My cycle has never been something I could count on, but even so, I should have seen it coming.
The queasiness. The exhaustion. Food tasting wrong. Everyone says those clues are obvious—until you’re staring back and realizing how many you walked right past.
I’ve been doing that for years, too. Ignoring every warning that the man I married was never going to return what I kept trying to give.
I walked into a routine screening thinking, what’s the worst-case scenario? If they told me it was cancer, I’d grit my teeth and fight.
But this?
A pregnancy.
A miracle that picked the worst possible moment to show up.
Maybe one day I’ll feel that fierce, glowing love people talk about. Right now I can only picture his face. Samuel will despise this baby.
Some sick part of me thinks I’d rather have heard the other diagnosis. Cancer would have made at least one of us relieved.
I sit alone in the crowded maternity lobby, trying to make the words real. They won’t settle. Instead, envy burns behind my eyes as I watch couples pressed close together—hands linked, voices soft, smiles easy.
I live in a mansion. I’m married to a billionaire. And there’s his child inside me.
Yet the happy ones are them.
I would swap every polished surface and every expensive convenience for one simple thing: a man who actually stays beside me.
You couldn’t have chosen a worse time, little one. My fingers drift to my still-flat stomach, and the touch feels more bitter than tender. Why now, when your mother poured her love into the wrong person? What am I supposed to do with you?
My phone rings, dragging me back to the life I keep pretending I can postpone. His name lights up the screen, and my throat tightens until even breathing feels like work.
I answer without a word, holding the phone to my ear and letting the silence stretch.
It takes him a moment to notice the call connected—then his temper detonates.
“Susan, where the hell are you?!” Samuel snaps, harsher than usual. “You said nine!”
I glance down. 9:07 a.m. Seven minutes late, and I’ve already spent every ounce of his patience.
“Could we… do this another time?” My eyes squeeze shut. I don’t have the energy to chase his schedule today. “I—I’m not feeling very well—”
My hand clamps around my purse.
Inside are two folders.
The test results, confirming the pregnancy. And the divorce papers—one thing this day threw at me without warning, the other something I have been carrying toward for far too long. I don’t feel well, but then again, I haven’t for a while. I just don’t know what the baby changes. Or if it changes anything at all.
He gives a short, ice-edged laugh. I press my lips together and swallow everything else.
“YOU asked for the divorce, Susanna Fletcher,” he says, voice like frost. “YOU said you’d bring those ‘damn divorce papers’ first thing today.” Even without seeing him, I can picture the disgust. I’ve watched it on his face for five straight years. “What did I tell you?”
I keep my eyes closed, but the tears still find their way out.
[Don’t waste my time with this bullshit. You want a bigger allowance? Fine. But don’t try to threaten me.]
That was Samuel.
To him, the divorce was just me acting out—another attempt at attention, as if leaving could ever put him in a corner. The truth is, since the day we married, he has wanted me gone.
Five years.
A wish that relentless should probably be granted.
“You’re right.” I draw my brows down hard and dig my nails into my palm until the sting steadies my voice. “I’m sorry I’m late. I’ll be there in thirty minutes.”
“Don’t.” His reply is immediate and cold. I hear an engine turn over in the background. “Amelia’s final checkup is today. I’m going now. I’m not waiting for you.”
So that’s the urgency.
Of course I’m in the way—again—between him and the woman he loves.
How many appointments is this now? The millionth follow-up since her surgery? For three months, my husband has been shuttling between our home and the hospital like a man with purpose. I understand the fear under his impatience.
If Amelia gets better, then he can finally have the life he actually wants.
“Then I’ll bring them to the hospital.” I shut my eyes and end the call. Maybe he tries to refuse at the last second, but I’m done listening.
I can’t command my heart to stop choosing him, but I can make my feet walk away. Eventually the rest of me will catch up. It has to.
A mansion. A billionaire. As if those were ever mine.
I took them—snatched them with a desperate, ugly kind of victory—and even after lowering myself to that, they never belonged to me. For five years, they’ve cast me as the wicked dragon hoarding treasure that isn’t hers. So for five years, they’ve condemned me, punished me, and come at me like heroes.
