“Julian, look at me. If you walk out that door with her, don’t bother coming back,” Marisol pleaded, one hand pressed instinctively to her stomach.
Julian’s hand stayed on the doorknob. Behind him, his childhood sweetheart wept softly against his chest, and he didn’t turn around. “She needs me, Marisol. You’ve never needed anyone.”
The door clicked shut behind him. He never saw the blood beginning to trail down her leg. Never heard what she whispered to an empty room.
Marisol Vane had built a life most women only dreamed about: a thriving interior design career, effortless beauty, and a marriage to Julian Ashworth, the coldest, most private billionaire in the city. He rarely spoke more than he had to. He touched her like he was afraid of wanting her too much and never quite closed that distance. Still, Marisol loved him with a patience she never fully explained to herself, certain that underneath all that ice was a man worth waiting for, and certain that the nights he did let his guard down with her were proof she was right.
On the eve of their fourth anniversary, she finally got the news she’d spent years hoping for: she was pregnant.
She imagined the exact moment his controlled expression would finally break, imagined their careful, undemonstrative marriage turning into something warmer, something whole.
She never got the chance to tell him.
A woman from Julian’s past resurfaces, fragile and tearful and asking for exactly the kind of protection he’s never once offered his own wife. Marisol watches herself become a background character in her own marriage, certain she can outlast it, certain his loyalty to her will eventually win out.
Then an accident forces Julian to choose, in front of everyone, between the wife he married and the woman from his past.
He chooses.
By the time Julian understands exactly what walking out that door cost him, Marisol and everything she was carrying are already gone, and getting either of them back may no longer be a choice that’s his to make.