Chapter 1
“How long did you know she was carrying my child?”
Victoria stared at the engagement ring in my hand.
Around us, the planetarium lounge had gone silent. Preston was still tangled beneath the overturned telescope rack, foam planets scattered around his shoes like some absurd imitation of the sky above us.
Elena stood several feet away with one hand protecting her stomach.
Six months.
My child.
I looked back at Victoria.
“How long?”
Her lips parted.
Preston shouted from the floor:
“Don’t answer him.”
Wrong decision.
I turned toward him.
“You already answered more than she could.”
His face changed.
Why is she still alive?
Nobody says that about a woman they merely wanted gone from a party.
I looked at Elena.
“Did they threaten you?”
She did not answer immediately.
Her eyes went to Victoria.
Fear.
Not confusion.
Recognition.
“Yes.”
My hand tightened around the scorched ultrasound.
“When?”
“Five months ago.”
Victoria closed her eyes.
Five.
She had known almost the entire pregnancy.
I stepped closer to my former fiancée.
“You knew before you accepted my ring.”
Silence.
That hurt differently.
The engagement had taken place four months ago.
She had stood beneath my father’s portrait, smiled at my family, and let me place a diamond on her hand while knowing another woman was carrying my child.
Elena whispered:
“She knew before I did.”
I turned.
“What?”
Elena swallowed.
“Victoria had the clinic call before they called me.”
My blood went cold.
“How?”
Preston laughed bitterly.
“Because Sloan owns the clinic.”
There it was.
Not an accident.
Not gossip.
Access.
Victoria had learned my child existed before the mother had even heard the result herself.
Then Elena looked at Preston.
“And he was there the night they tried to make me disappear.”
The room changed.
I looked down at him.
“You have one chance.”
May you like
Preston stopped smiling.
“Where did you take her?”
