Tous les chapitres de : Chapitre 21 - Chapitre 30

Chapter Twenty Two.I had nowhere else to go.That's what I kept telling myself as I stood outside Uncle Bernard's house three days after signing the divorce papers. My money was gone. The hotel had kicked me out that morning when I couldn't pay for another night. Everything I owned was crammed into a suitcase with a broken wheel, and I was four weeks pregnant with a baby whose father was either my abusive ex-husband or the man who'd raped me.I had nowhere else to go and I really needed help with the amount Julien required back from me. After all,they are the ones who were always demanding!So I stood on the doorstep of the house where I'd lived after my parents died, where I'd learned that love was conditional and survival meant making yourself useful, and I raised my shaking hand to knock.The sound echoed through the evening air. I knocked three times.Then footsteps approached and the door opened.Uncle Bernard stood there, his reading glasses perched on his nose, his expression

Chapter Twenty FourThe hotel room was even worse than the last one.It was smaller and darker. The kind of place where the wallpaper peeled in strips and the bed creaked with every breath. But it was cheap, thirty euros a night, and I had exactly ninety euros left to my name after buying the pills. I had found the money hidden in one of my clothes.The pills sat on the nightstand now, a small white bottle with a childproof cap that had taken me three tries to open with my shaking hands.I'd walked into the pharmacy two hours ago with no real plan. Just a vague and a desperate need to make the pain stop. The pharmacist had barely looked at me as I'd asked for sleeping pills, she had handed them over with a bored expression and took my money without question.No one cared. No one saw the bruises on my face and wondered. No one noticed the hollow look in my eyes or the way my hands trembled or the fact that I was clearly someone standing on the edge of something terrible.No one cared i

Chapter Twenty Six.The question punched the air from my lungs. What should I tell him? And to think, he's the friend of Julien. If I told him what happened, how would he look at me?"He's dead," I heard myself say.It wasn't technically a lie. The Julien I'd married, the man I'd thought I loved, he was dead. Had been dead for a long time, if he'd ever existed at all.Adrien's eyebrows rose slightly. "Dead.""Yes.""I see." He made a note on his tablet, and I couldn't read his expression. "My condolences."There was no warmth in the words. There was no real sympathy. Just the polite thing you said when someone mentioned death."Any other family we should contact? Someone who should know you're here?""No." The word came out harder than I intended. "No family. No one."Something shifted in his expression. Not sympathy because he didn't seem capable of sympathy. But something, maybe recognition or curiosity about why a pregnant woman would have absolutely no one to call."Very well." He

Chapter Twenty-Eight.The hospital was quieter at night.I'd been drifting in and out of sleep for hours, my body exhausted but my mind refusing to fully shut down. Every time I closed my eyes, I saw the pill bottle. I felt the darkness closing in and I woke up gasping, grateful and resentful in equal measure that I was still breathing.Elodie had finally gone home around nine, promising to return first thing in the morning with fresh clothes and more food. She looked exhausted. She had dark circles under her eyes from two nights of sleeping in the uncomfortable hospital chair."Go," I'd told her. "I'm fine. I promise I won't do anything stupid."She'd made me promise three more times before actually leaving.Now it was past midnight, and I was alone with my thoughts and the steady beep of the fetal monitor they'd hooked up to track the baby's heartbeat. The sound was oddly comforting. It is as proof that despite everything, the tiny life inside me was fighting to survive.Stronger th

Chapter Thirty He pulled out his tablet and made notes, his fingers moved quickly across the screen.I watched him work and felt something twist in my chest. Gratitude, yes. But something else too. I felt something dangerous and inappropriate.He'd saved my life, he had stood in this room at three in the morning and talked me through a panic attack with patience and precision. He had touched me like I was something breakable but worth saving.And now he was maintaining perfect professional distance like none of it had happened. Like I was just another patient. "Where's Elodie?" I asked, suddenly realizing she wasn't here. "I thought I heard her voice earlier.""You didn't. That was me when I came in." He glanced up from his tablet. "She came to see you earlier but you were asleep so she went to the café down the street about twenty minutes ago. She said she needed fresh air and real coffee, not the hospital swill. She should be back any minute.""Oh."He made a few more notes, then