CHAPTER 1: FIVE YEARS, ONE CRUEL SURPRISE

His phone went straight to voicemail again.

"You have reached Damien Sinclair. Leave a message."

I hung up before the beep. I had already left four.

Nine fifteen. Our fifth anniversary, and the chair across from mine was still empty.

"Marta." I pressed my fingers to my temple. "Please put the steak back in the pan. One minute on each side. I want it fresh when he walks in."

"Ma'am, that is the third time." She said it softly, like I might shatter. "It will dry out."

"Then I will cut it for him myself." I laughed, and it sounded thin. "He likes it medium rare. Do not let it turn gray."

Marta looked at me a second too long. Then she took the plate and left without a word.

The sizzle drifted in from the kitchen. I breathed it in like it could fix something.

Ten minutes later I called him again. Voicemail. My thumb hovered over a text. Where are you? Delete. I miss you. Delete. Please come home. I deleted that one fastest.

I sat. Stood. Straightened a candle that was already straight. The emerald silk clung to my back, the same dress he once whispered about, saying it was the one he pictured when he imagined our future.

Tonight, I would ask him for a baby. Five years of "when the time is right." Surely the time had come.

My hands trembled when I thought about it. Good trembling. The kind that made me press my lips together so I would not grin at an empty room.

The front door opened.

I was in the foyer before I could think, heels skidding on marble, a smile already stretching my face.

"Damien! Finally. I was so worried, I called you, I..."

He did not hug me. His eyes did not even drop to the dress.

"Amelia." Flat. Cold. Like a stranger reading my name off a list.

My smile wobbled. "Happy anniversary."

He looked at the hand I had lifted toward his face. I let it fall.

"We need to talk."

"Now? Damien, I cooked all day. The steak is"

"Amelia."

One word, and my stomach dropped.

"Of course. Dinner is ready, Marta is just warming the"

My voice died, because he stepped aside.

Vanessa Reed. His assistant. Camel coat, polished smile, one hand wrapped around the hand of a little boy in a navy coat.

"Vanessa?" My fingers found the doorframe. "What is going on?"

"Let us go into the living room." Damien walked past me as if I were a coat rack. "Vanessa, Lucas, sit."

They did. Right away. Vanessa lowered herself onto the cream sofa, my sofa, and the boy climbed up beside her like he had sat there a hundred times before.

Damien sat on the arm of the sofa, right beside them. Not near me. Near them.

I stayed on my feet. My heels felt glued to the carpet.

"Vanessa." I forced my voice level. "What are you doing in my house this late?"

"Mrs. Sinclair, I"

"Is there trouble at the office?" The words tumbled out, desperate, because trouble at the office I could survive. "Did something happen? Is it the board? Damien, tell me."

"There is no trouble at the office."

"Then why is she here?" I looked at the boy. At his navy coat, his sleepy eyes, the thumb creeping toward his mouth. My stomach turned over. "And who is this child?"

Nobody answered.

The clock in the hall ticked once. Twice.

Damien reached over and rested his palm on the boy's head. Gently. Like he had done it a thousand times.

"This is Lucas," he said. "My son."

The words did not make sense. I heard them the way you hear a voice underwater.

"Your what?"

"My son. He is four."

The floor lurched. I grabbed the side table, and our wedding photo toppled face down.

"That is not funny."

"I am not joking."

"Four years?" My breath snagged. "Four years, Damien? While you ate my cooking? While you kissed me goodnight?"

"It was not personal."

"Not personal." I stared at him. "I washed your shirts. I sat awake waiting for you every night you said you were working late."

"And I came home every night, did I not?"

He said it like that should have been enough.

"Lower your voice. The boy is tired."

The boy is tired.

My vision tunneled. Black crept in at the edges, and my knees turned to water. I slid down the side table until my shoulder hit the wall.

"Mommy, is the lady sick?" Lucas whispered.

"Shh, baby." Vanessa tucked him against her leg. Her eyes held mine, and there was no apology in them. Only patience. The patience of a woman who had already won.

"Amelia, get up." Damien did not move to help me. "You are embarrassing yourself."

I dragged myself upright. My hands shook so badly I pressed them flat against my stomach, trying to hold my own body together.

"Why?" I asked. "Just tell me why."

"You know why."

"No, I do not." My voice cracked on the last word. "I do not know anything anymore."

"I needed an heir, Amelia. Lucas is mine. He will carry the Sinclair name."

Something inside me went very quiet.

"An heir," I said.

"Yes."

"I had your baby once."

His jaw tightened. "Do not start."

"I had your baby, Damien." The tears came now, hot and fast, and I let them. "You sat on our bed. You held my face. You told me we were not ready, that we had time, that we would have children when the time was right."

"That was years ago."

"I did what you told me to do!" It tore out of me, raw. "I removed our child. I went into that clinic alone because you had a meeting. I lay on that table staring at the ceiling, and I swore I would never forgive myself, and I did it anyway. For you."

Vanessa's smile slipped. Just for a second.

Damien did not flinch. He studied me the way he studied a failing contract.

"Say something," I choked. "Tell me you remember. Tell me it hurt you too."

"It was a business decision, Amelia. You made it. Not me."

"You made me make it!"

"And it was the right decision," he said.

The air left my lungs.

"What did you say?"

"You were never going to be the mother of my heir." He said it calmly. So calmly. "Look at yourself. Weak. Sentimental. Crying in the middle of the living room like a child. You were not worth carrying my son, Amelia."

I could not breathe.

Five years. Five years of ironing his shirts and soothing his temper and swallowing every ache, and he had just tossed me aside like an old coat.

My chest felt hollow, scraped out with a spoon. I pressed my knuckles against my mouth so I would not make a sound.

"Say that again," I whispered.

"I think you heard me."

I stared at his mouth. The mouth I had kissed this morning. The mouth that had promised me a future.

"Whose idea was it?" My voice shook. "Was it always going to be her? Was I only ever keeping the seat warm?"

Vanessa lifted her chin. Damien said nothing.

That silence hurt worse than any answer.

"Say something," I begged. I hated myself for begging. "Anything. Lie to me, if you have to."

He glanced at his watch.

His watch.

The tears dripped off my chin onto the green silk. I pressed my lips together to stop a sob, and still it escaped, small and ugly in the quiet hall.

A tiny hand tugged at my skirt.

Lucas. Looking up at me with wide, confused eyes.

"Why is the lady crying?" he asked.

And Damien, without even looking at me, said, "Because she is about to lose everything, son."