Chapter 3
The parking garage beneath Cooper Industries felt like a tomb—concrete walls closing in, fluorescent lights casting sickly shadows that danced with my every movement. I clutched my purse tighter, the prenatal vitamins rattling inside like a secret I couldn't keep much longer.
"Dallas."
The voice echoed off the concrete, making me freeze mid-step. I didn't need to turn around to know who it was. Evan's footsteps approached with deliberate slowness, each click of his expensive shoes against the pavement measuring the distance between us.
"We need to talk," he said, his tone carrying that familiar edge of authority that once made my heart race. Now it only made my stomach clench.
I turned slowly, keeping my expression neutral despite the way my pulse hammered against my throat. "There's nothing to discuss."
"Zariah told me about your little scene at the clinic." His eyes dropped to my midsection, searching for signs I wasn't ready to reveal. "Is it mine?"
The question hung between us like a blade. After nine years together, after everything we'd shared, he could ask that with such cold calculation. "Does it matter?"
"Of course it matters!" His composure cracked, revealing the desperation underneath. "If you're carrying my child—"
"Your child?" I laughed, the sound harsh in the enclosed space. "You made your choice, Evan. You chose Zariah. You chose your new life. This baby is mine."
He stepped closer, and I caught that familiar scent of his cologne mixed with something sharper—fear, perhaps. "You can't just decide that. I have rights."
"Rights?" The word tasted bitter on my tongue. "You had rights when you were sleeping with your secretary while I was fighting for our future. You had rights when you proposed to her while I was carrying the child we'd planned together. You forfeited those rights."
His jaw clenched, that tell I'd learned to recognize over the years. "Don't be dramatic, Dallas. We can work this out like adults."
"Adults?" I shook my head, backing toward my car. "Adults don't abandon pregnant girlfriends for their secretaries. Adults don't call nine years of love a 'consolation prize.'"
Something flickered in his eyes—guilt, maybe, or just irritation at having his words thrown back at him. "Zariah is my future now. But if that baby is mine, we'll need to make arrangements."
"Arrangements." I repeated the word like it was foreign. "How clinical of you."
"What do you want from me?" His voice rose, echoing off the concrete walls. "I'm trying to do the right thing here!"
"The right thing would have been not betraying me in the first place." I reached my car, fumbling for my keys with trembling fingers. "Stay away from me, Evan. Stay away from my baby."
"Our baby," he corrected, but his voice lacked conviction.
I looked at him one last time—this man I'd loved for nine years, now a stranger wearing his face. "No. Mine."
---
Three days later, the lunch crowd outside Cooper Industries moved in its usual rhythm. Office workers clutching sandwiches and coffee cups, conversations about weekend plans and quarterly reports floating on the autumn air. I'd been avoiding this area, but my new apartment required me to pass by for the shortest route to my doctor's appointment.
I kept my head down, hoping to slip past unnoticed.
"There she is!" Zariah's voice cut through the ambient noise like a siren. "The woman who's been stalking my fiancé!"
Heads turned. Conversations stopped. The lunch crowd slowed, sensing drama about to unfold.
I stopped walking, my shoulders tensing. "Zariah, don't do this."
"Don't do what? Tell the truth?" She positioned herself directly in my path, her voice pitched to carry. "Tell everyone how you've been calling our home, showing up at his office, trying to destroy our marriage with lies about a baby?"
The crowd had formed a loose circle now, phones emerging from pockets. My face burned with humiliation as whispers rippled through the gathering.
"I haven't called anyone," I said quietly, trying to step around her.
She moved to block me again, her eyes bright with malicious triumph. "Liar! You're obsessed with him! You can't stand that he chose me over you!"
"Please, just let me pass." My voice was barely above a whisper, but in the sudden quiet, everyone heard.
"Pathetic," she spat, loud enough for the growing crowd. "Absolutely pathetic. Making up stories about babies to try to win him back."
Something inside me snapped. "I'm not making up anything."
"Prove it then!" Her voice reached a crescendo. "Show everyone the lies you're spreading!"
I tried to move past her again, desperate to escape the staring faces and recording phones. That's when I felt her hands on my shoulders—not a gentle touch, but a deliberate, forceful shove.
Time slowed as I stumbled backward, my heels catching on the uneven pavement. The crowd gasped as I careened toward the street, my arms windmilling as I fought for balance. The delivery truck's horn blared, its driver's eyes wide with horror as I fell directly into its path.
In that crystalline moment before impact, I had only one thought: my baby.
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