medicine meant to me! It was my life’s work! But I had to watch in silence as that bastard presented everything I worked so hard to get as his!”

“He… He stole your project?” I gasped. “How… How is that possible…?”

“Because you sold him out!” Connor yelled. “Did you really think you had me wrapped around your finger? That I was such an idiot that I didn’t even realize that you were the only one who could have done this? God, you know what’s worse, I actually thought that for a few hours.” He ran his hands over his face, looking angry not only at me, but at himself. 

“I tried to fool myself.” he continued to growl “I tried to convince myself that you loved me. That you would never do this to me. I called the damn lab Alexander hired for me, but they obviously weren’t to blame. How could they be? I never left any results there. The only place I ever kept my notes and samples was in our apartment.” He raised his hurt and accusatory eyes to me again. “With the only person I thought I could trust…”

“No, Connor!” I stammered, my mind still weak from the anesthesia, barely able to comprehend what was happening. “I… I would never do something like that…”

“You’ve trained me well, Eden. I almost believed you wouldn’t actually do it,” he spat, dismissive. “But then I checked your debts. Your college debts. The medical bills from when your mother was in a coma… Even the credit card payments from the amount we paid for the funeral. All magic gone. And there’s no use in you trying to pretend or convince me that I’m wrong. My father showed me everything.”

“Your father?” a terrible shiver ran through my body “He…?”

“Don’t you dare try to accuse my father, Eden!” Connor growled, cutting me off before I could even finish my question “He’s already going through enough without you trying to convince me that he’s guilty of your theft. I always thought he couldn’t be right about a single thing in his life…” His jaw was so tight I could see his veins throbbing.

“But in the end, he was right about you. I was just being used so you could get the money you needed. And now, thanks to my stupidity, my brother…” His voice trailed off again, and I could see his eyes fill with tears that Connor seemed to refuse to shed.

“What…?” I swallowed, my blood running cold. “What happened to Alexander?”

“He was supposed to be resting at his hotel, but the moment I called him to tell him what happened, he wanted to come back right away.” Connor straightened up, and the strength of anger in his gaze made my heart break. 

“He believed you, you know?” he said, his tone full of resentment “Even when my father showed me all the proof that you took thousands of dollars to pay off your debts behind my back, Alexander was still on the phone, telling me that this must be a mistake. That you wouldn’t do that… And then…” he gritted his teeth, clearly trying not to let the tears fall “We lost contact with him. We only found out an hour ago that lightning had struck the blade of his helicopter. The pilot couldn’t land in time and they crashed into a mountain.”

“No…” I gasped, my own eyes filling with tears “Alexander can’t be dead…”

“If you hadn’t done this…” Connor growled, glaring at me as if I were nothing more than a monster. “If you hadn’t ruined everything and made him come back to a time like that…”

“No, Connor!” Even though the pain in my stomach was making it difficult for me to move, I still struggled to sit up on the edge of the bed and reach for him. “Please! I didn’t do that! I would never…!”

“Don’t touch me!” he growled, slamming his arm away, and perhaps that gesture hurt me more than all his words “That’s enough, Eden! You wanted a rich, idiotic man from whom you could get the money you needed for your college education? Well, you got it! But if you’re even capable of feeling guilt, know you’ve managed to destroy not only my life, but the lives of my entire family! Alexander will never come home again, and I’ll always know that part of the blame is mine, for not believing everyone who tried to warn me about you.”

“Connor… Please… Listen to me…” 

“Even now, do you really think you could still fool me?” He gave a small smile, bitter and pained. “And you are. I’m so fucking pathetic. I had to prepare myself for hours, because I knew you would make this exact face. You would try to manipulate me with your tears, like I now realize you always did, until you managed to make me fall in love with you.” Connor shook his head, as if pushing away those memories. 

“But, not anymore. I will never forgive what you did. Never.” He growled, full of contempt “You took everything from me. My future. My brother. My…” He trailed off, his breathing erratic, as if something inside him was shattering.

“Connor…” I mumbled, realization and fear making my heart stop. “Where… Where is our baby?”

“My daughter…” he swallowed hard, a tear finally escaping his eye “My daughter is dead. They couldn’t save her in time.”

“No… No… No!” I mumbled, my trembling hands cupping my empty stomach as tears seemed to burn my face “No… Please…”

“She’ll be buried in my family cemetery, near my mother.” Connor said through gritted teeth, not looking at me “When you’re discharged, I’ll make sure one of my bodyguards escorts you there, on a day when the mansion is empty…”

“No, please…” I cried, unable to hear him, my chest feeling like it was ripping from the inside out as I stumbled away from the bed, nearly falling to the floor, when Connor’s arms suddenly reached out for me.

“Lie down!” he supported me, the alarm and concern in his expression making him look like the husband I had said goodbye to only hours or days ago “You’ve lost a lot of blood…”

“Please, Connor!” I grabbed him by the shirt, my voice barely making sense beneath the sobs. “Please, tell me this is a lie… Tell me she’s alive… Please…” I begged, the sound of my crying getting louder and louder, almost cutting off “It can't be true! I need to see her! I need to hold her!" I tried once more to stand, but my legs continued to shake as if they were no longer there "It can't be true...!"

“"Her body has already been taken to the morgue." Connor says, the words seeming to cut him from the inside out. "I haven't seen her yet either. I'll do it now. And, you..." I can hear the anger in his voice, but also the pity. "You can do that when you're better. Otherwise, you'll end up hemorrhaging again..."

"No!" I clutch his shirt, my hands shaking. "I want to see her! Now!"

"You're in no condition to do this, Eden! Don't make this any harder...!"

