Chapter 4

The adrenaline from her confrontation with Armand faded as the taxi pulled up to the curb, leaving a hollow, vibrating exhaustion in its wake. Jodi walked back into the apartment that had been her home for five years. It was filled with Armand's taste, his choices, his scent. It felt like a stranger's house.

Without pausing, she went to the walk-in closet and pulled out three large suitcases. She began to pack.

Her movements were methodical, detached. She left the designer gowns, the unworn jewelry, the expensive handbags. They were part of the uniform, props for a role she would no longer play. She packed only her own clothes, the few books she'd managed to keep, and a small, worn wooden box containing the only two photos she had of her parents.

Armand didn't act immediately. His response came the next morning, not as a phone call, but as a cold, formal email from Grant Fletcher.

Mr. Taylor has agreed to your termination request, effective in thirty days. His acceptance is conditional upon your full cooperation in the transition. You will be responsible for onboarding and training your replacement on all duties, both professional and personal.

Jodi read the last two words-and personal-and felt a fresh wave of nausea. It was a calculated, deliberate humiliation. He wanted her to personally hand over the keys to her own cage. He wanted to watch her break.

She typed a one-word reply.

Agreed.

She would endure anything to be free.

As she continued packing, the nausea returned, stronger this time, accompanied by a bone-deep weariness. She blamed it on stress, on the emotional whiplash of the last forty-eight hours. She sank onto the edge of the bed, her head in her hands.

Her gaze fell on the digital calendar on the nightstand. She was tracking the thirty-day countdown. Her eyes scanned back a few weeks, and then she froze.

A cold, sharp spike of fear pierced through her exhaustion.

Her period. It was late. Not by a few days. By nearly two weeks.

Her mind raced. It was impossible. They were careful. Armand's personal physician managed her birth control with military precision. An implant. It had never failed.

But then, a memory surfaced. Two months ago. A nasty bout of food poisoning from a new restaurant they'd tried. She'd been violently ill for two days. The doctor had warned her that severe gastrointestinal distress could, in very rare cases, affect the implant's hormone absorption.

No. It couldn't be.

The thought was so terrifying she couldn't breathe. She grabbed her coat and ran out of the apartment, a wild, frantic energy propelling her forward. She didn't go to the pharmacy around the corner. She took a cab twenty blocks downtown to a 24-hour drugstore where no one would recognize her.

Her hands trembled as she pulled three different brands of pregnancy tests from the shelf.

Back in the apartment, she locked herself in the master bathroom, the one with the cold marble floors. The plastic packaging of the first test crackled loudly in the silence.

The three minutes of waiting were the longest of her life. She paced the length of the bathroom, her heart hammering against her ribs like a trapped bird.

Finally, she forced herself to look.

A small, digital window. And in it, a clear, undeniable plus sign.

Her breath left her in a ragged gasp. It was a mistake. A false positive.

She tore open the second test, her movements clumsy. Another three-minute eternity.

This one wasn't digital. It was two stark, pink lines. Pregnant.

Tears blurred her vision as she fumbled with the third box. This had to be a nightmare.

The result was the same. Positive.

Jodi slid down the cool marble wall until she was sitting on the floor, the three plastic sticks laid out in front of her like a death sentence.

Pregnant.

She was pregnant with Armand Taylor's child, at the exact moment she had finally found the courage to leave him.

It was the cruelest joke the universe could play.

If he knew, he would never let her go. The child wouldn't be a baby; it would be an heir. A possession. The ultimate chain to bind her to him forever. He might even marry her, not out of love, but out of duty to the Taylor name. Her life would be over.

No. He could never know.

The silence of the vast, empty apartment pressed in on her, amplifying the frantic thumping of her own heart. The world had just tilted on its axis, and she was utterly, terrifyingly alone. The phone on the vanity remained silent. There was no one to call, no one to confirm the clinical, plastic proof in front of her. This secret was hers, a lead weight in her soul, and hers alone to carry.