Chapter 4

I finally confronted him. "I can't live like this, Ethan. The way you treat me, the way she looks at me."

I told him I was thinking of leaving.

He laughed. "Leaving? Don't be ridiculous, Sarah. Where would you go? You have everything here."

"I have nothing here," I said, my voice shaking. "You've taken everything."

His face changed. The charm vanished. "Don't you dare talk to me like that." He grabbed my arm, hard. Then he shoved me. I stumbled back, hitting the wall.

Later that day, my hands were trembling. I was making tea, Jessica was complaining about something, Eleanor was agreeing with her. I dropped a glass. It shattered on the floor.

Jessica screamed, clutching her belly. "She's trying to scare me! She's trying to hurt my baby!"

Ethan rushed in. His mother was right behind him.

"She's a menace!" Eleanor shrieked. "She' s jealous of Jessica, of the baby!"

Ethan' s eyes were cold fire. "You need to learn a lesson, Sarah. You need to understand you can't upset Jessica."

He grabbed me by the arm again, dragging me out of the kitchen, through the back door. There was a detached garage on the far side of the estate, unheated, used for storage.

It was winter, a harsh California winter, one of those rare, bitter storms rolling in.

"You'll stay here," he said, his voice flat. "Until you learn some respect. Three days. Maybe then you'll appreciate what you have."

He pushed me inside. The air was freezing.

"Ethan, please," I begged. "It's so cold. I can't."

Desperate, I blurted it out. "Ethan, I'm pregnant."

He paused at the door, looked back at me. His face was unreadable for a moment. Then he sneered.

"Pregnant? Now you say you're pregnant? Another one of your manipulations, Sarah. You'll say anything."

He slammed the heavy door shut. I heard the bolt slide across.

I was alone, in the freezing dark.