"It's my baby, Connor! Our baby!" I gasped through my tears, wishing I could shake him until he realized what he'd said. "She can't be dead! She was alive and moving just this morning! She can't be gone..." I looked deep into his eyes, wanting more than anything for him to falter, for him to have made a mistake or misunderstood the doctors' words...

But, he just stood there, staring at me like his heart had been ripped out, just like mine. "No..." I whimpered, the realization hitting me hard enough to nearly make me pass out again. "No... Annie... Please..."

For a moment, Connor just stood there holding me against his chest, looking as bewildered and heartbroken as I felt. And as he stared at me like that, as if he still loved me, I desperately yearned for his embrace. For the comfort he always gave me when something hurt. 

But after what seemed like an eternity of that pain and emptiness inside me, Connor gritted his teeth, gripping my arms tightly. And, as if forcing himself to do it, he placed me back on the bed, leaving me sitting there like I was nothing more than an object.

“Jane’s brother’s team will take care of you until you recover. That’s more than you deserve for me to do for you.” He murmured, cold and disgusted, as if looking at me was filling him with loathing.

“Jane?!” Just hearing her name made me gasp, flooding my mind with memories of when I arrived at the hospital. "Do you even have any idea what she did?" I sobbed "She tried to stop me from getting help! I was clearly having a miscarriage and yet...!" 

"Stop it, Eden!" he growled, his fury making me tremble. "Don't try to blame my daughter's death on anyone else! Much less Jane and her family! They did everything they could." 

"No, Connor!" I tried my best to regain control over myself to try to make him understand, but something inside me felt broken beyond repair "If it weren't for her, maybe..." 

"That's enough!" he didn't yell or growl, but the contempt in his voice was worse than if he had. "Save your lies for the next idiot you're going to fool “My lawyers will serve you with divorce papers today, but only them. Don’t ever come to me again, Eden Weston. That’s my only warning and you better take it seriously, because I won’t show mercy if you dare get in my way again.”

“Connor…” I tried to beg again, feeling like my heart was breaking as I watched him turn his back on me, walking towards the bedroom door “Please…”

The moment he put his hand on the doorknob, Connor hesitated for just a second, his face turned away from me. Even so, I knew him well enough to know that he was hurting as much as I was at that moment. 

But that still didn’t stop him from opening the door, and with one more step away from me, my husband, the man who had promised to love me forever, left me alone in that room.

"No, wait!" I begged, dragging myself along the sheets of the bed he had placed me on, ignoring the pain that each movement caused me "No, please! Connor! I need to see her! Please..."

I was able to stretch my legs forward, but the moment my feet touched the floor, my body just fell forward, completely without strength. The sutures sewing my belly stung as if I were being ripped apart again, but even so I tried to force my body to help me.

I needed to get out of there. I needed to hold my daughter at least once. I wanted to see her face and tell her how sorry I was for not being able to protect her. I wanted to tell her how much I loved her, before I let her go forever.

However, everyone seemed to have abandoned me at that moment, even my own body.

"Please..." I cried softly as I tried, unsuccessfully, to at least drag myself across the floor, to try to reach the door "Please... Connor..."

I didn't know how long I stayed like that, prostrate on the floor, without the strength to even crawl back into bed, until the bedroom door opened again. With a last spark of hope, I looked up, thinking that maybe Connor had thought clearly in the midst of all this madness and realized that I would never be able to betray him.

However, the man standing there was not my husband.

“What are you doing here?” I whined pathetically, not even having the strength to feel angry when I met those brown eyes, exactly like mine.

I hadn’t called Clyde Dixon Dad in over fifteen years. Not because he had been a cruel or abusive father during the time I had been with him. Maybe it was that detail that had made his absence so painful. 

One day he was putting me on his shoulders and letting me play with his paints, and the next… he was simply gone. Gone to pursue a dream of grandeur that didn’t fit with a wife and a child. At least not until he decided he wanted to have a family again. 

It was a shame it had taken him over a decade to make up his mind.

"Eden?! Eden, what happened?" Clyde gasped, running over to me to pick me up and carry me to the bed "Oh, God. Are you in any pain? Are you bleeding anywhere? What's wrong with the people in this place? There should be a nurse with you..."

"What are you doing here, Clyde?" I asked again, wincing in pain as my back hit the mattress.

“I… I know I’m the only person you want to see…” he stuttered, his face haggard as if he hadn’t slept in a while. “But when I heard what had happened to you… And after I found Connor’s father out there…”

“I didn’t do that!” I started hyperventilating, holding my head in my hands, feeling like I was about to collapse “I would never…”

“It’s okay, little bee…” Clyde stepped closer “I know that. I’ve tried to explain it to that bastard, but he just won’t listen.” He growled, furious “I can’t believe that idiot just lost his granddaughter, just like me. He hasn't even let me see her yet. He seems incapable of feeling anything.”

“I didn’t do it…” I kept repeating, unable to do anything else.

“It’s going to be okay, honey.” Clyde murmured, gently placing his hands on my shoulders “Listen, I know we haven’t fixed things yet, but… Please, let me take care of you. You need medical and psychological attention after today…” his voice cracked. “I know I wasn’t able to do that when you were a child, but… Please. You don’t have to forgive me. You don’t even have to talk to me. Just… I can’t leave you alone, little bee. Not again.”

Slowly, Clyde pulled me closer, until he wrapped me in a hug. And, as weak and heartbroken as I was at that moment, I couldn't even pull away. 

I just stood there, crying, my hands touching my empty belly, my wedding ring shining in the light as I felt the pain increase as I realized that Clyde was right about something.

I was alone, now. Completely alone.