CHAPTER 6 — UNEXPECTED REVELATIONS

POV: Yessica | Location: New York

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Lewis left for Dubai on a Tuesday.

He stood in the guest room doorway at six AM with his luggage behind him and his coat on, and he looked at her in the bed with the IV bruise still visible on her arm, and he said:

"I'll call every day."

"Okay," she said.

"If anything changes—"

"I'll contact Dr. Patel immediately."

"And you'll call me."

"Yes."

He lingered. The specific hovering of a man who knew the right thing to do and couldn't quite make himself do it.

"Lewis." She looked at him. "The car is waiting."

He left.

She heard the elevator. Then nothing.

The penthouse expanded around her into its usual enormous silence.

---

Bed rest was a particular kind of prison.

Not the physical constraint — she could move, she could sit up, she could walk to the kitchen and back. The prison was the stillness. The enforced proximity to her own thoughts with nothing to fill the space between them.

She lay in the guest room and watched the ceiling and counted hours.

Lewis called the first day. Twelve minutes. He asked about the bleeding — better, barely any now — and about the follow-up appointment — Thursday, Dr. Patel's office — and said good, that's good in the voice of a man checking items off a list.

He asked about the baby once. How is she?

Not she. He said it.

"She's fighting," Yessica said.

A pause. Then: "Right. Good."

The call ended at minute twelve.

Day two he called for six minutes. The Dubai meeting had run long. He was exhausted. Everything was going well. He'd call tomorrow.

Day three, he didn't call.

---

Pippa arrived at eleven on Wednesday morning with soup and magazines and the particular expression of a woman who had been held back for three days and was now releasing all of it through controlled efficiency.

"You look terrible," she said.

"Bed rest," Yessica said.

"For what?"

She hadn't planned to tell her. Dr. Patel had said to wait until the pregnancy was more stable. But Pippa was sitting on the edge of her bed looking at her with twelve years of friendship in her eyes, and Yessica was alone in an enormous apartment and had been alone in it for three days, and the silence had become physically unbearable.

"I had a threatened miscarriage," she said. "Four days ago."

Pippa went white.

"The baby is stable. Better. But I have to rest." She looked at her hands. "I've been alone here since Tuesday morning."

Pippa didn't say anything.

She took Yessica's hand. Held it. Let the silence sit without trying to fix it.

That was why Yessica had loved her for twelve years.

"I'm leaving him," Yessica said.

The words came out quietly. Without drama. Like a decision she'd made weeks ago and was only now saying aloud.

"After the baby is born. After I know she's safe." She looked at Pippa. "I can't do this anymore. I'm disappearing. I can feel it — every week there's less of me than the week before. And he doesn't notice. He's never going to notice."

Pippa squeezed her hand. "Are you sure?"

"I've never been more sure of anything."

"What about—"

"The baby deserves better than this." Yessica looked at the ceiling. "Better than a father who's home twelve minutes a day and forgets which year it is. Better than parents who perform a marriage for social functions." She paused. "Better than me pretending I'm okay when I'm not."

"Where will you go?"

Edinburgh.

The word was immediate. The answer she'd had since before she'd known she needed it.

"I'll figure that out," she said.

---

Lewis came back from Dubai on a Tuesday.

Eight days. He'd called twice after the first day — once for four minutes, once not at all because the time difference made it complicated.

He appeared in the guest room doorway with his luggage and his coat and the face of a man returning from a war that had gone well.

"Hey. How are you feeling?"

"Better," Yessica said.

"And the baby?"

"The heartbeat is stronger. Dr. Patel is cautiously optimistic."

"Good." He set down his bag. Looked around the room. "You need anything? Maria can get groceries—"

"I'm fine."

He lingered again. The same doorway, the same hovering.

Something was different about him. She studied his face. He seemed lighter — the specific lightness of someone who had been away from a problem long enough to believe it had resolved itself.

"Singapore looks good," he said. "The preliminary meetings went better than expected. Harrington's signing next week. This could really be—"

"Lewis." She looked at him. "I'm glad the meetings went well."

He heard the flatness in it. "I know I should have called more."

"It's fine."

"It's not fine. I—"

"Lewis." She sat up properly. "I'm tired. I'm going to sleep." She held his gaze. "We can talk tomorrow."

He nodded. Reached for his luggage. Stopped.

"Yessica. I need to ask you something."

"Ask."

"The box." He looked at the nightstand. The drawer was closed. "The silver box you had on the anniversary. You said you had something to tell me." A pause. "You never told me what it was."

She looked at the drawer.

At the wooden surface. At the brass handle.

Three weeks she'd been carrying it. The test. The heartbeat. She's fighting. All of it folded into a silver box in a drawer while he was in Dubai and she was learning to exist alone.

She looked at him.

He was watching her with something that wasn't his usual controlled expression. Something more open. More afraid of the answer than he wanted to show.

"It can wait," she said.

"You said it was important."

"It was." She lay back against the pillow. "Goodnight, Lewis."

He stood in the doorway for a long moment.

Then he picked up his bag.

Walked out.

She listened to his footsteps down the hall. The master bedroom door. The click of the latch.

She opened the nightstand drawer.

The silver box was still there.

She took the test out. Held it.

Two pink lines.

"He asked," she told the ceiling. "He actually asked." She pressed her hand to her stomach. Felt the solid reality of it — eight weeks and six days now, a heartbeat that had gotten stronger while its father was in Dubai learning whether a deal would close.

"I'm going to tell him," she said. "Tomorrow. I'll tell him tomorrow."

She set the test back in the box.

Put the box in the drawer.

Closed it.

At two AM, she heard Lewis's voice from down the hall again.

A call. She couldn't make out the words this time. Just the tone — business, familiar, comfortable. The voice he used with people he trusted.

Then a laugh. Low, genuine. The laugh she hadn't heard from him in over a year.

She looked at the ceiling.

Took her phone off the nightstand.

Opened the folder labelled Edinburgh.

Opened the contact for Rafferty Montague below it.

Didn't call.

But she typed a message and saved it as a draft.

I need the referral you mentioned. Family law. When you have a moment.

She locked the phone.

Looked at the drawer.

Tomorrow, she thought.

She wasn't sure anymore which she meant.