Chapter 3 — The Second Child He Let Her Take

I should have left the cemetery when I received Vanessa's message.

Instead, I stayed beside my mother's grave until the sky turned the color of wet concrete.

Headlights swept across the path behind me.

Three black SUVs stopped near the Bennett family plot. Adrian stepped out of the first. Vanessa emerged behind him wrapped in his coat, with Richard and Diane following from the next vehicle.

Six cemetery workers waited beside a truck loaded with wooden crates and tools.

I rose slowly. "What is this?"

Vanessa clung to Adrian's arm. Her eyes were swollen, but there were no tears on her cheeks.

"I showed Dad what you sent me."

"You mean the divorce documents you demanded?"

"You called me a mistress. You said I ran away because Adrian was poor."

"Both statements are true."

She recoiled as if I had struck her. Then she began hitting the side of her own head.

"Stop," Adrian said, catching her wrists.

"Everyone hates me. My own sister wants me dead."

He pulled her against his chest and looked at me over her shoulder.

"Apologize."

"For telling the truth?"

Richard motioned to the workers. "Your mother occupies a place in the Bennett family section. That privilege exists at my discretion."

My breath caught.

"Eleanor was your wife."

"And you are making a spectacle of her name. The cemetery has already approved the removal of the memorial fixtures. We can petition to relocate her remains next."

Two workers approached the stone border around my mother's grave.

I moved in front of them. Adrian's security guards caught my arms.

"Get your hands off me!"

Adrian watched me struggle. "All Vanessa wants is an apology."

"She already has my husband. She has my home. She has the life all of you decided belonged to her. What else am I supposed to apologize for?"

Vanessa trembled theatrically against him.

Adrian's face closed.

"Do it," he told the guards.

One worker lifted the arrangement of white roses. Another drove a pry bar beneath the bronze plaque I had commissioned with my first profits from Harbor & Hearth.

Metal shrieked against stone.

"Stop!"

I dropped to my knees despite the hands restraining me.

"I'm sorry," I said.

No one moved.

Vanessa hid a smile against Adrian's chest.

I looked directly at her. Then I slapped myself across the face.

"I'm sorry, Vanessa."

Adrian went still.

I bowed until my forehead touched the rain-darkened stone.

"Is that enough?"

"Clara, what the hell are you doing?" His voice was suddenly rough.

I raised my head. "Exactly what you demanded."

Vanessa began to sob louder. "She's trying to make me look cruel."

"You are cruel," I said. "She doesn't need my help to see it."

Adrian ordered his guards to release me, but the damage was done. The plaque hung crooked from one bolt, and white petals lay crushed in the mud.

I took out my phone and photographed every face, every vehicle, and every tool.

"The cemetery has cameras," I said to Richard. "My attorney will request the footage tonight."

For the first time, uncertainty crossed his face.

I left before my legs could fail beneath me.

Three days later, I woke to hundreds of messages.

Every major gossip site carried the same headline: BILLIONAIRE'S LOYAL WIFE EXPOSED AS A CHEATER.

The photographs showed me with Noah before the accident—leaving a campus library, sitting beside him in the hospital garden, kissing beneath the elm tree where he had asked me to marry him.

The dates had been cropped out.

The articles claimed the pictures were taken while Adrian and I lived in the basement apartment. Anonymous sources called me calculating, unfaithful, and obsessed with money.

Only four people had possessed copies of those photographs: Richard, Diane, Vanessa, and me.

I called Ethan as I dressed.

"Back up every Harbor & Hearth account," I told him. "Download the vendor contracts, payroll records, and security footage. Do not use the company server."

"Clara, reporters are already outside the flagship restaurant."

"Keep the staff inside. I'm calling Rachel."

The sidewalk outside my townhouse was packed when I opened the door.

Microphones surged toward me.

"Mrs. Cole, did you marry Adrian for his money?"

"How long have you been seeing the other man?"

"Does Adrian know his loyal wife was a fraud?"

Camera flashes exploded across my vision. I tried to move back, but more reporters pressed in behind me.

"Those photographs predate my marriage," I said. "A statement from my attorney will follow."

Someone shouted that I was lying.

A shoulder struck mine. A hand shoved between my shoulder blades.

My heel slipped off the top step.

The sky spun.

I hit the stone once, then again. Pain burst through the back of my skull. Warmth spread beneath my coat.

The last thing I heard was someone screaming for an ambulance.

When I woke, the room smelled of disinfectant.

A doctor stood beside my bed, holding a tablet against his chest.

"Mrs. Cole, you sustained a concussion and a small intracranial bleed. We were able to stabilize you."

His pause told me there was more.

"What happened?"

"You were approximately eight weeks pregnant. I'm sorry. We couldn't save the pregnancy."

My hand moved beneath the blanket.

Eight weeks.

I had blamed the nausea on stress. I had blamed the exhaustion on Adrian's absences. There had been a child inside me, and I had not known long enough to protect it.

The grief came soundlessly.

Adrian arrived carrying fruit and an expression of restrained concern. He sat beside the bed, peeled an orange, and separated it into perfect pieces as if precision could make this conversation bearable.

"The police are calling the fall an accident," he said. "We'll increase security at the house."

"Vanessa released the photographs."

His hands stopped.

"You don't know that."

"You know those pictures are old."

"Of course I do. You barely left our apartment for those first two years. There was no affair."

For one foolish second, relief loosened something in my chest.

Then he continued.

"But you used the media against Vanessa first. She reacted badly. You both made mistakes. Let it end here."

I stared at him.

"She released a lie that put a mob outside my door."

"She didn't push you."

"Her lie killed your child."

Pain crossed his face, but it was gone almost immediately.

"It was an accident, Clara. Vanessa is ill. Sometimes she lashes out when she feels threatened. You're her sister. Try to show some compassion."

I turned my head toward the dark window.

"We can have another baby," he said. "When you're better. I'll make this up to you."

I thought of the first child we had buried beneath unpaid bills and hospital forms. I thought of the second, whose existence had lasted only a few sentences in a sterile room.

Both times, Adrian had asked me to survive the pain so he would not have to face what his choices had cost.

I looked back at him.

"No."

He frowned. "No, what?"

"There won't be another child."

I reached for the call button and pressed it.

"There won't be another marriage, either."