But I’m not a dragon.
I’m only a squirrel, and I can’t keep hold of the one nut I wanted more than anything.
Chapter 2
Susanna’s POV
I’m wedged into the back seat of a taxi headed to yet another hospital—the one where she is. To see him there. My stomach keeps rolling. Maybe it’s the motion, maybe it’s the morning, maybe it’s just that I’m nauseated by the whole ritual.
This is the trip I dread most, and it’s a route I have been riding for ten years. She ends up in a ward, and he ends up at her side. That was true long before I ever became his wife.
That’s what you get when the boy you’re stuck on is in love with your sister—the sister with von Willebrand disease and an RH-negative blood type on top of it.
The kind of illness where bleeding doesn’t quit. The kind of blood type only 0.3% of people have.
A nick on her finger can turn into a disaster. So she’s the family’s fragile jewel: protected, pampered, the miracle everyone revolves around, the untouchable who receives whatever she wants simply by breathing.
And me? I can be standing in the room and still not count.
My parents look through me because their eyes only land on Amelia. My brother acts like I robbed her of her health.
No. I robbed her of her man.
Except their dislike didn’t start with Samuel. It was there first—quiet, careful, tucked away. Marrying him just gave it permission to show its face.
Still, I did take what wasn’t mine, and I paid for it. I married him and collected five years of his punishment.
I believed if I poured enough love into him, it would balance the sin. I spent everything I had to spend. I told myself the wedding meant my life had finally turned into a dream, but I should have understood the truth the night I lay alone in our bed that...
...He will never be the boy who rescued me ten years ago. Not for me. Not again.
[Sorry. Looks like the plan is on again… Are you still free?] I text Audrey, guilt pinching me after I’d just made her cancel my flight when I was told it would be one ticket for two.
[For you? Always.]
I shut my eyes and let that answer settle.
So it’s decided.
I can’t pull away now. He won’t allow it. He has been waiting for these divorce papers forever.
I just have to understand what the baby is in the middle of this. Or maybe it’s something only I’m allowed to decide. He won’t want anything to do with a baby, and Amelia...
It would be generous of her to even permit him to exist. If she asks Samuel to make me end it, he will happily do what she wants.
The taxi bucks over the road, and I take a second to steady my breathing. Sweat films my forehead; a sour lump hangs at the back of my throat. I’ve always gotten carsick easily, and carrying something tiny inside me is making it worse.
I blame him. It has to be a boy—already causing trouble, just like his father.
Then I catch myself and let out a small, bitter laugh at how childish that is.
A minute ago, all I felt was ice and dread at the idea of him. Just an embryo, barely there, too small to even show much on the scan—something that promised nothing except problems.
And now my mind is already building his laugh, like it’s going to be the prettiest sound in the world. Before he’s even born, he has already managed to give me a flicker of happiness.
I want to keep him.
The thought terrifies me. Even if I follow through with the plan, can I really bring a baby into a life where he loses one parent before he’s even taken a breath?
Tears rise fast, blurring the hallway in my mind before I’ve even stepped into it. Hormones, I tell myself, like that explains how quickly my vision fractures.
I let the tears dry as much as they can, then haul my rubbery legs toward Amelia’s ward on the fifth floor. He’s inside, waiting—just not for the folder I want to hand him.
He wants the one that breaks me.
I thought I was prepared. I thought he had already pulverized my heart into dust, too fine for love to survive. But it hurts anyway. And it feels even less possible now, with the baby tipping the scale.
“Samuel, I’m scared,” Amelia’s small, sweet voice slips through the door and stops me cold. “Waiting for the results is horrible… Hold meeee.”
One line from my sister and I lose the strength to walk in.
Because I know he will. He will wrap his arms around her with whatever love he has.
I don’t know how much that love is.
I just know I’ve gotten none of it.
If I had been uncertain before, I’m not anymore. This marriage has only one ending. I’m here to deliver the divorce papers, I remind myself.
The baby...is an accident. A surprise. Not something that changes the direction of anything.
