Chapter 2

I checked myself out four days after surgery.

Kieran didn't come. He sent a driver with an oversized wool coat and a note.

[There's trouble along the northern border. I'll be home as soon as I've handled it. Don't be mad. Get some rest.]

He didn't even know I no longer needed maternity clothes.

Naomi drove me back to the Alpha House. The second I stepped into the living room, Vivienne's cedar perfume hit me.

Her suitcases stood at the foot of the stairs. A bottle of anti-anxiety medication sat on the coffee table, and a pale gray jacket that wasn't mine had been tossed across the sofa.

The housekeeper came forward, twisting her hands. "Ms. Vivienne said the lakeside villa reminds her of the crash. Mrs. Blackwood invited her to stay here for a while, and the Alpha agreed."

"Which room is she using?"

The housekeeper's silence was answer enough.

I climbed to the second floor and opened the main bedroom door. Vivienne was sitting at my vanity in my navy silk robe, arranging her skincare in my drawer.

She stood quickly. "Aria, you're home. I was going to take a guest room, but the rooms downstairs are closer to the staff. My doctor said if I lose control again at night, someone needs to be able to give me a suppressant shot right away."

The main bedroom was upstairs. I looked at the open suitcase beside her feet. "So you picked my room?"

"Kieran said you could use the third-floor suite for now. It's quieter up there, which is better for the baby."

Her gaze dropped to the coat hanging loose around my body and lingered for half a heartbeat. She knew.

Maybe she hadn't heard the doctor say it, but she had seen the blood beneath me after the crash. She had heard my unanswered calls while Kieran's phone sat in her hand. No woman could look at another woman four days after that much blood and truly believe nothing had changed.

"Did the hospital contact Kieran?" I asked.

Her careful smile faltered. "He was busy calming my wolf. Later, I told him the rescue crew said you weren't in immediate danger."

"That isn't what I asked. Did the hospital call him?"

She lowered her eyes. "His phone kept ringing, but the medication left me out of it. I don't remember who called. Aria, I was terrified."

Whenever Vivienne said she was scared, everyone around her was expected to stop asking questions.

I didn't fight her for the bedroom. Instead, I walked down the hall and opened the nursery, and my breath caught.

The crib and changing table were gone. So was the star projector Kieran and I had hung beneath the ceiling. In their place were padded floor mats, a yoga ball, an essential-oil diffuser, a mood chart, and warm amber motion lights.

Vivienne followed me to the door. "My therapist said I need a safe room without sharp furniture. Kieran thought it made sense. The baby isn't due for more than two months, so there was plenty of time to move everything back."

My baby would never come home.

And the room that should have been waiting for him had already been turned into a sanctuary for the woman his father chose.

"Where are the baby's things?"

"Mrs. Blackwood had them donated to the pack relief center. She said you could buy new things when you need them."

I faced the housekeeper. "Send me the donation inventory and the delivery receipt."

Vivienne's brows pinched before she smoothed her expression. I saw it anyway.

That night, I slept in the third-floor guest suite. Every tug along my incision brought back the flat line on the monitor.

Sometime after midnight, I went downstairs and opened the study safe. I removed my medical records, the deeds for my premarital property, and the forensic accounting license I hadn't used in four years.

When I became Luna, Kieran had told me pack business would take most of my time. He asked me to put my career on hold and promised complete transparency in our joint finances. He also promised there would always be a place for me in his home.

[Promises were good for one thing: showing you exactly how stupid you'd been to believe them.]

I packed the documents, logged in to our joint accounts, and downloaded four years of statements.

The charges kept coming. Rent on the lakeside villa. Vivienne's private therapy. Her mother's assisted-living bills. The debt her younger brother had racked up after his business failed. Kieran had paid all of it from accounts that belonged to both of us.

The total was far higher than I had imagined.

Worse, the transfers weren't random favors. They appeared every month, approved under Kieran's name and described as household obligations. On paper, Vivienne's entire life had been quietly folded into our marriage while my own career and income had been stripped out of it.

Footsteps sounded in the hall, and I closed the laptop.

Vivienne appeared in the doorway with a mug of warm milk. "Still awake? You shouldn't work this late while you're pregnant."

For the first time, her concern struck me as more vicious than any open insult.

"You're right." I accepted the mug, then poured the milk into the large planter beside the door. "I shouldn't waste another minute on people who aren't worth it."