Chapter 2: A Blatant Provocation

Nora kept up appearances as usual. If anything, Grant had grown even more attentive, though she knew exactly why. It wasn't for her. It was for the child.

Grant carried a rare condition, one that made fatherhood something doctors had told him to give up hoping for years ago. So when Nora turned up pregnant, Marcus had been right, it really was something close to a miracle.

Grant didn't love her. But he wanted this child more than anything, and until it was born safely, the vessel carrying it couldn't be allowed so much as a scraped knee.

He settled her into a chair himself and turned to the housekeeper. "Mrs. Doyle, my wife is expecting now. Every detail of her food, her clothes, her comfort, her transportation, I want it handled perfectly. No mistakes."

Mrs. Doyle nodded quickly and hurried off to start on the morning's meal.

Grant leaned down, pressed a kiss to Nora's forehead, and rested a hand lightly against her stomach. "Nora. I never thought I'd get to be a father. Thank you for giving me this. You and this baby are the most important people in my life now. I love you."

Something in her chest twisted, grief and mockery tangled together.

The most important people in your life. Then where does that leave Vivian?

You want to keep playing the devoted husband, Grant? Fine. I'll give you one last performance before I walk away for good.

---

The next morning, Grant left early for the office.

True to his instructions, Mrs. Doyle packed every meal with enough nutrients to stock a small pharmacy. She set the tray down and guided Nora's hand to her spoon.

"This morning it's bird's nest porridge, ma'am. Steamed cod with egg straight ahead of you, stir-fried greens to your left, corn dumplings to your right."

Nora set her spoon down and stared straight ahead. "Mrs. Doyle, could you post something for me on Pulse? I'd like to share the news about the baby."

"Of course, ma'am."

Nora reached for the ultrasound printout from yesterday's appointment and held it out. "Caption it: 'Counting down the days until you're here. For the rest of our lives, every meal, every season, you'll be the reason your dad and I keep going.'"

Mrs. Doyle typed it up and posted it, then glanced at her phone. "Ma'am, he's already liked it. That was fast. He really must adore you."

Nora only smiled faintly and said nothing.

Whether someone loves you or not, nobody would know better than the woman lying next to him every night.

After breakfast, Nora walked out to the garden.

Tulips everywhere. Their scent thick in the cold morning air.

They weren't her favorite. They never had been. Grant was the one who loved tulips or rather, she remembered now, it was Vivian who'd always loved them most.

So the entire garden had been planted for a woman who didn't even live in this house.

A gust of wind caught the tears at the corners of her eyes before she even felt them fall. She fisted a hand in her skirt, something inside her chest tearing loose.

She laughed under her breath, bitter, and wiped her face dry.

A few minutes later she settled onto the garden swing and dialed the only number she trusted anymore, her closest friend.

She asked for help with two things: applications to art schools overseas, and a flight out of Meridian City in two weeks. And one more thing, quieter than the rest, help finding a cornea donor.

Two weeks. That was all the time she was giving herself to finish what needed finishing.

---

Over the following days, Grant threw himself into preparing for the baby, a nursery decorated top to bottom, more toys than any infant could ever need, even a parenting book tucked under his arm titled How to Be a Good Father.

He clearly wanted this child. What Nora couldn't stop wondering was whether it would ever matter to him as much as Vivian did.

She wasn't idle either. Quietly, methodically, she got rid of every gift Grant had ever given her, birthday presents, anniversary gifts, Valentine's trinkets, all of it. Even the wedding ring he'd slid onto her finger with his own hands, the one she'd once treasured more than anything, she sold that too.

She didn't want anything that had never really belonged to her in the first place.

She wanted nothing that was borrowed.

---

That evening, Vivian called.

Grant had had too much to drink, she said, and needed someone to come pick him up.

On its face, it was almost funny, sending a blind woman to retrieve a drunk man. Unless, of course, Vivian had something else in mind entirely.

It seemed the post on Pulse hadn't sat well with her.

The club was called The Tideline, one of Meridian City's more notorious nightspots. Nora couldn't see the place, but she didn't need to. The noise told her everything: the chaos, the crowd, exactly the kind of scene she despised.

She was standing near the entrance, phone in hand, about to call Vivian, when a voice cut through the noise.

"You must be Nora. Vivian sent me to walk you in."

A stranger's hand closed around her wrist, familiar in a way that set her teeth on edge. "Vivian said I'd know you by the cane. Guess she was right."

You could tell everything about a person from the way they spoke. This one belonged to Vivian, body and soul.

Nora steadied herself and let a faint, unbothered smile settle on her face. A woman like this wasn't worth the energy it would take to be rattled.

She was led upstairs into a sprawling private room built to hold dozens of guests comfortably. The second they were inside, her guide muttered an excuse about the restroom and vanished.

The smoke and the noise hit Nora like a wall, nausea rising fast, but worse than that was the disorientation. A room full of strangers, and no way to read a single one of them.

Because I'm blind, I don't even have the nerve to walk into a room alone anymore.

And yet she, glasses and all, gets to strut through this city like she owns it. She gets to mock me to my face and call it nothing.

Vivian. What gives you the right?

Then, cutting through the noise, she caught her own name.

"Honestly, I still don't understand what Grant was thinking, marrying the blind girl the Shaws tossed out."

"Who knows. If you ask me, Grant and Vivian make a far better pair. Look at them together, they're stunning."

"Exactly. Vivian's the real Ashford daughter, born into it. What's a switched-at-birth nobody supposed to compete with that?"

"Ha, maybe she's just that good in the bedroom. That's the only explanation. When Grant finally cuts her loose, I might have to find out for myself."

Everyone in Meridian City knew the story by now, Vivian was the true Ashford heir, swapped at birth by a nanny years ago, and Nora was that nanny's biological daughter instead.

Everyone agreed Nora owed Vivian something. The parents who'd raised her believed it. Julian, the fiancé she'd lost, believed it. Even her own husband believed it, in the end.

Nora stood frozen, unable to see a single face in that room, unable to escape a single word.

But the fact that they could say all this so freely at one of Grant's own gatherings told her something else entirely, this wasn't gossip whispered behind his back. This was common knowledge, spoken with his tacit blessing.

Which meant one more thing: Grant brought Vivian to these gatherings often. This wasn't the first time Nora had been the punchline. Everyone here knew exactly where his limits were, because he'd never set any.

He didn't care. That was why they felt free to say whatever they wanted.

A strange, hollow cold settled over Nora's chest.

Then, without a flicker of hesitation, she turned toward the sound of those voices, closed her hand around the nearest glass on the table, and hurled the wine straight at the source.