Five years is long enough to live inside a mistake. I don’t have much left to keep up a marriage that only exists from my side. He married me, yes—but only in ink. His heart belongs to her. It always has, and it always will.
Tonight, I’ll be in a different city, leaving the man I love with the woman he loves.
Chapter 3
Susanna’s POV
“Come on,” Samuel laughs softly, the sound trailing into the quiet corridor after her question. “Your bone marrow transplant happened three months ago.”
My fingers close around the doorknob.
It doesn’t turn.
The metal feels cold, and my arm might as well be made of stone. I have watched them love each other for too long, too many times, for it to ever be unfamiliar.
So I stand there anyway, as if I’m choosing the hurt on purpose.
“Today’s just a routine follow-up,” Samuel says, voice gentle, steady. “Every test has come back good before, hasn’t it?”
I can picture him without seeing him—his warm, coaxing smile, that broad hand brushing over her hair like she’s something fragile and rare.
That kind of care is something I have had from him only once.
One time. One brief flare of warmth in a life that has mostly been dark.
I mistook it for sunlight. I threw myself at it like it could save me, wagering everything I was.
And like the sun, he burned.
It doesn’t matter how much I loved him. It doesn’t matter what I gave up, what I did, what I swallowed.
There was never going to be a return.
Because, in his mind, he already paid the highest cost—he married me. A woman he doesn’t love. And apparently that settles all debts.
“What if it didn’t work… again?” Amelia’s voice breaks around the words, already crying.
Willebrand isn’t curable… yet.
Samuel has basically bought her this VIP suite, poured money into it like it’s water, and spent the last five years pushing plan after plan with the specialist he hired on a seven-digit salary—the doctor everyone whispers about, the one who has been making “breakthroughs.”
“Then we keep going,” Samuel answers, tenderness saturating every syllable. “You know I’m not letting anything happen to you.”
I can’t.
I can’t walk in.
His voice drains whatever strength I’ve managed to gather into my limbs. My knees soften, and I feel like I’m dissolving right where I stand.
Of course he loves her.
That truth has been pressed into me daily for as long as I can remember. I should be numb by now. I want to be numb.
But my stupid, defiant heart still aches for him.
“I know you won’t,” Amelia sniffles, trailing off, then forcing the rest out like it might cut her. “It’s just… if I’m still the imperfect vase, I won’t be able to stay with you…”
A vase that shatters if you breathe too close.
Normally, lines like that send everyone scrambling to wrap her in comfort.
This time, Samuel doesn’t answer right away.
My throat tightens until it aches. The dryness burns, and I realize I’m holding my breath.
Is he going to say it now?
Is he going to tell her the good news—that today he becomes free, that he can finally belong to her openly? He can. He knows his freedom is coming, close enough to taste.
I want to shove the door open and stop the words before they exist in the air.
But I don’t.
The last time I let myself act on what I felt, I earned a punishment that lasted five years.
“Amelia,” Samuel says at last, and my stomach drops before he even finishes, “I’m married.”
I blink.
My brain stutters like it didn’t hear correctly.
He… said that.
He said he’s married.
Is that what rejection sounds like when it comes from him? Am I allowed to let hope—tormenting, poisonous hope—push up through the cracks, just a little?
“I’m sorry,” Amelia sobs immediately, loud and wrecked. “You shouldn’t have done that for me! You shouldn’t have—!”
Even I feel guilt bloom, unwanted and heavy.
She’s right.
He shouldn’t have.
And yet, even if he hadn’t agreed, Amelia still would have been saved. My parents would never have allowed anything else.
Amelia and I were both born with RH- blood.
For her, it’s a miracle.
For me, it’s a sentence—because I was the healthy one.
She needed me.
And I asked Samuel to pay a price to keep the woman he loved alive.
He did.
For one foolish moment, I thought I had finally gotten something I wanted.
All I really did was hand him another way to prove his devotion to her—and carve a scar into myself that still hasn’t closed.
I stole time from his love.
So he made sure to destroy mine.
Fair, isn’t it?
“I told you,” Samuel murmurs, voice deep and soothing, “I’m not letting anything happen to you.”
He once said that to me too.
