Chapter 3

Connor rushed forward, shoving Aubrey aside without a second thought.

"Aubrey!"

She stumbled, her back slamming into the hard corner of a waiting room chair. A sharp, searing pain shot through her lower back, and black spots danced in her vision. She gasped, unable to stand.

Connor didn' t even look at her. He was already on the floor, cradling Kassie in his arms.

"Connor," Kassie sobbed, burying her face in his chest. "She... she said horrible things. She said I was a whore, that the baby wasn' t yours. Then she hit me!" She clutched her stomach. "Oh, the baby... I' m so scared, Connor. What if something happens to our baby?"

Connor' s face, which had been soft with concern for Kassie, turned to stone as he looked at Aubrey. He gently laid Kassie back down and rose to his feet, his eyes burning with a cold fire.

He strode towards Aubrey and, without a word, slapped her across the face.

The force of the blow sent her reeling. Her ear rang, and the metallic taste of blood filled her mouth. For a moment, she was back in the orphanage yard, watching a young Connor, his fists bruised and bloody, after he' d fought off older boys who were taunting her. He had taken her hand then and sworn, "I' ll never let anyone hurt you, Aubrey. Ever."

The memory was so vivid, so painful, that it took her a second to register that the person who had just struck her was that same boy, now a man who looked at her with nothing but hate.

The pain in her heart was far worse than the sting on her cheek. She slowly lifted her head, her eyes locking with his.

For a fleeting moment, she saw something flicker in his gaze. A flicker of doubt, of pain. His hand, raised for a second blow, froze in mid-air as he took in her pale face and the trickle of blood at the corner of her mouth.

But then Kassie let out a pained moan from the floor, and the moment was gone.

Connor' s face hardened again. All traces of softness vanished, replaced by cold fury.

"Don' t you ever touch her again," he snarled. "If anything happens to her or my child, I will kill you."

He scooped Kassie up into his arms and strode away, leaving Aubrey on the floor. As he passed, Kassie, nestled in his arms, turned her head and gave Aubrey a look of pure, triumphant malice.

Aubrey tried to get up, but the pain in her back was excruciating. She pushed herself up with her arms, only to collapse back onto the cold linoleum floor. She tried again, and again, her body refusing to obey.

People in the hallway were starting to stare, whispering.

"Isn' t that Connor Harris?"

"Who' s the girl on the floor? She looks pathetic."

"I heard she' s his obsessed ex. A crazy stalker trying to break up him and his pregnant girlfriend."

The whispers grew louder, filled with scorn and disgust. The weight of their judgment was suffocating. Aubrey covered her ears, but she couldn't block out the sound. She couldn't block out the pain.

A sob escaped her lips, then another. The carefully constructed walls she had built around her heart crumbled, and she broke down, her body shaking with gut-wrenching, hopeless tears.

Two of Connor's bodyguards appeared. They grabbed her arms, their grips rough and impersonal, and dragged her out of the hospital, ignoring her cries of pain.

They didn't take her home. They threw her into a walk-in freezer at one of the Harris-owned restaurants. The door slammed shut, plunging her into a bone-chilling darkness.

"The boss said you need to cool off," one of the guards said through the door.

She curled into a ball on the frozen floor, the cold seeping through her thin hospital gown. But the chill in her heart was far worse. She thought of Connor, the boy who had once quit his part-time job and worked two more just so she could afford her college textbooks. The boy who had held her hand and promised he would never let her suffer.

Now, he was the source of all her suffering.

The cold, the pain, and the utter despair were too much. Her body finally gave up, and she slipped into unconsciousness.

She woke up in the same hospital bed. It was becoming a depressingly familiar cycle.

The doctor' s face was even graver this time. "Your kidneys are failing, Ms. Johnson. The exposure to extreme cold has accelerated the process. On top of that, your back is severely injured." He looked at her with pity. "You' re wearing a urinary catheter. I' m sorry. Your body is under immense strain."

Her will to live was gone. It felt like no one in the world wanted her to survive. Not Connor, not his family. Maybe it was better this way.

She stayed in the hospital for a week. Connor never came. He never called.

When she was finally discharged, she went back to the house. He was sitting on the sofa, looking at his phone. He glanced up as she entered, his eyes scanning her gaunt frame and the hollows under her eyes. There was no pity in his expression, no remorse.

He just looked annoyed.

"Kassie is having a birthday party next week," he said, his voice casual, as if he were discussing the weather. "I need you to be there."

Aubrey stared at him, her mind struggling to comprehend the cruelty of his request.

"You will get up on stage," he continued, his tone leaving no room for argument, "and you will apologize to her in front of everyone."