Chapter 2

It was a pregnancy report.

The patient's name was Marielle Rousseau.

And the gestational age printed beneath it was three weeks.

Dorian stared at the numbers. Marielle had already undergone artificial insemination without his knowledge. She was pregnant with Elias Bruckner's child.

She hadn't been trying to obtain his permission at all. So why had she spent the last month demanding it? To convince herself she'd done nothing wrong?

His legs buckled. He sank to the floor, his chest constricting so sharply he could barely breathe.

No wonder she'd looked so happy after that call. She must have learned the procedure had worked. She was probably at the hospital celebrating with Elias now.

Dorian closed his eyes. The woman he'd loved for most of his life was carrying another man's baby.

Only two months ago, he'd proposed. She'd said yes. He'd already reserved her wedding dress and booked the hotel well in advance. He'd imagined taking her hand as they walked down the aisle.

Now those plans dissolved into nothing.

His phone buzzed. He answered without looking.

"Dorian?" It was Natalie Brennan, who'd been a few years ahead of him in grad school. "I know you're about to get married, but I wanted to ask one more time. Are you absolutely sure you won't join our new lab?"

She continued before he could respond. "Professor Whitcomb still says you're the most gifted student he's ever supervised. He wants you on the team. Since you'll be newly married, he's even offered a special arrangement: two months on-site, then two weeks off to see your wife."

Six months earlier, Professor Leonard Whitcomb, his former adviser, had invited him to join a new high-security research facility outside New Carden.

Once a project began, the scientists would live and work inside the facility with no contact with the outside world until that phase ended. Sometimes that meant a month or two. Sometimes it meant one or two years.

Dorian had refused. The thought of being away from Marielle for that long, unable even to speak to her, had been unbearable.

Now he pictured the pregnancy report.

Marielle had never considered what her decision meant for their marriage. There was no reason to have that wedding at all.

He gripped the phone.

"I'd like to accept," he said. "And I won't need the special leave. I'll follow the project's normal schedule."

"That's wonderful! Professor Whitcomb will be thrilled. When can you come? A week after the wedding? You could still have your honeymoon."

"No. On the wedding day."

He glanced at the calendar on the table. He'd circled the tenth in thick red marker, a reminder of the day he'd dreamed about for years.

It had become something else: a countdown to his departure.

Fifteen days.

He would give himself those final fifteen days to say goodbye to a love he'd carried for more than twenty years.

After that, he would never see Marielle again.