Maybe promises don’t mean anything until the boy who makes them has turned into the kind of man who can keep them.
I hear movement—fabric, breath, the small shift of bodies—and I can imagine her folding into him.
Or maybe I don’t want to imagine it.
I step back from the door, retreating like the loser I’ve always been in this triangle.
[I’m at the hospital. Come out when you can,] I text Samuel.
I thought I had accepted it.
But I still can’t make myself walk in.
In the end, I still lose to her.
I’m the villain in my own version of events, and villains don’t get rewarded. That’s the rule. That’s how stories are supposed to work: the hero kills the dragon, and the princess gets her happy ending.
Of course he wouldn’t ever hit me. Samuel is the shining knight.
He just ground my heart into mud instead—slow, methodical—twisting down to make sure it hurt while her whole kingdom cheered.
He could only do it because I let him.
And I can’t let him anymore.
Not when there isn’t even a scrap of that heart left for him to step on.
Chapter 4
Susanna’s POV
I grind the cigarette into the edge of the trash can the moment her door swings open.
Samuel appears in the doorway and just stays there, a good stretch of hallway between us. His mouth tightens. He’s always hated the smell on me—usually he’ll glare, or lecture, or do what he’s doing now: keep his distance like I’m something sticky.
It’s disgusting, sure. But sometimes a woman needs something—anything—to keep the ache in her chest from cracking her open. If Amelia had ever wanted a cigarette, though, I know exactly what he’d do. He’d light one for her.
“So?” One hand slides into his pocket. The glare doesn’t budge even as he finally closes the distance. That gesture means he’s done waiting.
I study his face anyway. Beautiful. Commanding. The same kind of handsome that stopped my breath the day he found me in that forest. Back then, his eyes had been clear and bright, like they held their own sky. Now there’s only a hard, black hatred looking back.
He snaps his fingers.
“Sorry…” I drop my gaze and bring out the divorce papers. He reaches for them, and I flinch away on instinct.
His expression curdles immediately—revulsion so sharp it might as well be shouted.
[I knew it wouldn’t be that easy.]
“Just… I need to ask one thing first.” I keep my eyes fixed on his chest like I can hide there. “Please.”
Would it change anything if I’m pregnant? The question claws at my throat, but I can’t force it into the air.
I inhale, look up—catch him exhaling like I’m exhausting. His eyes roll.
“I don’t have time for your games, Susan.”
And there it goes. The moment is gone before I can grab it.
I lift the folder a fraction. He yanks it out of my hand, fast enough to slice the skin at the base of my thumb. I curl my fingers, the sting pulsing. It’s nothing next to what he’s done to my heart.
He doesn’t even see the blood. He turns away like I’ve already stopped existing.
“I heard you,” I blurt, heartbeat hammering. “You… you said you were married.”
He slows and looks back, and I know I must look pathetic—like a stray begging not to be kicked.
But I have to know.
I can’t tell which would hurt more: a thin scrap of hope, or the certainty that there isn’t even that. I tell myself it’s for the baby, not me.
I wait, lying to my own face.
He understood anyway. “I didn’t want to give her false hope.”
Not a rejection. Never that. Just him putting her feelings above everything—like always. Even if he wanted her, he wouldn’t let her carry one splinter of pain, not even the pain that comes with hoping.
Bitterness floods my mouth and pulls my lips into something ugly. I can tell, because his frown deepens when he sees it.
“Would—” I start, but he turns again.
Then he stops, more irritated than before.
“Can you get all your nonsense out at once?!”
Would you miss me—just a little—if I disappeared from your life forever? I stare at the man I’ve loved for ten years. The tears outrun my voice.
Instead, I twist the question into something safe. “Could you mail the papers to Audrey when you’re done?” The words almost bite my tongue on the way out.
“Why can’t you do it yourself?” Samuel shoots back, and then adds, “Your stuff…”
“I’ll have it out of your house today.” I nod. I already have. There isn’t much to take—an iPad, my passport, a few clothes. The things he bought me all carry Amelia’s imprint, and I don’t want any of it.
