Chapter 7
Ava Miller POV
The blood drying on my arm was real enough, but the pregnancy? That was a lie.
I sat in the harsh, antiseptic glare of a private clinic, watching the nurse stitch up my forearm. The needle pulled at my skin, a rhythmic tug of sharp pain that kept me focused, grounding me in the present while my world dissolved.
My personal assistant, Lily, barreled into the room. She was out of breath, her face flushed not just with exertion, but with a distinct, vibrating rage.
"He took her to Mount Sinai," Lily said, bypassing any pleasantries. "He carried her into the ER cradled in his arms like she was dying."
"I know," I said, staring at the black suture thread weaving through my flesh. "He thinks I tried to hurt his heir."
"That's the thing, Kelsey," Lily said, lowering her voice to a conspiratorial hiss. She pulled a folded piece of paper from her bag. "I have a friend in billing at Sinai. Aria has been there before. For 'abdominal pains' that turn out to be gas. She isn't pregnant."
The room went silent. The nurse paused, her hand hovering mid-stitch, glancing between us.
"What?" I whispered, the word barely escaping my throat.
"No HCG levels," Lily said, thrusting the paper into my good hand. "No ultrasound records. Nothing. She's faking it. She's been playing him for months. The 'morning sickness,' the 'cravings'—it's all theater."
I looked at the paper. It was just a cold list of numbers and medical codes, but it read like a verdict.
Bennett had torched our fifteen-year marriage, humiliated me publicly, and threatened to destroy me, all for a ghost.
He wasn't just cruel. He was a fool.
And that, somehow, hurt less. It made him small. It made him pathetic.
"He deserves her," I said. My voice was unnervingly steady. "They deserve each other."
"What are you going to do?" Lily asked, her eyes wide. "Are you going to tell him? Expose her?"
"No," I said. I stood up, wincing as the nurse taped the bandage over the fresh sutures. "If I tell him, I'm just the jealous ex-wife trying to stir up trouble. He won't believe me. He needs to find out when it's too late."
I grabbed my coat, draping it over my shoulders like armor. "I'm leaving, Lily. Tonight."
"Where?"
"Paris," I said. The word tasted like oxygen.
"My mother is arranging it. I'm disappearing."
I went to my mother's townhouse first. She didn't ask questions. She saw the bandage, the emptiness in my eyes, and she simply handed me a secure phone and a black bank card.
"The family jet is fueled," she said, hugging me tight, smelling of Chanel and steel. "But there's one thing. The Foundation Gala is tonight. If you don't show up, Bennett will spin the narrative that you've had a mental breakdown. He's already planting seeds in the press."
She was right. I needed to walk out with my head high, not vanish in the middle of a scandal.
"I'll go," I said. "One last time."
The gala was held in a ballroom that smelled of lilies and old money. I stood by the entrance, wearing a high-necked crimson dress that concealed my bandages and my bruises.
Bennett was there. Aria was absent—playing the victim at home, no doubt.
He saw me. He looked surprised, then angry. He started to stride toward me, likely to eject me from the premises.
My mother stepped in front of me, a human shield in silk. She glared at him with such ferocity that he actually faltered, the matriarch's gaze stopping him dead in his tracks.
"Don't," she mouthed.
I stood there, sipping water, watching the people I had known for half my life whisper behind their hands.
Suddenly, a low groan of stressed metal shook the floor.
It wasn't an earthquake. It was the massive crystal chandelier above the center of the room. A cable snapped with a sound like a gunshot.
A cacophony of screams erupted.
The massive fixture swung violently, glass raining down on the crowd like shrapnel.
Panic ensued. People shoved and pushed, the veneer of civility vanishing in seconds.
I was pushed against a wall by the surging tide of bodies. I saw Bennett across the room.
He wasn't looking for me. He wasn't looking for his parents.
He was on his phone, screaming into it, his face twisted in terror. "Aria! Stay inside! Don't open the door!"
Even in a disaster, even as the ceiling threatened to crush him, his only instinct was her.
I looked at him, and I felt the last tether snap.
The chandelier crashed to the floor, shattering into a million pieces.
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