Chapter 1 I Have No Idea Who That Woman Is

The plastic chair in the maternity ward is a special kind of hell. 

I’m fairly certain the chair was designed by someone who hates pregnant women.

I remember sitting there with both hands pressed against the heavy curve of my stomach, trying to breathe through the pressure in my ribs when the baby kicked again.

Sharp little jabs. Like it already had opinions about the world.

But at that moment, this baby is the only thing I had left of the woman I used to be.

That Natasha could outmaneuver CEOs in a boardroom and negotiate million-dollar mergers before finishing her first espresso.

This Natasha is swollen, exhausted, and sitting alone in a hospital hallway.

I’m just a body.

A vessel.

A stain on the Warren legacy, if you ask my husband.

The air in the hallway shifts suddenly.

It’s strange, but when you spend years around someone like Chase Warren, you start to recognize the disturbance he causes when he enters a space.

He doesn’t just walk into a room.

He annexes it.

I look up, already knowing what I’m going to see.

And sure enough—there he is.

Chase stands at the reception desk, tall and perfectly composed, wrapped in a charcoal suit that probably costs more than the annual salary of the nurse who checks my vitals every week.

He looks exactly the way the business magazines describe him.

Powerful. Untouchable.

For one stupid second, my heart actually jumps.

I think—maybe he came for me.

Maybe he finally decided to show up for one of my appointments.

Then my heart goes cold. Because he isn’t alone.

The girl clinging to his arm is young. Too young.

Beautiful in that effortless way that makes people turn their heads without realizing it. Willow-thin, bright, wearing a cream-colored sundress that shows off a waistline I haven’t seen on myself in three trimesters.

She looks up at him with open adoration.

And Chase—

Chase smiles back.

Not the polite public smile he uses for shareholders.

A soft one. The kind he has never once given me.

Her fingers trail along the expensive wool of his sleeve like she belongs there. Like touching him is something she does all the time.

Watching them together, I have the sudden, sick realization that this woman is emotionally closer to my husband than I’ve ever been.

I’m still sitting on that miserable plastic chair, trying not to stare too openly.

Across the hall, the glass partition reflects my own image back at me.

Swollen ankles.

Tired eyes.

A face that makes it very clear this pregnancy has not been kind to me.

Who can believe that only eight months ago, I was the CFO of Warren Global?

I was sharp, brilliant, indispensable, the only person Chase trusted to handle the volatility of the European markets.

Then Chase and I had a reckless one-night stand and I was pregnant.

Then we had a simple wedding that felt less like a romantic milestone and more like a corporate merger gone wrong.

Chase believed that the baby was a trap I had sprung to secure my position in his world.

As if he hadn’t been the one who made the first move.

As if he hadn’t been equally responsible for the lack of protection.

As if my lifelong ambition had always been to abandon a brilliant career and a fortune of my own just to become his downtrodden wife.

His family doesn’t bother hiding what they think of me.

To them, I’m simply an incubator.

My only value is the Warren heir growing inside me.

To appease them, I stepped down from my position, traded my office for a nursery.

And somewhere along the way, I let myself be worn down into this softer, smaller version of the woman I used to be.

I kept telling myself the sacrifice would be worth it.

That eventually Chase would soften.

That one day he might look at me the way he used to when we were still partners instead of husband and wife.

But all the efforts I put in only bring me to this moment…

The girl notices me staring. Her eyebrows draw together in a delicate little frown. It’s almost convincing.

She leans closer to Chase, her voice dropping to a whisper that carries very easily across the quiet hallway.

“Why is that pregnant lady staring at you?” she asks. “Darling, do you know her?”

Chase turns his head. His gaze lands on me with no flicker of recognition or guilt.

“I have no idea who that woman is,” he says. Calm, smooth and completely empty.

The words don’t land like a punch. It’s more precise than that. More surgical.

Like a scalpel cutting away the last layer of self-delusion I’d been clinging to.

Because the truth is, part of me had still been hoping.

I thought maybe once the baby arrived, something would change.

That if I played the role of the quiet, dutiful wife long enough, Chase might eventually remember the woman he once trusted.

Apparently not.

A nurse steps forward holding a clipboard. “Sir, a family member needs to sign the authorization for Miss Sonia’s scan.”

Chase doesn’t hesitate. He takes the pen and signs for his mistress with the same decisive, arrogant stroke he uses when authorizing a hostile takeover.

Then he wraps an arm around Sonia’s shoulders and guides her toward the double doors.

So careful, so protective, so tender. A level of attention he has never once offered me.

For a moment, humiliation burns hot in my chest.

But the feeling fades faster than I expect.

“Mrs. Warren?” the nurse asks softly. Her eyes are full of the kind of pity that makes my skin crawl.

“Where is your family member? Is he coming to sign your release forms?”

I push myself to my feet.

The movement is slow—pregnancy makes everything slow—but for the first time in months my spine feels steady.

“I came alone,” I say. 

My voice sounds different now. It sounds like the voice I used to use in boardrooms. “And I’ll sign for myself.”

I take the pen.

Chase Warren thinks he can erase me. But he’s forgotten who I was before I became his wife. I was the only one who could challenge him. The only one who knew where the armor was thin.

I am Natasha Kelly.

And I am a shark.

Before this baby takes its first breath, I will have my independence back.