PART 2
Ethan’s eyes lingered on my robe pocket for one long, dangerous second.
I could almost see the thoughts moving behind his face.
Suspicion.
Confusion.
Fear.
Then, just as quickly, he looked away.
Maybe he decided whatever I was hiding was not worth asking about. Maybe he was too proud to imagine that I could still hold a piece of our future in my hand. Or maybe some part of him knew that if he asked one more question, he might find an answer he could never escape.
So he didn’t ask.
Instead, he exhaled and said, “I never wanted it to happen like this.”
I looked at him, really looked at him.
Ethan Parker was a man who understood exits. He built them into every room he entered. In business, in friendships, in hard conversations, he always left himself a door. It was one of the things that had made him successful. It was also one of the things that had made him impossible to love near the end.
“You wanted it to happen quietly,” I said.
His jaw tightened.
“That’s not fair.”
“No,” I agreed softly. “It isn’t.”
For a moment, neither of us moved.
Rain began tapping against the bedroom windows, soft at first, then harder, blurring the lights of Lake Washington into trembling gold lines. I used to love storms in that house. They made the glass walls feel like a theater, the lake like a dark, restless stage.
That night, the storm made the house feel empty before he had even left it.
Ethan rubbed a hand over his face.
“I’ll make sure you’re taken care of.”
There it was.
Not I’m sorry.
Not I made a mistake.
Not I loved you once and I don’t know how we became this.
Just a neat, polished sentence. A business arrangement. An ending with terms.
I nodded.
“I’ll have my attorney contact yours.”
His head lifted sharply.
“You already have an attorney?”
“No,” I said. “But I will by morning.”
Something passed across his expression then. It looked almost like admiration, but colder. As if he had forgotten who I was before years of disappointment had worn me down.
“You’re being very calm,” he said.
I turned back to the mirror.
“I’ve learned not to fall apart in front of people who have already decided to leave.”
He flinched, but only slightly.
That was the last real conversation we had as husband and wife.
By the end of the week, Ethan had moved into a downtown apartment “temporarily,” though everyone knew temporary was a polite word for permanent. By the end of the month, the divorce papers were filed. By the end of spring, Jessica Reynolds was being photographed beside him at restaurant openings, museum fundraisers, and company events where I used to stand with my hand tucked into the crook of his arm.
And I told him nothing.
Not when my morning sickness made me kneel on the cool bathroom tile before sunrise.
Not when the first ultrasound showed a tiny flicker on the screen and the technician smiled gently and said, “There’s the heartbeat.”
Not when my doctor asked if the father would be joining future appointments.
Not even when Ethan’s lawyer requested a final meeting to discuss the division of assets.
I walked into that conference room in a navy dress that barely hid the slight change in my body, carrying a leather folder and a silence he did not know how to read.
Ethan stood when I entered.
Jessica was not there, of course. She was still something he kept out of official rooms, though everyone knew her name lived between us.
“Harper,” he said.
“Ethan.”
His gaze moved over my face, searching.
I had cut my hair to my shoulders. I wore less makeup. I had stopped trying to look like a woman who was being chosen.
“You look different,” he said.
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