Chapter Two: Caught

I was falling.

Wind rushed past my ears, glass shards glittering around me like deadly diamonds in the afternoon sun. fifteen stories. How long does it take a body to fall fifteen stories? Long enough to see your life flash before your eyes? Long enough to regret every choice that led you here?

Long enough to realize nobody would miss you when you're gone?

Long enough to realize you haven't actually lived?

My hands flew instinctively to my stomach. My baby. My miracle. "Please God, not my baby," I sobbed into the rushing wind. After three years of trying, of praying, of enduring painful treatments—this tiny life inside me couldn't end before it began.

My eyes squeezed shut. Not because I was afraid to see the ground rushing toward me, but because I couldn't bear the memory of Blake's face—impassive, cold, watching me fall without even an ounce of concern.

Three years of marriage. Three years of trying to be perfect. And he just watched.

The wind suddenly stopped. Pain exploded across my back and shoulders as glass shards embedded deeper into my flesh, but it wasn't the bone-shattering impact I'd expected. Instead, strong arms wrapped around me, catching me with enough force to knock the breath from my lungs.

“Jesus Christ!" A deep voice, shocked, strained. "Somebody call an ambulance!"

White-hot agony rushed through my body as the movement shifted the glass fragments tearing into my skin, into my flesh and lodging into my bones.

God, I'm in pain!

I could feel warm blood soaking through my blouse, each breath sending fresh waves of searing pain across my lacerated back.

My eyes fluttered open. I wasn't dead. I wasn't splattered across the sidewalk fifteen stories below. Instead, I found myself cradled against a broad chest, looking up into the most intense gray eyes I'd ever seen.

"Please," I whispered, my voice breaking with hysteria. "My baby. Is my baby okay? I'm pregnant. Please, I can't lose my baby."

"Don't move," the stranger ordered, his voice gentler now. "You've got glass embedded in your skin. You're bleeding badly."

Every tiny movement sent fiery pain shooting through my nerves. I could feel individual shards slicing deeper with each shallow breath. But all I cared about was the tiny life inside me.

"Don't let me go," I begged, tears streaming down my face, mixing with blood. "Please, I don't want to die. My baby can't die. Please..."

People swarmed around us—waiters in black vests, diners in expensive suits. I vaguely registered that we were on some kind of terrace. An outdoor restaurant, jutting from the building several floors below Blake's office. Five stories up instead of fifteen. The difference between certain death and... whatever this was.

"Call security!" someone shouted. "She fell from upstairs!"

"Did she jump?"

"There's broken glass everywhere!"

"Someone pushed her! I saw it!"

The voices swirled around me, meaningless noise.

The stranger shifted me carefully in his arms, moving toward a cleared table. He tried to set me down, but my fingers clutched desperately at his suit jacket, leaving bloody smears on the expensive fabric.

"Don't let me go," I whispered, not recognizing my own voice. "Please."

Something flickered in those storm-gray eyes. Understanding? Pity? He nodded once, holding me against him as a waiter rushed forward with a first aid kit.

"She needs a hospital," my rescuer said firmly. "Those cuts need stitches, and she's in shock."

Then came the voice that shattered whatever numbness had been protecting me.

"Scarlett! Oh my God, Scarlett!"

Blake's voice, pitched perfectly between concern and panic. I felt my body stiffen, felt the stranger's arms tighten around me in response.

Blake burst onto the terrace, Delilah trailing behind him. His hair was mussed, his tie askew—hastily straightened after their intimate moment upstairs. The moment that had shattered my world before Delilah tried to end my life.

"That's my wife!" Blake pushed through the crowd, his handsome face a mask of husbandly concern. "Scarlett, what have you done?"

What have I done?

The stranger's body tensed against mine. "She fell through a broken window from upstairs," he said. "Or was pushed. The police will sort that out."

Blake paled slightly, his eyes darting to the gathering crowd, the phones recording every moment. His expression shifted—so subtle only someone who'd spent years studying his every mood would notice. The calculation behind his eyes, weighing options, crafting narratives.

"She's been so unstable lately," he said, lowering his voice to a concerned murmur that somehow carried perfectly to the nearest onlookers. "We've been trying to get her help. The pressure of trying to conceive... when the doctors told her she might never..." He glanced meaningfully at my stomach, his eyes cold even as his voice broke with manufactured emotion. "We were worried she might hurt herself, but I never thought..."

