Chapter 1 - The Second Heartbeat
“Because there are two heartbeats,” Emily whispered.
Outside the library, Dominic forgot how to breathe.
Catherine’s hand froze over Emily’s.
“Twins?”
Emily nodded, tears sliding down her face. “The doctor wants a closer look at something on the ultrasound. She told me not to panic, but I’ve been doing a pretty terrible job.”
“Does anyone else know?”
“Just you.”
Dominic looked down at the ivory envelope.
Twenty-eight pages. His signature on every one.
He had spent six months convincing himself that breaking Emily’s heart was the price of keeping it beating. Now she was sitting twenty feet away, frightened about two children he hadn’t known existed, believing she had to face everything alone.
He pushed open the door.
Emily saw the envelope first.
Her expression changed before she even looked at his face.
“Oh,” she said.
One small word. No accusation. No surprise.
Only the exhausted recognition of someone whose worst fear had finally arrived.
Catherine stood. “Dominic.”
He couldn’t look at his mother.
“Emily, I heard—”
“How much?”
“Enough.”
Emily’s hand dropped from her stomach. She straightened against the sofa, gathering herself with a composure he had once mistaken for resilience.
“I wasn’t going to hide them forever.”
“Them,” he repeated.
“Yes. Them.”
He took a step forward.
She moved back.
It was barely an inch, but he stopped as though she had put a wall between them.
“Those are the papers, aren’t they?” she asked.
Dominic’s silence answered.
Emily closed her eyes.
For a moment, he thought she might cry harder. Instead, she reached for the tissue on the table, folded it neatly, and set it down.
“Then let’s not make this uglier because you found out.”
“Emily—”
“I’ll have an attorney review them. I’m not signing anything tonight.”
“You don’t have to sign anything.”
“Because I’m pregnant?”
“No.”
She looked at him then, directly and without softness.
“If I hadn’t been pregnant, would you have handed me that envelope?”
He had negotiated with men who threatened to destroy everything he owned.
None had ever asked him a question he found harder to answer.
“Yes,” he said.
Catherine’s breath caught.
Emily nodded once.
“Thank you for telling me the truth. Finally.”
“The truth is that someone has been threatening you.”
The room went still.
Dominic placed the envelope on a table, suddenly unable to bear holding it.
“Photographs. Your schedule. Places you go. Six months ago, someone sent me a picture of you outside the charity.”
Emily stared at him.
“So you decided to stop loving me in public?”
“I thought distance would—”
“Make me less valuable?”
He said nothing.
Her face twisted.
“Did you think whoever was watching us would forget we were married?”
“It was supposed to be temporary.”
“For six months?”
“I was trying to find who was behind it.”
“And when you couldn’t, you decided to divorce me without explaining why.”
Hearing it in her voice stripped away every comforting word he had used for himself.
Protection. Strategy. Sacrifice.
Cowardice sounded closer.
“I was wrong,” he said.
“Yes,” Emily answered. “You were.”
Catherine moved toward the door.
“I’ll give you both a moment.”
“Please stay,” Emily said immediately.
Dominic felt the request land between his ribs.
His wife needed his mother in the room to feel safe enough to speak to him.
Catherine stayed.
Emily stood slowly.
“I’m keeping tomorrow’s appointment. Afterward, I’m going somewhere I can think.”
“Let me take you.”
“No.”
“Please.”
She studied him, and he knew she was searching for the trap, the condition, the hidden instruction.
“You may come,” she said at last. “If you understand that being there doesn’t change my decision.”
“I understand.”
“And you don’t get to tell the doctor what I’m allowed to hear.”
His throat tightened.
“I understand that too.”
She walked past him without touching him.
At the doorway, she stopped.
“Your aunt said there was another woman.”
“There isn’t.”
“She knew about the divorce before I did.”
Dominic turned toward her.
For the first time that evening, something colder than shame moved through him.
Only three people had known about those papers.
His attorney.
His head of security.
And Dominic himself.
Emily looked at the envelope one last time.
May you like
“Find out why your aunt knew what your wife didn’t.”
Then she left him standing beside the future he had nearly thrown away.
