01 Standing Alone On The Red Carpet

Elena’s POV

The little plastic stick felt ridiculously heavy in my palm with two stubborn and unmistakable lines staring back at me from the white counter, mocking the frantic rhythm of my heartbeat.

I pressed a trembling hand against my stomach, letting out a breath I didn’t realize I’d been holding.

After three years of quiet disappointment it was finally real. I was going to give Julian the family he always pretended to want and tonight... amidst the glitz of the annual Sterling Gala... I was going to hand him the best birthday present of his life.

My fingers flew over my hair in the vanity mirror, tucking a rebellious strand behind my ear.

“Okay,” I whispered to my reflection, smoothing down my dress. “Deep breaths. No fainting.”

The grandfather clock in the hallway chimed eight times. He was supposed to be pulling into the driveway at seven to pick me up.

I grabbed my clutch, slipped the test into it and headed down the stairs when my phone buzzed against my palm with a single text from Julian: 'Traffic is a nightmare. Be there in five.'

Five minutes stretched into twenty and by the time the familiar sound of his car rumbled up the driveway, the edge of worry had already begun to prick at my excitement.

I hurried out to the porch, pulling my wrap tighter against the evening air and eager to slide into the passenger seat and bury my secret in his arms.

I pulled the door open with the cool night breeze chasing me and froze.. the front passenger seat wasn’t empty.

Bianca sat there with her dark and mournful eyes staring straight ahead through the windshield, clutching a black shawl tightly around her shoulders like a shroud.

My hand tightened on the door handle as my chest hollowed out.

“Elena,” Julian said tightly as he leaned across the console to push the passenger door open for me. “Get in. We’re already unforgivably late.”

“Julian,” I managed with my voice sticking somewhere near my collarbone as I slid into the back seat. “I thought… I thought you were coming alone.”

“I was,” Julian answered with his eyes flicking to the rearview mirror to catch my reflection. There was no warmth in them only the dull and bone-weary fatigue that had lived there ever since his best friend, Marcus died. “Then I got a call from Bianca’s housekeeper. She had another spell and se couldn’t breathe, El. What was I supposed to do, leave her sitting on her kitchen floor?”

“No,” I said, staring hard at the back of his head. “Of course not.”

'Of course not.' Those three words were becoming my entire vocabulary.

Bianca turned slightly in her seat with her pale fingers resting delicately against the armrest near Julian’s elbow.

“I’m so sorry to intrude, Elena,” she murmured with her voice carrying that fragile trembling little-bird quality that made everyone around her feel like a monster for breathing too loudly. “I just… I couldn’t bear the thought of being alone tonight. The anniversary of Marcus’s passing is only a week away and the walls in that big house just start closing in.”

I forced a tight and polite smile though my stomach churned... and not just from the pregnancy hormones. “It’s fine, Bianca. Really.”

“You’re an angel,” she whispered, turning back around with a faint and tragic sigh.

For the next twenty minutes, the car was filled exclusively with the soft mournful cadence of Bianca’s voice as she talked about Marcus and how lost she was without him. Every single time I opened my mouth to steer the topic toward us... toward the little miracle resting quietly in my purse... Julian would nod, offer a murmur of sympathy and completely drown me out.

By the time the car slowed to a crawl outside the grand hotel, my chest felt like it was trapped in a vice.

Flashing camera bulbs strobed against the tinted windows like lightning strikes as a wall of reporters and photographers surged forward the moment Julian killed the ignition.

Julian stepped out first, adjusting his cuffs with practiced ease but didn’t offer his hand to me. Instead, he walked around the car and opened the passenger door for Bianca, offering her his arm with the gentle and protective reverence of a devoted husband.

My heartbeat increased painfully. 'Now,' I told myself. 'Before the cameras eat us alive.'

I shoved my door open, scurried around the vehicle and caught Julian by the sleeve just as Bianca leaned into his side.

“Julian,” I said with my voice dropping as I flashed a blinding camera-ready smile while my fingers frantically unzipped my clutch. “Can I talk to you for just one second? Over here.”

Julian frowned with his dark eyebrows knitting together as the press shouted his name from behind the ropes.

“Not now, Elena. Can’t you see we’re swamped? The board members are already waiting inside.”

“It’ll take five seconds,” I insisted with my hand closing around the the test inside my bag. “Please. It’s important.”

Before he could answer, Bianca let out a sharp gasp and her knees buckled beneath her.

“Julian,” she cried out with her fingers digging desperately into his tuxedo jacket as she slumped against his chest. “I… I can’t. The lights… they’re too bright. I can’t breathe.”

Panic burned instantly in Julian’s eyes as the irritation vanished, replaced entirely by that fierce knee-jerk instinct to protect her that always left me standing out in the cold.

“Bianca? Hey, look at me.” Julian dropped my arm without a second thought, wrapping both arms around her waist to keep her from collapsing onto the red carpet. “Breathe with me. Deep breaths.”

“The side entrance,” she sobbed into his lapel. “Please, Julian. Get me out of here.”

“I’ve got you,” he said with his gaze darting frantically toward the hotel’s private doors down the side alley.

He didn’t look at me and didn’t even ask if I was okay. With Bianca clinging desperately to his neck, he swept her off her feet and practically carried her away from the flashing lights, disappearing down the quiet shadowed corridor in a matter of seconds.

The camera flashes continued to pop, blinding me in the cool night air.

I stood alone on the edge of the red carpet with a frozen smile across my face while reporters shouted questions about Sterling Industries’ latest acquisitions.

Slowly, my hand dropped from my clutch where the two blue lines stayed hidden in the dark…

 

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