Chapter 3

3.

I looked at him.

"Julian." I used his name. No title. "Do you hear yourself right now?"

He went completely still.

"From the moment I walked into this house, did I say one word or make one move against Scarlett? She's been putting on a show from the start. Even if she wanted to throw herself off a bridge, what does that have to do with me? What grounds do you have to pin this on me?"

"You've lost even the most basic ability to tell what's real?"

Julian's face flushed dark red, like he'd downed a bottle of bourbon. "Even if you did nothing, Scarlett acted that way because you were here. You're not shaking this off."

"You'll go whether you want to or not. If anything happens to Scarlett or that child, I won't forgive you."

He shouted at the guards. "What are you standing there for. Take her."

"I'd like to see anyone try."

My voice wasn't loud. But every guard stopped dead.

They didn't dare touch me for one simple reason―my name was DeLuca.

And no random bodyguard put their hands on a DeLuca.

Julian noticed their hesitation. His expression darkened. "What, you want to defy my direct order?"

This was a direct command from the family heir. Everyone knew the price of disobedience.

The guards lowered their heads. Gripped my arms.

Lucia lunged forward. Her voice shook. "Mr. Moretti! Please, calm down! Madam didn't mean any harm! Please, for all the years she's given this family, everything she's done―"

Julian didn't glance at Lucia. He just stared at me. Waiting for me to beg.

I didn't.

Two guards dragged me to the glass conservatory behind the estate.

It had belonged to Julian's mother. After her death, the place was abandoned. On a late autumn night, it was cold as a refrigerated shipping container.

The iron door slammed shut behind me.

Lucia threw herself against the glass door, pounding on it. "Mr. Moretti! Madam's condition―she really shouldn't be―Madam is actually already―"

"Lucia." I cut her off sharply.

Through the frost-coated glass, I watched Julian on the distant steps, his arm around Scarlett.

He didn't look back.

He took that woman and walked away.

Lucia's tears froze into streaks of ice on her face. "Madam, why didn't you tell him you're pregnant too? Staying in a place like this all night―how could the baby possibly survive?"

I sat down on the stone floor and wrapped my cashmere coat tighter around myself.

"Lucia," My voice was calm. "No matter what happens tonight, you will not tell Julian I'm pregnant."

Lucia froze.

Moonlight streamed through the glass dome above.

I watched my own breath mist in the air and realized this child might do me a great favor―help me escape this cage.

Lucia bit her lip. Finally nodded.

Cold.

I hadn't been this cold in years.

Life near Central Park had made me forget the winters I'd survived as a child in Montreal.

An hour passed.

My body started shaking violently. Consciousness swung between clarity and fog.

Lucia ran frantically toward the main house to find a doctor. Scarlett's maid stopped her. "Wake the young lady and disturb her pregnancy, and you won't have enough lives to pay for it."

She tried to bring me a blanket. The maid sneered. "The master ordered the madam to stay there for six full hours. Who the hell are you to defy his orders?"

When I collapsed onto the stone floor, I could vaguely hear Lucia crying.

She rushed to the main house door and pounded on it without caring anymore.

Julian pulled the door open, ready to unleash his fury. Then he saw, through the window at the end of the hallway, the figure crumpled on the ground in the conservatory.

He paused.

Scarlett's voice came from behind him, dripping with casual contempt. "She's really committed to the sympathy act. Passing out after just an hour in the conservatory?"

"Maybe she's just waiting for you to play hero, darling. Don't fall for it. You know how some women use these tricks to get attention."

Julian's expression shifted.

The door slammed shut in Lucia's face.

"Anyone who disturbs me and Scarlett again will be thrown out of the estate."

Lucia and I spent the entire night in that icebox.

When the door finally opened the next morning, I couldn't make a sound anymore.

The family doctor rushed over. It was already too late.

The child inside me was gone.