Chapter 4

Emmanuel stared at the closed study door for a full minute. His cheek still stung, and his pride was wounded far worse.

He stormed into the master bedroom, ripping off his tie and throwing it on the floor. He yanked open the closet door to change his shirt.

He stopped.

The left side of the closet was empty.

The rows of dresses, the shoe racks, the organized shelves of handbags-all gone. Only the bare wooden hangers remained, swinging slightly from the draft.

A cold knot formed in his stomach. He turned and walked back out to the living room. The front door was still closed. She hadn't left.

Then where were her clothes?

He found her standing in the center of the living room, a manila folder on the coffee table in front of her.

"Are you moving your clothes to the guest room?" he asked, his voice dripping with sarcasm. "Because that's the most childish thing you've-"

"Sit down, Emmanuel."

Fiona's voice was different. It was quiet, stripped of all the emotion, the anger, the hurt. It was the voice of a stranger.

He didn't sit. He walked over to the coffee table and looked down at the folder.

"What is this?"

"Open it."

He picked up the folder and flipped it open.

The words at the top of the first page hit him like a physical blow.

PETITION FOR DISSOLUTION OF MARRIAGE.

He stared at it, his brain struggling to process the words. He flipped through the pages. She was asking for nothing. No alimony. No property. No shares. Just her personal belongings and a clean break.

He let out a bark of laughter, but there was no humor in it. He threw the folder back onto the table, the papers scattering.

"You've lost your mind." He looked at her, his eyes hard. "You think this is a negotiation? You think you can scare me with this?"

"It's not a negotiation," Fiona said. "It's a notification."

Emmanuel stepped closer, using his height to loom over her. "I am not signing this."

"You don't have to. New York is a no-fault state. I can file regardless."

"It takes a year to finalize a contested divorce," he shot back. "And I will contest it. You're not going anywhere."

Fiona didn't back down. She looked up at him, her gaze unflinching. "I was pregnant, Emmanuel."

The words hung in the air between them.

Emmanuel's expression hardened. "We're not doing this again."

"I was pregnant," she repeated, her voice rising. "I was carrying your child. And I lost it. While I was lying on that floor, bleeding out, you were holding Carley Marshall's hand."

"She was in the hospital!" he roared, his control snapping. "There was no baby! You made it up to manipulate me, just like you're trying to manipulate me now with this ridiculous document!"

"I was at Lenox Hill last night," Fiona said, her voice shaking with suppressed rage. "I had a D&C. I lost our baby."

"If you were really in the hospital, where are the bills? Where are the discharge papers?"

"The proof exists, Emmanuel," Fiona said, her voice eerily calm as she slid the hospital discharge paper from the back of the folder. She flipped it over, revealing the single sentence she had written on the back in the hospital bed: I, Fiona Miller, am taking my life back. "But I've realized it doesn't matter. You wouldn't believe the truth even if it was printed on hospital letterhead. I'm done trying to make you see me."

"Because it doesn't exist!" He stepped back, running a hand through his hair. "Do you think I'm stupid? Do you think I don't know when you're playing games?"

"I am not playing a game!" Fiona screamed, the sound tearing from her throat. "I lost a child! Our child! And you didn't even care enough to listen!"

"Even if it was true," Emmanuel said, his voice dropping to a cold, deadly whisper, "which it isn't, I never wanted a kid with you anyway."

The words hit Fiona like a sledgehammer to the chest.

The air left her lungs. The room tilted sideways.

"What did you say?"

"You heard me." He crossed his arms over his chest, his posture defensive, arrogant. "A clump of cells is not a child. And I certainly wouldn't want one with a woman who uses it as a bargaining chip."

Fiona stared at him. The man she had loved for three years. The man she had built a life with. The father of the child she had lost.

He was a monster.

The last flicker of warmth in her eyes died. It was like watching a candle being snuffed out, leaving only cold, dark ash.

She reached into her bag and pulled out a pen.

She picked up the divorce papers from the table. She didn't read them. She didn't hesitate. She signed her name at the bottom of every page with sharp, angry strokes.

She slammed the pen down on the table and shoved the papers toward him.

"Sign it."

Emmanuel looked at the papers, then at her. The coldness in her eyes unsettled him. This wasn't the Fiona he knew. The Fiona he knew cried. She begged. She compromised.

This woman looked at him like he was dirt on her shoe.

"No," he said, but his voice was less certain.

Fiona turned around and grabbed the handle of her suitcase, which was waiting by the door.

"Where are you going?" Emmanuel asked, panic creeping into his voice.

"Away from you."

He lunged forward, grabbing her arm just above the elbow. His grip was bruising, his fingers digging into her skin.

"You walk out that door, and you are never coming back." His voice was a low threat. "I mean it, Fiona. No more games. You leave, and you're dead to me."

Fiona looked down at his hand on her arm, then back up at his face.

"Let go of me."

"Are you listening to me?"

"I said, let go!" She wrenched her arm free, her eyes blazing. "You think this is a game? You think I'm doing this for attention? I would rather sleep on the street than spend one more night under the same roof as you."

She yanked the front door open and dragged her suitcase across the threshold.

"Fiona!" Emmanuel shouted.

She stepped into the hallway and pressed the button for the elevator.

Emmanuel stood in the doorway, his chest heaving. "Don't you dare get in that elevator!"

The doors dinged open. Fiona stepped inside. She turned around to face him.

She didn't say a word. She just looked at him with those cold, dead eyes.

The doors slid shut, cutting her off from his view.

Emmanuel stood in the empty doorway, staring at the closed metal doors. The silence of the apartment pressed in on him.

He walked back inside and looked at the coffee table. The signed divorce papers sat there, a stark white testament to his failure.

He picked them up, his hands trembling slightly.

She was gone.