Chapter 5

Evelin laughed, a high, triumphant sound. She pulled a wad of cash from her purse and tossed it to the man who had smashed the box. He grinned and pocketed the money.

She and Bernard, the glittering power couple, turned and walked away, the center of attention once more. The crowd parted for them, their whispers following in their wake.

No one looked at me. No one saw the broken woman bleeding on the floor among the dirt and thorns. I must have passed out.

The next thing I knew, I was waking up to the sterile smell of a hospital. A cleaner had found me after the gala and called an ambulance.

A kind-faced nurse was dabbing my wounds with antiseptic. It took them hours to pull all the cactus spines from my skin. My body was a canvas of cuts and bruises.

"Honey, you need to file a police report," the nurse said gently. "Whoever did this to you..."

I just shook my head, too weary to speak.

The nurse sighed, her expression full of pity. "Well, there's something else. We ran some tests. You're pregnant."

The word hung in the air.

Pregnant.

"Pregnant?" I repeated, my voice a hollow echo. A wave of bitter acid rose in my throat.

Ben and I... we had wanted a child so badly. We' d even picked out names. A boy would be Leo, strong like a lion. A girl would be Hope.

There was no hope now. There was no joy in this news. Only a profound, soul-crushing sadness. This child was conceived from a lie, a product of my husband's double life. It was a link to a man who despised me.

"Yes, about six weeks," the nurse confirmed, looking at her chart. "Do you want me to call the baby's father?"

"No," I said, my voice flat. "The father is dead." I looked down at my hands. "This child is not wanted."

The nurse's eyes filled with sympathy, but she didn't press.

A moment later, the door to my room opened.

It was Bernard.

He strode in, looking immaculate in a fresh suit. He must have come straight from the gala after-party. He looked at me, lying in the hospital bed, and his eyes narrowed.

"What's this the nurse was saying about you being pregnant?" he demanded, his voice sharp.

I flinched. The raw power coming off him was terrifying. I saw the rose tattoo peeking out from the collar of his shirt, and my stomach churned.

"It can't be mine," he said with cold certainty. "I told you, I only touched you that one time after my memory came back, and I was barely conscious."

He was still peddling that lie.

The nurse looked from him to me, her brow furrowed in confusion.

"He's right," I said quickly, forcing the words out. "It's not his."

The nurse, bless her, understood immediately. She gave Bernard a disgusted look and quietly left the room, closing the door behind her.

Bernard visibly relaxed, a sigh of relief escaping his lips. The last thing he wanted was another "complication."

He walked to my bedside, holding a manila folder. He tossed it onto the blanket.

"This is the settlement agreement," he said. "Sign it. It includes a clause that you will not press charges or speak a word of what happened tonight to anyone. If you do, the money is off the table."

My heart clenched. I opened the folder. A bank card fell out, along with the legal document. A single, hot tear escaped my eye and fell onto the page, smudging the ink.

I thought of that night, the last time he'd been my Ben. He had come home late, his clothes disheveled, smelling of alcohol. He'd said he'd been celebrating the end of a project. He'd pulled me into his arms and made love to me with a desperate, almost violent passion. I had thought it was because he missed me. Now I knew the truth. He'd been drugged, and he'd used me, thinking I was someone else. He didn't even remember it as a night of passion, but as a mistake he had to deny.

The pain was so sharp it felt like I couldn't breathe.

"I've added an extra million to the card," he said, his voice clipped and business-like. "Consider it compensation from Evelin for her... behavior tonight."

He was paying me off for the beating, for the humiliation, for destroying the last piece of my father.

"Sign the papers," he repeated. "And a warning, Addison. Don't try anything. I know you have a history of holding grudges."

I looked up at him, confused. "What are you talking about?"

"My investigation," he said coolly. "It showed that after you sold your father's things to pay my medical bills, you hounded the pawn shop owner for months, trying to buy them back. You don't let things go."

The world spun. He had twisted my desperate, heartbroken attempts to reclaim my father's memory into evidence of me being some kind of vindictive shrew. The love and sacrifice I had shown him were now weapons he used to paint me as calculating and dangerous.

I picked up the pen. My hand was shaking, but my resolve was like steel. I would take his money. I would sign his paper. And then I would disappear from his life so completely it would be as if I never existed.

"You don't have to worry, Bernard," I said, my voice devoid of all emotion. "I've changed."

I no longer loved him. And because I no longer loved him, he no longer had the power to make me fight or care.

I signed my name on the line.

He took the paper, a flicker of something-unease?-in his eyes as he looked at my calm, dead expression. For a moment, a strange thought crossed his mind, the thought of keeping me by his side, of not letting me go. But he pushed it away. I was a problem, and the problem was now solved.