Chapter 2

I dropped to the floor, tears pouring down my face.

"Why…" I forced myself to lift my head. "Why would you do this to me?"

"Julian." My voice shook. "I'm not the kind of woman who clings and begs."

"If you're determined to be with Serena, I can accept it. I can break up with you. We can cancel the wedding. You go marry her!"

"Why hide it from me? Why does everyone have to band together to lie to me?"

"Just go be with her! Why do you still want to marry me?"

I screamed through my tears, and my heart hurt so much I thought it might kill me.

He looked down at me from above.

After a long silence, he let out a cold laugh.

"What other reason could there be? You think it's because I love you?"

He bent down, wiped a tear from my chin, and clicked his tongue with a mixture of disgust and pity.

"Emma, Serena is your own sister. Single. Divorced. Raising a kid alone. She's had it hard enough."

"I don't want her to face any more gossip."

"If our wedding gets called off and I turn around and get together with her, how are the relatives and family friends supposed to look at her? What would those old ladies at the parish say?"

"So." He gripped my shoulders, his voice tender to the point of cruelty. "Emma, I can't bear to wrong her. So I have to wrong you."

Ice ran through me from head to toe. I stared at him in disbelief.

"You mean… you'd use marrying me as a cover so you can be with Serena?"

"Smart girl." He tapped the tip of my nose fondly. "So you'll play along, won't you?"

I slapped his hand away, furious.

"Julian, what makes you think I'll play along and let the two of you jerk me around?"

"You will." He smiled, and pulled a folded paper from the inside pocket of his suit jacket. He set it in front of me.

"Last week's medical results are back. You're pregnant."

"Emma, this is our child. Our first. You conceived him when you were most in love with me, when your head was full of dreams about our marriage."

"You wouldn't have the heart to let him be born without a father, would you?"

"And besides—you love me this much. Ten years together. Your whole youth belongs to me. Can you really bear to call off the wedding?"

"Even if you did, what man would want a woman already showing?"

I picked up the report. My hands shook so badly I could barely hold it.

The Cedars-Sinai Medical Center letterhead was unmistakable.

Tears kept spilling out, blurring my vision.

Then, suddenly, I laughed out loud. Tears hit the paper.

"Julian, you're ruthless."

He smiled, reached out and ruffled my hair. Gentle and cruel, all the way through.

"Be a good girl, Emma. You don't have a choice."

"Remember—don't say a word of this in front of Serena. I don't want her carrying any of this weight. Understand?"

I looked at the way his expression threatened me while sheltering her, and it was as if I were seeing him for the first time.

He rose smoothly and stepped over me without a glance.

I ran into the bathroom and vomited into the toilet until the world went black.

Wave after wave of nausea rolled up from my stomach.

I couldn't tell anymore what was burning—my heart, or my gut.

I knelt on the cold marble floor, shaking, laughing and crying at once.

Finally, mechanically, I took out my phone, tapped the stop button on the recording, and saved every word of the last conversation as an audio file.

Then I opened the browser and booked the earliest available appointment at the family planning clinic.

Julian was wrong.

I did have a choice.

I just had to be more ruthless than him. More willing to burn it all down.