The Fall

"Explain it to me," Ivy said. "Clearly. I want to hear you say it out loud."

Darien ran a hand through his hair, and for the first time in longer than she could remember, he looked genuinely rattled. "There's nothing to explain. Sophie asked me to come over to go over paperwork. It's late because the funding is complicated. That's all this is."

"With wine. And a gift bag."

"A thank you gift. She saved the pack, Ivy."

"So did I."

The words left her before she could stop them, and for one dizzying second she almost told him everything, the calls to Corvin, the billion dollars, the patch at her neck that hid an entire bloodline. But Sophie was watching her too closely, her eyes bright and calculating even through the tears gathering at their edges, and something in Ivy refused to hand this woman one more thing to use against her.

"What do you mean, you saved the pack?" Darien asked, frowning.

"Nothing," Ivy said. "Forget it."

Sophie chose that moment to sniffle, delicately, dabbing at her eyes with the back of one hand. "I think Ivy has misunderstood everything. I would never come between the two of you. I only wanted to help."

"You're lying," Ivy said flatly.

"Ivy." Darien's voice sharpened. "That's enough."

"Why do you keep defending her?" The question came out raw, three years of swallowed hurt finally finding a crack to escape through. "Why do you defend her and humiliate me, over and over, in my own home?"

"I'm not humiliating you. You're the one making a scene."

"I'm making a scene?" Ivy laughed, short and bitter. "I found you here, on our anniversary, with your secretary, and I'm the one making a scene."

"It's not like that," Darien said again, as though repeating it enough times would make it true.

The argument climbed, voice over voice, three years of resentment finally given room to breathe. Sophie stood back near the wall, watching, her expression carefully arranged into something wounded and afraid.

Then, without warning, she gasped and stumbled backward.

Her heel caught the edge of the stairs behind her, and she fell, tumbling down three steps before landing hard against the railing, one hand flying to her stomach as she cried out in pain.

Darien was at her side in an instant.

"Sophie!"

Ivy stood frozen, watching him crouch over a woman he had known for less than a year with more urgency than he had shown her in months.

"She pushed me," Sophie gasped, tears spilling freely now. "Ivy, she came toward me, and I lost my balance and—"

"I never touched you," Ivy said, her voice cold with disbelief.

Darien looked up at her, his face hardening. "Ivy. What did you do?"

"Nothing. I didn't touch her. I didn't move."

"She's on the ground, Ivy."

"I know she's on the ground. I'm telling you I had nothing to do with it."

Darien stood slowly, and the look he gave her then was one Ivy had never seen from him before, not in three years, not once. Suspicion. Distrust. As though she were suddenly a stranger he needed to be cautious around.

"You've been jealous of her for weeks," he said quietly. "Ever since the funding came through."

"I have not been jealous. I have been standing in my own house watching my husband disappear."

"This isn't the time for this."

"Then when is the time, Darien? Because there's never a time. There's always a crisis, always a meeting, always some reason you can't hear me."

Something sharp and sudden twisted low in her stomach. Ivy's words caught in her throat, replaced by a gasp she couldn't hold back. Pain bloomed fast and hot, doubling her over before she understood what was happening.

Darien didn't notice. He was still crouched beside Sophie, murmuring something soft, his back turned entirely toward his wife.

Ivy pressed a hand to her stomach and felt something warm and wrong soak through her dress.

"Darien," she managed.

He didn't hear her. Sophie was crying louder now, and he was focused entirely on soothing her, one hand smoothing her hair, murmuring reassurances Ivy could no longer make out over the roaring in her own ears.

The room tilted. Ivy's knees gave out beneath her, and the last thing she registered before the darkness took her was the distant sound of a maid's voice, sharp with alarm, calling for help.

---

She woke to white light and the steady beep of a machine.

A doctor stood at the foot of the bed, reading from a chart in the careful, measured voice doctors use when they're about to say something a patient doesn't want to hear.

"Mrs. Blackwell. You're awake. Good." He set the chart down gently. "You're pregnant. Roughly eight weeks along."

Ivy's hand moved instinctively to her stomach.

"The fall put significant stress on the pregnancy," the doctor continued. "There was some bleeding, but the baby's heartbeat is stable for now. I need to be honest with you. This pregnancy is fragile. Any extreme stress, physical or emotional, could put the baby at serious risk."

Ivy stared at the ceiling for a long moment, absorbing the words, absorbing the ache low in her body that felt like both a warning and a promise.

"Does my husband know?" she asked quietly.

"He's outside. Would you like me to bring him in?"

"Not yet."

The doctor nodded and stepped out, leaving her alone with the quiet hum of machines and the small grainy image on the monitor beside her bed. She turned toward it slowly. A tiny shape, barely more than a flicker, and somewhere inside that flicker was the only thing in her life she had not managed to ruin.

She placed a hand gently over her stomach.

"Your father chose another woman today," she whispered. "But I promise you, my baby. I will never choose anyone over you again."

The door opened.

Darien stood in the doorway, his face pale, his tie loosened, looking like a man who had run every hallway in the hospital searching for her room.

"Ivy." His voice cracked slightly on her name. "We need to talk."

Ivy looked at him for a long moment, at the man she had loved enough to disappear for, and felt something inside her go very still and very calm, the way the sea goes still right before it turns.

"Yes," she said quietly. "We do."