Chapter 4

For forty-eight hours, I'd been drafting and deleting emails to the research institute. How do I tell the director I accidentally pregnant by my soon-to-be-ex husband? My fingers hovered over the keyboard when my phone buzzed.

Michael: Boss wants to see you at the gates.

Since when did James send his right-man as a messenger boy?

I spotted James leaning casually against his Mercedes, the morning sunlight softening his sharp features in a way that made my breath catch for a moment. The way the light traced his jawline, the slight crinkle at the corners of his eyes as he noticed my approach - it was unfair how my pulse still quickened at the sight of him after everything.

I quickly looked away, fingers fumbling with my backpack strap as if it demanded all my attention. Four years of marriage, and my traitorous body still reacted to him like we were newlyweds. The heat that rose to my cheeks, the way my skin remembered his touch - biological betrayals I refused to acknowledge. Old habits, I told myself firmly. Just muscle memory, nothing more.

"Sophia." He removed his glasses, revealing those dark eyes that used to make my knees weak. "Dinner tomorrow. Dante's. Eight o'clock."

Dante's. The name alone sent acid creeping up my throat. That was where I'd sat for six hours on our anniversary, staring at cold osso buco while James "handled business" with Vicky.

"I'll be there," I heard myself say, the words leaping from my lips before I could temper them. The automatic response surprised even me—why so eager to sit across from the man who'd chosen Vicky over me at every turn?

But hesitation would raise suspicions. James could smell weakness like blood in the water. If I was going to keep this baby—and I had every intention to—I needed to do things right. Hiding the pregnancy meant nothing if I didn't first sever all legal ties between us. James Moretti wasn't the type to let anything slip through his fingers, least of all a child. And if he ever found out I'd kept his heir from him...

No. The divorce had to come first. Clean. Official. Irreversible.

This dinner would serve two purposes: First, the divorce. Then, when oceans separated us, I'd decide how to tell him about the baby. If ever.

The restaurant's chandeliers cast knife-sharp shadows across the white tablecloths. Tonight, he'd chosen the private wine cellar where we'd had our first date.

His fingers wrapped around mine as he set down the Barolo bottle—not just brushing past, but actually holding my hand for the first time in four years.

"There's something I need to explain about what happened—"

The cellar door crashed open. Michael rushed to his side, whispering urgently against his ear. But in the tomb-like quiet of the stone-walled cellar, the words "Vicky", "cut her wrist" and "emergency" slithered to my ears regardless.

My stomach dropped. Of course. Even our last dinner couldn't be just ours.

James' grip on my hand released as he shot to his feet, his chair screeching backward before toppling with a crash. "What?!"

The room spun. My vision tunneled until all I could see was James' retreating back, his coat flaring like a cape.

He paused at the doorway just long enough to glance between Michael and me—a fraction of a second's calculation. "Take her to the hospital," he ordered before disappearing up the stairs.

Then—nothing.

Fragments of conversation drifted through the haze:

"...just low blood sugar..."

"...get her some orange juice..."

My eyelids fluttered open to blurred shapes - the doctor speaking with Michael by the doorway. A jolt of panic shot through me as consciousness returned. If they discover the pregnancy...

The doctor leaned closer to Michael, her voice dropping to a murmur. "And considering the patient's condit—"

My dry throat constricted. I had to stop her—

BRRRRT!

Michael's phone screamed like a fire alarm. He ripped it from his pocket, the caller ID making him snap to attention. "Yes, boss?" A beat. His jaw tightened. "Understood. On my way now, sir."

He slapped a black credit card onto the doctor's clipboard. "Keep her here till New Year's if you want." The door rattled in its frame as he vanished, the doctor's lips still parted around the unspoken "pregnant".

"Ah, you're awake." She turned to me, oblivious to my racing pulse. "You're approximately thirteen weeks along. Baby's healthy, but given your collapse..." Her pen scratched across a notepad. "We'll keep you 48 hours for monitoring."

She hesitated, glancing at the door. "I didn't mention this to your... companion earlier."

I exhaled in quiet relief. "No. And please keep it that way."

As the doctor stepping out, the nurses' hushed voices slithered under the curtain:

" Mr. and Mrs. Moretti are like royalty—They've turned Suite 801 into a penthouse - rose petals, champagne, the works. Mr. Moretti hasn't left her side since admission."

"Would you expect less? Did you see how he carried her through the lobby? Like some romantic film."

A sigh. "Ten years together and he still treats her like a bride. Meanwhile my husband forgets our anniversary..."

Their words cut deeper than any knife. There was no question – they could only be talking about James and Vicky.

"Of course he's devoted – Mrs. Moretti's finally giving him an heir. Mr. Moretti’d commanded an army of specialists at her slightest sigh."

James treated Vicky like a queen. I became acutely aware of my chipped nail polish against the starch hospital sheets - the lone Moretti wife no one remembered to pamper.

After two nights of observation with no complications, I was discharged.

Stepping out of the hospital's automatic doors, I spotted Emma waiting by the curb, the manila envelope clutched in her hands.

Stepping through the hospital's sliding doors, my first stop was the courthouse to collect the divorce decree. As I arranged for James' copy to be mailed—with a deliberate three-day delay—a quiet satisfaction settled in my chest.

By the time this reaches his desk, I thought, watching the clerk stamp the postmark, I'll be in Zurich. Let the mighty James Moretti turn over every stone in the world. But even his power has limits—and I just became one of them.

The envelope disappeared into the mailbox with a soft thud—four years of love, lies and loneliness now condensed into a single document that would chase my shadow across the ocean.