My small suitcase barely held what was mine. He didn’t notice it missing when he left this morning. I doubt he’ll notice anything missing tonight either.
“What’s your plan after this?” he asks, and it’s so rare it almost sounds like a mistake.
“Do you actually want to know?” I ask before I can stop myself. If he did—maybe we could still… maybe we could share a child from two separate lives.
“Why is talking to you always so difficult?” he says, walking away before the sentence even finishes landing.
Because you never cared enough to talk to me at all.
I watch him disappear into her ward. Only then do I let the tears fall however they want.
I’m sorry, Samuel. I can’t tell you about the baby. It would only make everything heavier—for all three of us.
[Audrey, it’s done.] I text. Three words, and I have to wipe my eyes twice just to see the screen.
Her reply comes instantly. [Your ride is downstairs, your Highness.]
I practically collapse into her car, grateful I don’t have to sit outside the hospital and turn my humiliation into public entertainment.
Audrey floors it. We’re miles away before she pulls over, gets out, and climbs into the back with me. She doesn’t ask questions. She just holds still and lets me sob into her shoulder until my chest aches.
Ten years. A decade of this bitter-sweet love. And today it died. What a miserable ending. I couldn’t even manage to leave with dignity.
“I honestly didn’t think you’d go through with it.” On the drive to the airport, Audrey keeps glancing at me, then finally speaks, half teasing and half not. “When you told me this morning to cancel, I wasn’t shocked. What surprised me was you changing your mind later and going back in. What happened?”
I swallow.
“Well… I’m pregnant.”
Chapter 5
Susanna’s POV
Audrey drove me all the way to the airport anyway.
She just refused to hand over my boarding pass.
Instead, she shoved a cup of steaming cocoa into my hands and pinned me with a look across McDonald’s cramped little table—the kind of glare a furious mother gives a kid who skipped school.
“I only found out today—” I began, small-voiced, and she snapped back before I could breathe.
“Yeah. You already told me.”
I hadn’t plotted any of this. I stared down into the chocolate, pretending it needed my full attention, because meeting her eyes meant taking the full weight of her anger.
Audrey had the whole package—money, beauty, popularity, legs for days. But she hadn’t started out with any of it.
She’d grown up watching her single mother grind herself down to raise her, hating an absent father for years, until the truth finally surfaced: he hadn’t abandoned them the way her mom claimed. Her mom had been the one to end it.
And now she was watching me set up the same tragedy.
“I’m not going to make the baby hate him,” I muttered, still not looking up. I knew what that kind of story had done to her.
“That’s not the whole point!” Audrey leaned forward, eyes sharp, words coming fast like bullets. “My mom lied to me, sure, but it wasn’t out of nowhere—my dad did cheat. And he still loved me. Do you get how much it hurts to realize he spent twelve years thinking I hated him while I thought he hated me? And then it all exploded and I screamed at my mom, and it hurts to know she has given me everything she had and then some—” She dragged in a breath, furious with the shape of the memory. “It’s complicated, Susan. You have no idea what it cost her. Starting her company—everything. I watched every second of her pain.”
I let her go until the last of it burned out. I had been there for the aftermath of those revelations; I knew it still lived under her skin.
Finally she exhaled, long and heavy. “Susan… raising a baby alone isn’t easy.”
“You’re the lucky one, Audrey,” I said, even though I wished I could simply accept what she was trying to give me. My situation wasn’t hers. “What if your dad had hated you? You went to him anyway. Remember how terrified you were?”
She went quiet.
It had been our last semester of eighth grade. She’d carried that decision around for weeks before she could move. Even our teacher noticed—kept watching her like she thought Audrey was slipping into some awful relationship, because she was so distracted and wrong.
Audrey’s voice came back rough and unwilling. “So there’s really no fixing it? I still can’t believe you’re doing this… What happened now? It’s not like he was ever exactly a saint.”
What happened? Nothing dramatic, not in the way people expect.
I walked in on my husband kissing my sister.
Maybe it had been going on forever. Maybe I’d just been the last one to see it. But watching it with my own eyes split something open that I couldn’t sew shut again.
