Chapter 2

Vanessa's face darkened. I'd refused to cover for her in public.

Damon laid a sudden, careful hand on her stomach.

"Honey, don't work yourself up. Think about the baby."

At the word baby, Vanessa clapped a hand over her mouth.

"Ugh."

The dry heave was unmistakable.

Evelyn caught it instantly and hurried over to steady her.

"You're pregnant?"

Vanessa nodded, still looking green.

"I was going to wait until after Dad's service to tell you. I didn't think carrying a boy would make me this sick.

"I was never this bad with Lily."

At the word boy, the grief went out of Evelyn's face and something like joy took its place.

"Why didn't you say something sooner? This is the most important thing that's happened to this family in years."

Damon made a show of respecting the occasion.

"Today's about Harold. We can talk about it later." He glanced at me like a wounded man.

"I really should go."

Vanessa wouldn't have it. "Go? You gave this family a granddaughter, and now you're giving us a grandson. You're the last person who should be walking out that door."

She was staring straight at me while she said it.

"Do I need to have you carried out, Julian? Do you have to make yourself this pathetic?"

Impatience sat all over her face.

I laughed under my breath. "You think I'm the one being humiliated?

"If I'm not ashamed, then the shame is yours. You're my wife. You keep a lover, you have his children, and none of that embarrasses you. Why should the person you did it to feel embarrassed?"

Vanessa ran out of patience and gave a cold order to the two men behind her.

"Get him out of here."

Both of them stepped toward me.

I slapped each one across the face before either could get a hand on me.

"Go ahead. Try it."

They looked back at Vanessa, waiting to be told whether she really meant it.

Before she could answer, Damon came forward with all his false concern and caught my arm.

"Julian, don't give everyone a show. Go home. I'll have Vanessa come by tonight and make it up to you, all right?"

I was about to put my foot in his chest.

He beat me to it, throwing himself flat on the floor as though I'd shoved him, crying out on the way down. "Ah-"

The whole chapel gasped.

Vanessa's face flooded with concern as she got him up off the floor.

Her first act was to slap me as hard as she could.

"Who gave you the right to put your hands on him in front of me?"

My ear rang. Heat spread across the whole side of my face.

Before I could get my bearings, she bit out an order.

"Apologize."

I slapped her back without a second's hesitation. I kept my face still, but I couldn't keep it out of my voice.

"Remember this, Vanessa. I'm here to see your father off. That's all. He was good to me. Without that, I wouldn't have walked through those doors."

She frowned, genuinely startled that I'd hit her.

Then something shifted. The confidence in her hardened into something meaner, as if she'd remembered the one lever that had always worked on me.

Without fully turning, she spoke to her assistant.

"Marcus. Stop the medication."

Then she came back to me, colder than glass in January.

"The day you apologize and admit you were wrong is the day your sister's treatment resumes."

She watched me with total certainty that I'd fold to save my sister.

What she didn't know was that Claire had been dead five years already, after Vanessa pulled that exact lever during a different fight.

Everyone knew my sister had a rare neurological disease that left her bedridden and barely conscious.

Carlisle Meridian Biotech made the only therapy that had ever held her steady.

For Claire, I'd swallowed one affair after another.

However many men Vanessa kept, I played the patient, understanding husband.

When Claire died, whatever was left between Vanessa and me died with her.

The mourners were rich, connected, and well practiced at staying out of other people's disasters. Finally one of them worked up the nerve to play peacemaker.

"Mr. Cross, this won't help anyone. Not today. Not here."

I didn't move.

Damon gave me a small, triumphant smile.

Vanessa searched my face, her frown deepening.

"Have you gone so cold that your own sister's life doesn't matter to you?"