Chapter 3
He fell into step beside me.
I didn't slow down. I didn't speed up. I just kept walking toward the elevator bank at the end of the corridor, my heels clicking a steady rhythm against the linoleum.
Corbin Freeman matched my pace without effort. He had his hands in his pockets. He looked completely relaxed, like a man taking a Sunday stroll through a hospital where his enemy was bleeding internally.
"Ghost pepper sausage," he said. His voice was low, almost conversational. "Brave choice for a man with a documented ulcer."
I didn't look at him. I pressed the elevator button.
"I wouldn't know anything about that anymore," I said.
A beat of silence. I felt him look at me. Not a glance. A real look, the kind that takes inventory.
The elevator doors slid open. Corbin reached out and held the door with one hand. He didn't say anything. He just waited.
I stepped in without thanking him.
The doors closed. I watched my own reflection in the polished steel. My jaw was set. My eyes were dry. I looked like a woman who had just walked out of a burning building and was already thinking about where to go next.
I pressed the lobby button and didn't look back.
---
They showed up three days later.
No call. No warning. Just the sharp buzz of the penthouse intercom and then my mother's voice floating through the speaker, bright and practiced. "Violet, sweetheart. Let us up."
I had been expecting this. I pressed the button.
I set my phone on the kitchen counter and opened the voice memo app. I hit record. I turned the screen face-down and slid it to the edge of the marble, half-hidden under the fruit bowl.
Then I sat down on the sofa and waited.
My father came in first. He was wearing his good blazer, the navy one he saved for important meetings. My mother followed, her handbag clutched in both hands. She looked around the penthouse the way she always did, cataloguing it, pricing it in her head.
They sat across from me on the white sofa. My mother smoothed her skirt. My father cleared his throat.
"You look tired," my mother said.
"I'm fine," I said.
Another throat clear from my father. "Violet. We need to talk about the situation."
"Okay," I said.
He leaned forward. His hands were clasped between his knees. "Jane is home. Axel wants to move forward with her. That's just the reality we're all dealing with now."
"I understand," I said.
My mother jumped in, her voice softening into that particular tone she used when she wanted to sound reasonable. "We know this is hard, sweetheart. We do. But you have to think about the bigger picture. The families have a relationship. There are business ties. There are obligations."
"Of course," I said.
She glanced at my father. He gave her a small nod.
"The baby," my mother said carefully. She paused, choosing her words like she was picking through broken glass. "It would complicate things. For everyone. Jane shouldn't have to walk into a situation with that kind of... baggage. It wouldn't be fair to her."
I looked at my mother's face. The face that used to kiss my forehead when I was small. The face that spent thirty years telling me to be patient, be reasonable, be good, be less.
"And Axel agrees with this?" I asked.
"Axel wants a clean start," my father said. "We all do. If you handle it now, quietly, before it becomes a problem, then we can all move forward. Axel would be generous. You'd be taken care of."
"Handle it," I repeated.
"It's early," my mother said quickly. "These things happen. It doesn't have to define you."
The room was very quiet.
I sat with my hands folded in my lap. I thought about the two pink lines. I thought about the small, stubborn life growing inside me that my own mother had just called baggage. I thought about the word handle, and how casually she had said it, like she was talking about a scheduling conflict.
I didn't cry. I didn't raise my voice.
I stood up. I walked to the kitchen counter. I picked up my phone.
I came back and sat down. I set the phone on the glass coffee table between us, screen up. I found the recording. I pressed play.
My mother's voice filled the room.
*Jane shouldn't have to walk into a situation with that kind of baggage.*
I watched the color leave her face in real time. It started at her cheeks and moved down her neck. My father went very still. His clasped hands tightened until his knuckles went white.
I let it play for thirty seconds. Then I stopped it.
Neither of them spoke.
"I'll be in touch through my lawyer," I said. My voice was perfectly calm. Quiet. The way still water is quiet right before it freezes solid. "I'd suggest you speak to yours."
My mother opened her mouth. Closed it.
"Violet—" my father started.
"I think we're done," I said.
I stood up. I walked to the entryway and held the front door open.
They left. My mother didn't look at me on the way out. My father paused in the doorway for just a moment, like he was going to say something that mattered. He didn't.
The door clicked shut.
I stood alone in the massive, silent penthouse. Outside, the Manhattan skyline glittered cold and indifferent through the floor-to-ceiling glass. I pressed my palm flat against my stomach.
"It's just us," I said quietly.
The city hummed fifty floors below. The baby didn't answer, of course. But something in my chest settled anyway. Something that had been braced for impact for a very long time finally, carefully, let go.
I picked up my phone. I opened my contacts. I scrolled to the name of the attorney I had quietly retained two weeks ago, the day after Axel slid those papers across his desk.
I typed a single message: *I'm ready. Let's talk numbers.*
I set the phone down and went to make myself a cup of tea. Something warm and sweet, with honey. Something I actually liked.
For the first time in three years, I didn't check what Axel might want for dinner.
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