Chapter 1
Brenda’s hand was in my hair before I even understood she had crossed the room.
One second, I was standing beside the gift table at my baby shower, smiling at a woman I had tried so hard to love.
The next, my scalp burned.
“Brenda, stop!”
She didn’t stop.
She yanked me sideways with a strength I didn’t know she had, and my hip slammed into the corner of the table.
Glass shattered.
Pink ribbons flew.
Someone screamed.
I folded both arms around my stomach before I hit the floor.
My baby moved under my hands, one hard kick that nearly broke me open with fear.
Brenda bent over me, her pearls swinging near my face.
Her voice came out low enough for only me to hear.
“This child must not be born.”
For a moment, the whole room blurred.
The flowers.
The champagne.
The guests in expensive suits pretending they hadn’t spent years whispering about the Marino family.
Then Rocco shouted.
“Get away from her!”
He was only sixteen, but he crossed that room like a grown man.
My stepson shoved through two of his grandfather’s associates and dropped beside me.
“Audrey, look at me,” he said, his hands shaking. “Are you bleeding?”
“I don’t know.”
That was the truth.
I could feel pain, heat, panic, but I didn’t know what belonged to me anymore.
Rocco pulled me behind him.
Brenda’s face twisted.
“She’s dramatic,” she snapped. “She tripped.”
Rocco turned toward Preston.
His father.
My husband.
“Dad,” he said, voice cracking, “she’s trying to make it look like an accident.”
Preston stood near the fireplace with a glass in his hand.
Frozen.
Silent.
Like the woman carrying his child had become someone else’s problem.
“Preston,” I whispered.
He looked at me.
Then he looked away.
That hurt worse than the table.
Brenda lunged again.
Rocco caught her wrist before she reached me.
“Don’t touch her.”
“You little traitor,” Brenda hissed.
She tried to slap him.
Rocco tore her hand away.
Then she shoved past him toward my stomach.
That was when something in him snapped.
He grabbed Brenda by both shoulders and hurled her backward.
She crashed into the same gift table she had thrown me into.
The room exploded.
Women gasped.
Men stepped back.
Two bodyguards rushed forward and pinned Brenda before she could rise.
Gary Marino, my father-in-law, moved slowly from the doorway.
He had not spoken all afternoon.
Now his face looked older than I had ever seen it.
“Rocco,” he said, voice low, “she wasn’t planning this alone.”
The room went dead quiet.
My hand tightened over my belly.
Preston’s glass slipped from his fingers and shattered on the floor.
May you like
And for the first time, I realized my husband wasn’t frozen because he was shocked.
He was frozen because he already knew.