“It doesn’t matter anymore,” I said, eyes closed, shaking my head like I could physically fling him out of my mind. “He doesn’t love me. And the love of his life is healed now. They’ll end up together, and I’ll finally be free of them. That’s the plan.”
“Mm-hm. Perfect plan,” Audrey said, staring holes through me. “Quick question: where does the baby fit into this flawless little escape route?”
I stared back, flat and exhausted.
The baby hadn’t existed when I built the plan.
And Samuel had already made it painfully clear that it wouldn’t change anything.
“You don’t have to stay married just because you’re pregnant,” Audrey said, huffing as she worked herself back into anger. “But you do have to tell him. Ugh—why am I even defending him? Why are you making me do this?!”
Only Audrey could rip apart the most untouchable billionaire in the city and still somehow end up arguing for his basic rights.
She slid my ticket toward me and pinned it in place with one finger. In her other hand, she held my phone like evidence. “Tell him. No matter how he reacts, you leave knowing you didn’t run without saying it.”
Tell him I was leaving with a baby he never wanted. Tell him I was carrying his blood—something that could complicate everything, ruin his clean path back to Amelia—on the very day he had finally seen the first glint of possibility with the woman he’d always loved.
Even I couldn’t stomach that kind of cruelty.
“He has to know,” Audrey said, softer but immovable.
My fingers closed around the phone anyway.
“What?” she demanded when I set it back down.
“I texted him.”
“Texted?” Audrey’s eyes rolled hard. “He’s your husband, Susanna. And you sent a text? For something like this?” She snatched the phone in outright fury, and I didn’t stop her.
I was tired.
Tired of seeing contempt in eyes I cared about.
Tired of hearing ice in a voice that used to be my shelter.
“Seriously?” Audrey thrust the screen up close, practically pressing it to my face. “This is all you can manage?”
[I’m at the airport. Say the word and I won’t leave.]
“If there’s even a sliver of feeling left for me,” I said, looking at Audrey now, “just one word—anything—that says he can stand me staying anywhere near his life, even divorced… then I’ll fight. For him. For the baby. For whatever’s still possible. But if there isn’t…”
If there wasn’t, what was the point of dragging an innocent child through everyone’s ruin?
[Attention all passengers, this is the final boarding call...]
An hour passed like that—waiting, listening as the boarding announcement came again and again until it reached the last group.
Audrey’s face kept falling, minute by minute, grief creeping in.
Mine stayed oddly steady.
I knew disappointment too well.
Or maybe I had simply refused to hope this time.
Then my phone rang and stopped Audrey mid-breath. She nudged me, suddenly bright, like this was it.
It wasn’t.
[Mr. Fletcher calling…] The name on the screen felt like a hand closing around my heart. I didn’t want to answer.
“Hello,” I said anyway, and my own voice sounded far away and cold.
“Your mom is hurt. Come home.” His tone was even colder.
The line went dead before I could say a single word.
Chapter 6
Susanna's POV
“What was that?” Audrey blinks at me like she can’t believe a call that short could change anything.
My fingers clamp around my phone—second time today I’ve done it—while my plan slips in my head like wet soap. I’m so tired of getting hurt. Is that really asking for too much? I squeeze my eyes shut. For one reckless second, I want to snatch my ticket, walk away, and let everything behind me collapse.
But I can’t.
If Mom needs blood, I have to show up. That’s my job in this family. Their vein. Their spare parts.
Please, God. Please let that call have nothing to do with the message I sent Samuel.
Between Mom actually being injured and Samuel having sold me out… I don’t know which reality I’m praying for.
“I guess I’m not leaving today,” I say, breath leaking out of me. I don’t look at Audrey when I add, “I’m sorry, but… I need you to take me back.”
“That’s amazing!” Audrey practically crashes into me, delighted. “That was him, right? What did he say? Do you two always talk like that?”
With Mr. Fletcher?
Yes.
My “father” never loved me. Even when I was little, there was something poisoned in his stare—like hate lived behind his eyes and didn’t bother hiding. I didn’t understand it until the day I learned I was adopted.
And the way I learned it? I can thank Amelia for that.
