Chapter one

My hands wouldn’t stop shaking as I clutched the test results against my chest. Three years of trying, of hoping, of praying every single month only to be disappointed.

But not this time. This time, the test was positive. I was pregnant with Darius’s child.

A smile broke across my face despite the tears blurring my vision. This was what would finally fix us, what would make him look at me the way he used to, back before everything fell apart. Before Cassia.

I pushed the thought away. Cassia was dead, and now I was carrying Darius’s baby. This would change everything.

I practically ran up the front steps, my heart pounding. I couldn’t wait to see his face when I told him, couldn’t wait to watch the shock turn to joy.

The front door was unlocked. I pushed it open, calling out. “Darius? I’m home! I have something to tell you—”

The words died in my throat. Our bedroom door was open and through it, I could see him with a woman in his arms.

His face was buried in her hair, his arms wrapped around her so tightly it looked like he was afraid she’d disappear. She clung to him just as desperately, her fingers clutching the back of his shirt.

The test results slipped from my numb fingers. They finally noticed me. Darius’s head lifted, his eyes meeting mine. For a second, something flickered across his face.

Then it was gone, replaced by cold fury.

The woman pulled back slightly, turning to look at me and my entire world shattered.

Long dark hair, delicate features, those same doe eyes that used to watch me with barely concealed contempt.

Cassia Moreau.

No. This couldn’t be real.

Cassia was dead, she’d been dead for three years, I’d been accused of killing her. My life had been destroyed by those accusations. Darius had married me anyway, but he’d never forgiven me, never stopped blaming me.

And now she was standing in our bedroom, alive, in my husband’s arms.

“Darius,” I whispered. “What is this?”

His expression hardened. “Get out, Brynn.”

“What?” I took a step forward. “Darius, I don’t understand. She’s supposed to be—”

“I said get out!” His voice rose, sharp and cruel. “Go to the guest room. I don’t want you here.”

Tears burned my eyes. “But this is our room, our house. I’m your wife—”

“You?” He laughed, bitter and harsh. “You think I give a damn about that right now? Cassia is back, she’s alive. And you, I don’t want your disgusting self anywhere near her.”

Each word was a knife twisting in my chest. I’d heard him say cruel things before, three years of coldness, of distance, of barely concealed hatred. But this was different, this was worse.

Because Cassia was here, and I could see it in his eyes that he’d never loved me, not even a little.

“Darius, please.” I was begging now. “I need to tell you something important. Just listen—”

“There’s nothing you could possibly say that I want to hear.” He turned his back on me. “Get out of my sight.”

“But—”

“NOW!”

I flinched at the roar in his voice.

Cassia’s soft voice cut through the tension. “Darius, please, don’t be so harsh. Brynn is your wife, I don’t want to come between your marriage.”

The lie was so perfect, so convincing, I almost believed it myself.

“You’re not coming between anything,” Darius said, his voice gentling as he looked at her, so gentle, the way he’d never once looked at me. “There is no marriage, there never was, not really.”

Cassia’s eyes glistened with tears. “Still, I should go. This isn’t right, I shouldn’t be here.”

“Cassia, no—” Panic filled his voice as she pulled away from him. “Please, don’t leave. Stay, I’m begging you.”

“I can’t, not like this, not when your wife is here.”

She brushed past me, and I caught the briefest flash of triumph in her eyes. Then she was gone, leaving nothing but her perfume hanging in the air.

Darius stood frozen, staring at the empty doorway. Then slowly, he turned to face me. The hatred in his eyes made me want to disappear.

“This is your fault,” he said, his voice low and dangerous. “If you hadn’t come home, if you hadn’t interrupted—”

“Darius, please.” I bent down, my hands shaking as I picked up the test results. “Just look at this. Please, it’s important.”

“I don’t care what it is.”

“You will.” My voice cracked, but I forced myself to hold the paper out to him. “Please.”

He snatched it from my hand, his eyes scanning the document. I watched his face, waiting for the moment of realization, waiting for everything to change.

His expression didn’t soften, didn’t shift into joy or surprise or anything resembling happiness.

Instead, his jaw clenched, his fingers tightened on the paper, and then he tore it in half.

“No—” I reached for it, but he was already ripping it again and again, shredding it into tiny pieces.

“Did you really think this would work?” He threw the pieces at my face, the fragments fluttering around me like broken dreams. “Did you really think you could trap me with a baby now that Cassia’s back?”

I couldn’t breathe. The pieces of the test results drifted to the floor around my feet, each one a piece of my shattered heart.

“Darius, I’m pregnant.” The words came out as a sob. “I’m carrying your child. Don’t you understand? This is what we’ve been waiting for—”

“What you’ve been waiting for.” His voice was ice. “I never wanted a child with you, Brynn. Never.”

The cruelty of it broke something inside me. I’d known he didn’t love me, but I had thought, I had hoped…

“Please.” I was crying now, unable to stop the tears. “Please, don’t do this. We can be a family, we can—”

“Abort it.”