CHAPTER 4.

Sabrina’s POV.

Seven days.

I had been staring at the same water stain on the hospital ceiling for seven days.

The doctors called it a recovery. They told me I was lucky to be alive, that the hemorrhage had been severe. But as I lay there, tangled in starched, antiseptic-smelling sheets, I didn’t feel lucky. I felt like a hollowed-out shell.

Six times. That was the tally now. Six little heartbeats that had flickered and faded within me over seven years.

Cole had been the one to hold my hand while the anesthesia wore off. Cole was the one who bullied the nurses into getting me extra blankets. He was the one who gave his blood when mine ran out on the operating table.

Watching him sleep in the uncomfortable plastic chair next to my bed almost every day since I was admitted to the hospital, his jaw lined with stubble from days of neglect, made my chest ache with a different kind of pain—guilt.

Because Leon never came.

Not once. No flowers. No calls. Just an email sent three days ago, not even from him, but from his personal assistant.

Subject: Divorce Documents.

The message was efficient, brutal, and short: Please find the attached documents. Do not return to the residence. Alimony will be processed upon signature.

He was evicting me like a tenant who had missed rent.

Even his mother, usually my ally, had called only once. Her voice hadn't held sympathy, only a tight, suffocated frustration. "Again, Sabrina? really?" she had asked, as if my miscarriage were a bad habit I refused to break.

Logic told me it was over. But grief makes you stupid. It makes you cling to the jagged edges of a rope that has already snapped.

My phone buzzed on the bedside table. Cole.

I know you’ve been discharged. Don’t move. I’m coming to get you. I have a safe place set up. You are not going back to that house.

I stared at the screen, his protective anger radiating through the text. He was right. I knew he was right.

But I hadn't signed the papers yet.

Technically, it was still my home. Technically, I was still his wife. A delusional, pathetic part of me whispered that if Leon just saw me—if he saw how broken I was—he might remember the man he used to be.

I didn’t reply to Cole. Instead, I gathered my meager belongings, called my driver, and slipped out the side exit before Cole could show up.

*

The ride home was a blur. I rehearsed what I would say. I prepared to beg if I had to.

But when the car turned into the driveway, the speech died in my throat.

Balloons.

Hundreds of them, tied to the wrought-iron gates and bobbing along the porch. Pastel blue and soft pink.

My heart hammered against my ribs. Soft jazz drifted from the open windows. I could hear the clinking of crystal glasses and the low hum of laughter.

A party?

I turned to my driver, confused. He wouldn't meet my eyes. He stared steadfastly at the steering wheel, his knuckles white.

A strange, frantic hope bloomed in my chest. Did he know? Was this a welcome home party? Had he realized how cruel the email was and decided to make a grand gesture to apologize? It was insane, but it was the only explanation that didn't shatter me.

"Thank you," I whispered to the driver, stepping out.

I walked toward the front door, my legs trembling. I smoothed down my wrinkled dress, took a deep breath, and pushed the heavy oak doors open.

"Leon, I—"

The words evaporated. The room went silent.

The living room was packed. Leon’s family, our mutual friends, and his colleagues. But they weren't looking at me. They were looking at the couple in the center of the room.

Leon stood there, looking more handsome and happier than I had seen him in years. One arm was wrapped around a waist.

Zara’s waist.

And Zara... Zara was glowing. Her hands rested atop a swollen, distinct bump that stretched against her silk dress.

Leon’s hand rested over hers, rubbing her belly possessively.

The banner behind them read. “Welcome Baby Boy.”

The world tilted on its axis. It wasn't a welcome home party. It wasn't an apology.

It was a baby shower.

He couldn't even wait until the ink was dry on the divorce papers. While I was in a hospital bed losing our child, he was planning a celebration for hers.

The silence stretched, thick and suffocating. Then, Leon looked up.

His eyes didn't hold guilt. They didn't hold panic. They held nothing but cold annoyance. He looked at me the way one looks at a stain on a new carpet.

"What are you doing here?" he asked, his voice cutting through the jazz music.

I opened my mouth, but only a strangled sound came out. My eyes darted to his mother. She sipped her champagne, looking away, feigning interest in a flower arrangement.

"You... you knew," I choked out, my voice cracking. "I was discharged today. And you’re... doing this?"

"I sent you an email, Sabrina," Leon said, his tone bored. "You weren't supposed to come back. You’re making a scene."

"A scene?" I stepped forward, my legs feeling like lead. "I just lost our baby, Leon. I am still bleeding. And you’re throwing a shower for your mistress in my house?"

Zara flinched, burying her face in Leon’s shoulder. Leon’s expression hardened.

"It’s not your house anymore," he snapped. "And Zara is not my mistress. She is the mother of my son. Something you evidently can't be."

The cruelty of it took my breath away. It was a physical blow.

"Escort her out," Leon gestured to two of his cousins.

They moved toward me, faces grim. "Come on, Sabrina. Don't make this harder," one muttered.

I looked around the room—at the friends who had eaten at my table, the in-laws I had spent holidays with. No one moved. No one spoke. I was a ghost they were trying to exorcise.

I didn't fight the cousins. I didn't have the strength. I turned and walked out, the sound of the door latching behind me sounding like a gunshot.

I stood on the curb outside the gate.

I had no bag. No car. No husband. No child.

The fog in my brain was so thick I couldn't remember how to call a taxi. I just started walking. I didn't know where. Just away. Anywhere but here.

I barely heard the screech of tires.

A black SUV mounted the curb, cutting off my path. The door flew open before the engine even cut, and Cole stormed out.

He didn't look worried. He looked furious.

"Sabrina!"

He crossed the distance between us in two strides, grabbing my arm. His grip was tight, bordering on pain.

"Let me go," I whispered, my voice raw.

"Why are you doing this to yourself?" he growled, shaking me slightly. "I told you to wait. I told you not to come here."

"I just wanted to see..."

"To see what? That he doesn't care? That he replaced you?" Cole’s eyes were dark, blazing with an intensity that scared me. "He threw you away, Sabrina! Stop begging for scraps at a table where you’re not welcome!"

"Stop it!" I sobbed, trying to pull away, but he was an immovable wall.

"No, I won't stop. You need to get a grip." He dragged me toward the passenger door. "Leon doesn't deserve your loyalty, and he sure as hell doesn't deserve your tears."

He opened the car door and practically shoved me inside.

"If you can't walk away on your own," he said, leaning in, his face inches from mine, "then I’ll carry you. I’ll lock you away if that’s what it takes to stop you from destroying yourself."

He slammed the door shut, locking it instantly.

As he slid into the driver's seat, the engine roared to life. He didn't look at me. He just stared straight ahead, his knuckles white on the steering wheel.

"You’ve cried for him long enough," he muttered, peeling away from the curb, leaving the house and the blue balloons in the rearview mirror. "Now, you’re going to learn what it feels like to be chosen."