Each word was a knife twisting in my heart. The pregnancy. Our baby. The miracle he'd just dismissed upstairs, the child he'd cruelly questioned was even his. Now he was using my greatest joy, my most fervent prayer, to paint me as mentally unhinged.

Delilah appeared at his shoulder, her face a portrait of practiced sympathy, though her eyes glittered with triumph when they met mine. "Poor thing," she cooed, a tear—an actual tear—sliding down her perfect cheek. "The hormones from those fertility treatments can cause severe mental breaks. We've been so worried. Blake has been beside himself, haven't you, darling?" Her hand slid possessively to his arm.

My cheeks burned with humiliation as sobs caught in my throat. My most private struggles, my years of pain and hope, casually twisted and exposed to strangers for their benefit. Every eye watching. Every phone recording my degradation. Blake—the man who'd vowed to protect me—deliberately destroying what remained of my dignity, painting me as crazy. Suicidal. Unbalanced. Using my deepest wounds against me while pretending to care.

"That's not—" I tried to speak, but my voice cracked. "I didn't—"

"Shh, don't upset yourself more, darling," Blake soothed, reaching for me. "Let me take you home."

The stranger shifted, turning slightly to block Blake's approach. "I don't think so," he said, voice flat. "She needs medical attention, not whatever this is."

For the first time, Blake truly looked at the man holding me. His confident expression faltered, then hardened into something close to hatred.

"Blackwood," he said coldly. "I might have known you'd insert yourself into my personal business."

Blackwood? The name registered dimly through my shock. Dominic Blackwood? The CEO of Blake's biggest rival company? The man whose name Blake cursed during late-night phone calls and tense board meetings?

"Your personal business seems to involve a woman falling from your office window," Blackwood replied, his voice deceptively casual. "Quite careless of you, Reynolds."

Blake's face darkened. "Give me my wife."

"Ex-wife, remember?" Delilah cut in, her smile vicious. "Or did you forget the papers waiting upstairs?"

My breath caught. She'd said it. In front of everyone. Cameras still recording, witnesses hanging on every word.

"She's still my wife, the papers aren't signed yet." Blake shot her a warning look, but the damage was done. Murmurs rippled through the crowd. The perfect Reynolds marriage, exposed as a sham. The wife, discovered expendable. Replaceable.

"Is it true?" Blackwood asked quietly, for my ears alone. "Is he divorcing you?"

I couldn't speak. Could barely breathe. The humiliation burned worse than the glass cuts across my skin. Everyone watching. Everyone seeing me for what I was—discarded, unwanted, replaced.

Blake stepped closer, voice dropping to a threatening whisper. "This doesn't concern you, Blackwood. Hand her over before I call security."

"Please call them," Blackwood replied pleasantly. "I'd love to give them my statement about what I witnessed. I'm sure the police will find it fascinating too."

Blake's face contorted with barely contained fury. "You saw nothing."

"I saw enough."

Blake's eyes darted to the watching crowd, the recording phones. His jaw tightened. "Scarlett," he said, voice softening to the tone he used when cameras were rolling at charity events. "Sweetheart, you're confused. In shock. Let me help you."

His hand reached for mine, his wedding ring catching the light—the ring he'd been wearing while telling another woman I meant nothing to him.

The pregnancy test was still clutched in my bloody fingers. I looked down at those two pink lines, now smeared with red. Our baby. The miracle I'd prayed for. The child he'd just denied could be his.

"Stay away from me," I whispered, finding a shred of strength I didn't know I possessed. "Don't touch me."

Blake's eyes widened in genuine surprise—I had never defied him publicly.

The man holding me—Blackwood—tightened his grip protectively. "You heard her," he said quietly. "Step back."

"This is ridiculous," Blake snarled, his mask of concern slipping. "She's my wife."

"And I'm pregnant," I said, my voice suddenly clear and strong. "With your child. The one you just accused me of conceiving with someone else. The one you stood by and watched as your mistress tried to kill."

Gasps rippled through the crowd. Phones raised higher, recording every word.

"She's delirious," Delilah stepped forward, her voice trembling with calculated emotion. "The fall—"

"The push," Blackwood corrected coldly. "I saw it happen."

My world tilted suddenly. Voices faded. Blackwood's concerned face blurred above me.

"She's losing consciousness," I heard him say distantly. "Where's that ambulance?"

As darkness claimed me, I felt his lips brush my ear, his voice low enough that only I could hear: "I can help you destroy them both, if you let me."

The pregnancy test slipped from my bloody fingers, clattering to the floor as blackness swallowed me whole.