Chapter 3

Eleanor's POV

The sharp smell of disinfectant and rubbing alcohol pulled me out of unconsciousness.

I opened my eyes to find myself in a stark, blinding hospital room, an IV tape on the back of my uninjured left hand. The fluorescent lights on the ceiling hummed a low, piercing whine that throbbed in my skull.

A female doctor in blue scrubs walked in with a clipboard, her expression heavy.

"Ms. Forman," the female doctor pulled a wheeled stool to the bedside and sat down, her voice gentle. "I'm Dr. Alpert. The building superintendent found you unconscious at home and brought you in."

I tried to sit up, but a tearing pain in my lower abdomen made a hoarse moan escape from deep in my throat.

"Don't move yet," Dr. Alpert pressed my shoulder, her tone soothing. "You suffered severe blunt-force pelvic trauma causing acute massive bleeding. I'm so sorry, but... we couldn't save the baby. To stop the hemorrhaging, we had to perform an emergency dilation and curettage."

The room seemed to spin.

"The baby?" My voice was hoarse and broken, trembling. "I... I was pregnant?"

"About five weeks along," Dr. Alpert said softly, sympathy in her eyes. "Given that you already suffered a natural miscarriage last winter without medical care, and extensive scar tissue had formed inside your uterus, combined with the blunt-force impact this time, your uterine lining sustained irreversible damage. Both fallopian tubes are also severely and mechanically obstructed. Ms. Forman, you will... never be able to conceive again."

The words hit my heart like a sledgehammer.

Infertile. I was only twenty-seven. My body was covered in burns from Gia's fire, and now Brighton's cruelty had destroyed what was inside me too.

Before I could recover from the suffocating blow, the hospital door opened. Mrs. Gable, the sixty-year-old neighbor from the end of the hallway, walked in carrying a small basket of oranges.

"Oh thank goodness, you're finally awake, Eleanor!" Mrs. Gable hurried to the bedside, exclaiming. "You scared me to death when the ambulance came. Brighton sent me to look after you—that man is a total angel!"

I stared at her through puffy, red eyes. "What?"

"Who else? Brighton, of course!" Mrs. Gable beamed, setting the fruit basket on the tray. "I just ran into him on the third floor, carrying poor Gia into the elevator. He told me you'd had an accidental fall and wanted to check on you, but Gia suddenly had pregnancy complications and as her legal guardian he has to stay with her. He's in room 304 right now!"

A bone-deep chill swept over me.

Gia was in room 304. Three floors below me.

"He even made her a special electrolyte tonic with grated dried ginger," Mrs. Gable chattered on. "He told the nurses he learned the recipe from scratch last winter when someone he knew was sick."

My hands gripped the thin bedsheet so tight my knuckles went white.

He didn't invent that recipe. Last winter, when I'd lost my first child alone in the bathroom, I'd spent three days in bed shivering. I was the one who'd made ginger and brown sugar water on the stove. Brighton watched from the side, memorizing the proportions only so I could get up sooner and iron his work shirts.

Now, he was trampling on the blood and tears of my past and offering all that tenderness to his mistress.

I ripped out the IV from the back of my hand. A bead of dark red blood welled from the needle puncture, but I didn't have time for it. I threw off the covers and dragged my trembling legs out of bed, leaning against the wall, gasping.

"Eleanor, what are you doing?!" Mrs. Gable shrieked, trying to grab my arm. "The doctor said you must stay in absolute bed rest!"

"Out of the way." My voice was cold, hollow, and flat.

I dragged my heavy steps to the hallway, got in the elevator, and pressed the button for the third floor. Every step sent a searing pain through my injured pelvis, but the fury burning in my chest kept me from collapsing.

I found room 304 at the end of the obstetrics hallway.

The door was cracked open a thin slit.

Through the gap, the scene inside was warm as a picture-perfect domestic idyll. Gia leaned against soft pillows in a pale pink silk robe, while Brighton sat on the edge of the bed. He gently blew on a spoonful of steaming broth and carefully held it to her lips.

"Is the temperature right, Gia?" Brighton asked softly, a gentleness I'd never heard him use in public. "You need to finish the whole bowl. The doctor said after the shock you just had, the baby needs nutrition most of all."

"It's delicious, Brighton," Gia purred, leaning forward to kiss his cheek. "You're taking such good care of me and the baby. I don't know what I'd do without you."

