Too late for regret, Mr Ashford

"Nothing in this world will ever come before you, Elise."

Julian Ashford had spoken those words four years ago, with his forehead pressed against mine and rain still clinging to his wedding tuxedo, and I had believed every syllable. Tonight, sitting in a hospital corridor with a sonogram photo trembling in my fingers, I was finally ready to believe them again.

"Mrs. Ashford?" Dr. Okafor stepped out of her office with a warm smile. "Congratulations, you are eight weeks along, and everything looks perfect."

My hand flew to my stomach before I could stop it. "You are certain it has been eight weeks?"

"I have the heartbeat on my screen to prove it." She laughed softly and passed me a tissue, because I had not realized I was crying. "Is your husband waiting outside? I would love to congratulate him as well."

"He is at work." The lie came out smooth, because I had told it so many times before. "I am going to tell him tonight, because it is our anniversary."

"Then you have chosen the perfect gift."

I thanked her, slid the sonogram into my coat pocket as carefully as a love letter, and walked out into the parking garage with my chin lifted high. The rain hammered the roof of my car when I climbed inside, and I pressed Julian's name before I could lose my nerve.

He answered on the fifth ring. "Elise, I cannot talk right now."

"It is our anniversary, Julian. I booked the table at Marchetti's three weeks ago, and you promised me you would be there by eight."

A pause stretched across the line, and in the silence I heard his keys jingle and an elevator chime softly behind him. "Veronica called me twenty minutes ago. Her car broke down somewhere outside the city, and she is stranded alone in the rain. I have to go and get her."

My fingers tightened around the steering wheel until my knuckles turned white. "She owns a phone, Julian. She can call a tow truck, or a taxi, or any one of the dozen people who adore her."

"Do not be cold, Elise. It does not suit you." His voice softened, which somehow made it worse. "I will make it up to you tomorrow. I promise."

"You made me a different promise once."

"Elise, please, I really have to go."

The line went dead before I could say the one word that had been burning on my tongue since the doctor's office. I stared at the screen until it dimmed, and then I stared at the reservation confirmation glowing in my email. I had circled the date on three calendars and rehearsed this evening in the mirror like a girl preparing for her first dance.

My phone buzzed against the console, and the name on the screen made my stomach tighten. *Margaret Ashford* had sent me a message that read, *Julian is needed elsewhere tonight. Do not turn this into another scene. A wife who nags is a wife who is easily replaced.*

I read it twice, and then I turned the phone face down on the seat without typing a single reply. Margaret had never once called me by my name in four years, and she had never once let a holiday pass without reminding me that I was a guest in her son's house. Tonight I did not have the strength to fight her, so I placed my palm over the sonogram in my pocket and drew a slow, steady breath.

"It is all right, little one," I whispered into the dark car. "Your father will understand when he knows about you. He has to."

I started the engine and pulled out of the garage.

The rain thickened as I left the city lights behind, and the road home curved through a stretch of old farmland where the streetlamps had not been repaired in years. I had taken this route a thousand times because it saved ten minutes, and tonight those ten minutes felt like the difference between a quiet evening and a family beginning. My wipers swept back and forth in a frantic rhythm, and the radio played a love song I switched off with one sharp tap.

Then I saw the hazard lights.

They blinked an anxious amber through the downpour, just beyond a blind bend where the road narrowed between two rows of dripping trees. A white sedan sat slanted across the lane, its rear end jutting into the path of anyone who might round the corner too quickly. I recognized the license plate before I recognized the woman inside, because Julian had paid for the car's repairs only last month.

I eased my foot off the accelerator and stopped behind it, switched on my own hazards, and stepped out into the rain with my coat pulled over my head. The cold soaked through my shoes within seconds. I rapped my knuckles against the driver's window, and it slid down to reveal Veronica Lane with her phone in her hand and her makeup flawless despite the storm.

"Elise?" Her eyes widened, and something flickered across her face too quickly for me to name. "What on earth are you doing out here?"

"I was driving home, and I could ask you the same question." I raised my voice over the rain. "Julian is on his way to find you, but your car is blocking the entire lane, Veronica. Someone is going to hit you on that bend."

"It will not start." She pressed her lips together and looked up at me with glistening eyes. "I did not know who else to call. I am sorry that it had to be tonight of all nights."

For one moment I almost felt sorry for her, because she looked small and shivering behind that glass. Then her gaze slid to the screen of her phone, and she smiled at something she read there, a quiet and private smile that did not belong to a stranded woman.

"You should get out of the road," I told her. "I will push the car onto the shoulder if you can steer."

"That is very generous of you." She tilted her head. "Julian always said you were too kind for your own good."

Before I could answer, a low roar echoed through the trees behind the bend. It grew louder with every heartbeat, an engine pushed far beyond what the wet road could bear, and a pair of blinding headlights swept across the wet trunks like a blade. I stumbled backward and dove into my own driver's seat with my coat still dripping, one hand clamped over the tiny secret beneath my ribs.

I had just enough time to whisper, "Hold on, baby," before the world dissolved into white light and the scream of tearing metal.