Audrey drives harder than usual and still finds room to try to soothe me. “Susan, don’t spiral. I’m sure Mrs. Fletcher is okay.”
For someone who used to race F1, her “harder” barely feels like speed.
“I… thanks.”
I can’t say I know.
I can’t even say I hope so.
Because if Mom isn’t hurt, then the only person in that house who ever gave me warmth has lied straight to my face—just to drag me back into the place they insist I call home.
I don’t want to think it, but if anything had truly happened to Mr. Fletcher’s precious wife, he wouldn’t have tossed me a single sentence. He would have already sent men after me.
I pull my boarding pass out and start tearing.
One rip.
Then another.
Then again.
By the time Audrey’s car cuts along the empty road between the airport and the city, it’s confetti. I fling the pieces into the wind, scattering them between what almost became freedom and what has always been a nightmare.
I could buy another ticket.
Freedom, though? I’m not getting that.
I’m the family’s blood supply, which makes “leaving” a thing I’m apparently never allowed to own. I actually believed I could do it because Amelia is supposed to be cured now—meaning I shouldn’t have to donate every time she so much as gets a paper cut.
How stupidly naive was that?
Mom, I’m sorry, but I need you to be truly injured. Because if you aren’t, then I lose you in a different way. Please don’t lie to me. Not you. Not too.
When Audrey pulls into the Fletcher villa and I see the ridiculous welcome-home party—Amelia’s party—spilling with laughter and bright decorations and a crowd that looks happy on purpose, I know my prayer didn’t get answered.
They knew I was at the airport.
That’s why the call came.
Samuel told them.
Of course he did.
One word from him and I would have stayed. For him, I would have been a blood vessel for love if that’s what he wanted. But he couldn’t even do that. He let them stop me instead.
Samuel Knight.
Good for you.
I step into the villa—one of the most expensive monuments in the city, a place I used to say was my home even though it never belonged to me.
Near the pool I spot Samuel. Crisp black suit, leather shoes kept safely away from the shrieking kids splashing water everywhere. He sits under an umbrella with a drink, facing Amelia across the table like they’re the only two people here.
He notices me.
His mouth tightens. He frowns—and then he looks away.
Inside the lobby, Arthur appears instantly, like he’s been waiting behind the walls. “Miss Susanna. Mr. Fletcher wants you in his study.”
“I thought Mom was injured,” I say, keeping my voice smooth. Playing along.
Arthur avoids my eyes and repeats himself. He’s a servant, a paid instrument—just like I am. There’s no point sharpening one tool against another.
I give a small nod. He bows again and leads me down the hall.
“Susanna.” Mr. Fletcher barely spares me a glance when I enter. His attention is still on the folder in front of him. “Raymond agreed to do your film. You start Monday.”
Raymond Harrison.
The director. The name people whisper like a guarantee. They say he’s got a golden touch—every script he takes becomes money.
“How is Mom?” I ask, refusing to bite on the bait. His offer is meant to purchase my silence, my obedience, my life.
And it annoys him that I don’t.
He lifts his head at last, eyes narrowed into something sharp and dangerous. He isn’t used to this version of me. To be fair, he’s never actually called me a “blood vessel” out loud.
“She’s resting,” he says, voice iced over. “In her room. You’re not going to disturb her.”
He brought me back using her name, and he doesn’t even bother finishing the performance.
“So if I go upstairs, I lose the movie you got me out of pure fatherly devotion?”
“Young lady,” Mr. Fletcher says, closing the file with deliberate care, “watch your mouth.” The temperature in the room drops another degree. “Do you want to do this the easy way, or the—”
“The hard way,” I cut in.
Something snaps—the last thread holding back everything I’ve kept locked behind my ribs. Adrenaline shakes through me as my voice rises. “I. Want. To. See. Mom!”
And then, immediately, a soft sound from behind me.
A sad, fragile voice—pained, familiar—like it has been carrying too much for too long.
“Susanna…”
I shut my eyes.
Pain spreads across my chest, hot and splitting. Not the kind that fades. The kind that tells you your heart has just been broken by the last family you thought you still had.
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