I shoved the heavy door open. It slammed against the wall with a deafening bang.

The spoon fell out of Brighton's hand, broth splattering the white sheets. Gia gasped and yanked the sheet up to her chin.

"Eleanor?" Brighton stood up sharply, his face instantly settling into its usual look of contempt and irritation. "What are you doing here? Didn't Dr. Alpert say you needed rest? Go back to your room."

I walked straight to the nightstand, grabbed the heavy insulated thermos, and hurled it against the wall opposite.

The metal vessel burst open on impact. Scalding broth and glass shards flew everywhere, covering the floor and baseboards.

"Are you out of your mind?!" Brighton roared, grabbing my shoulders and shoving me backward. "Gia is resting! Your unreasonable outburst nearly made her lose the baby!"

"My outburst?" I shrieked, hot tears gushing from my eyes like acid. "You killed my baby, Brighton! You pushed me into that marble table and left me on the floor to bleed to death! Dr. Alpert just told me I'll never be able to have children again! You've taken away my right to be a mother!"

Brighton flinched. His eyes went wide as he took in my pale, ghostlike face, and a flash of shock and sickening guilt crossed his features.

"Eleanor... I didn't mean to..." Brighton opened his mouth, his voice fading.

Mrs. Gable and three other visitors from the waiting area crowded in the doorway, staring open-mouthed at the shattered thermos on the floor and the woman in a hospital gown screaming in madness.

"Wait," Mrs. Gable said, pointing at Brighton in confusion. "Brighton, who exactly is your wife? You told the building management Eleanor was just your tenant. Why is she saying you caused her to miscarry?"

Gia immediately burst into loud, tearful sobs, grabbing Brighton's arm from behind.

"Brighton, tell them!" Gia wailed hysterically. "She's deliberately destroying our reputation! Tell everyone who I really am!"

I stared straight at Brighton. The air was thick enough to suffocate.

"Tell them, Brighton," I said, staring into his hollow eyes. "This is your last chance. Tell everyone who your wife is. Tell them what you did to our child."

More nurses, orderlies, and patients gathered outside the hospital room, all watching the impeccably dressed young lawyer as he stood trapped under the fluorescent lights.

Brighton glanced at the crowd, then back at Gia's tear-streaked, clinging face. Finally, his gaze fell on the gleaming partner's badge on his suit lapel—the career he'd worked ten years to build.

He stepped half a pace back, standing firmly in front of Gia's hospital bed.

"Gia is not the other woman," Brighton announced to the whole room, his voice steady and professional, but cold-blooded and without any warmth. "Ms. Forman has suffered from a pathological obsession with me for years, completely twisting our professional relationship. Gia is the mother of my child. I will not allow this woman to harass her for one more step."

The crowd went silent for a moment, then erupted in disgusted, condemning chatter.

"What a vicious woman, stalking and harassing a pregnant woman!"

"She should be arrested and thrown in jail!"

Mrs. Gable looked at me with undisguised disgust, shaking her head. "Eleanor, I've treated you like my own child. I never thought you'd do something like this."

Darkness swam before my eyes. The last thread holding my sanity together snapped.

I lunged at him barehanded, scratching wildly at Brighton's chest, tearing at his shirt, raking at his face with everything I had left.

"You liar! Coward! You killed our baby!" I screamed, pounding his chest until my knuckles turned purple.

From behind him, Gia's mouth curled into a fleeting, triumphant smirk, then she shrieked at the crowd: "She's crazy! Hold her down! She also stole things from our house! We'll sue her until she's bankrupt!"

"I'm filing formal charges tomorrow morning!" Brighton roared, grabbing my wrist and twisting it hard, forcing me down onto the cold tile floor. "Security! Get her out of here!"

Two guards rushed over and pinned me to the ground, pressing my face against the cold floor. Gia leaned over the bed rail and tore open the front of my hospital gown, exposing my bandaged chest and the grotesque burn scars to the laughing, jeering crowd in the hallway.

"Everyone look!" Gia shrieked with shrill laughter. "Look at this scarred freak who thinks she can steal another woman's husband!"

I looked up at Brighton in desperation, begging with my eyes for him to stop this humiliation.

Brighton just turned his head away, calmly adjusting his cufflinks, and walked out of the room, letting me be dragged down the hallway like an animal.