Chapter 4

I woke up to the smell of antiseptic and the steady beeping of a machine. My entire body ached with a deep, hollow pain. I was in a hospital bed, an IV drip attached to my arm. The first thing I saw when my eyes fluttered open was Liam.

He was slumped in a chair by my bed, his head in his hands. His expensive suit was rumpled, his hair a mess. He looked exhausted, broken. When he heard me stir, he shot up, his eyes red-rimmed and full of a desperate, gut-wrenching pain.

It was a brilliant performance. Oscar-worthy.

"Ava," he breathed, rushing to my side. He gently took my hand. His touch was repulsive. "You're awake. The doctors said... they said you lost the baby."

His voice cracked on the last word. He squeezed his eyes shut, as if fighting back tears.

I stared at the white ceiling, my face a blank mask. I didn't say anything.

"I didn't know, Ava," he whispered, his voice thick with fake remorse. "I swear to God, I didn't know you were pregnant. If I had known..."

I let him talk. I let him spin his web of lies, his performance of a grieving father-to-be. It was all so predictable. So pathetic.

He gently brushed a strand of hair from my forehead. His fingers traced the line of my jaw. Then he leaned down and pressed a soft kiss to the bandage on my abdomen, where the pain was the sharpest. A symbolic kiss on the wound he had allowed his friends to inflict.

"I'm so sorry," he murmured against my skin. "I'll never leave your side. I'll make this right. I promise."

I closed my eyes, pretending to drift back to sleep. I couldn't bear to look at his face. I listened to him move around the room, talking quietly on the phone to doctors, to his assistants, arranging for the best care, paying for the private suite. He was playing the part of the devoted partner perfectly.

The irony was a bitter pill in my throat. He was so sorry for the hundredth prank, the one that had finally gone "too far." But he wasn't sorry for the ninety-nine that came before it. He wasn't sorry for the game. He was just sorry he'd been caught in a situation that made him look bad, a situation that had gotten messy and real.

He sat by my bed all night, holding my hand, sometimes murmuring apologies in his sleep. He spoke of his regret, of how he couldn't live without me, how I was his entire world. The words were beautiful, poetic, and utterly meaningless. They were just lines in a script.

His a"principle," his one unbreakable rule, was his love for Chloe. Everything else was flexible. Everything else was a game. This "tragedy" was just an unplanned complication. It was prank #99, gone wrong. A prank he had known about and allowed to happen. He hadn't pushed the oysters on me, no, but he had stood by and watched, knowing what Chloe had planned.

Would he hurt me again? If Chloe asked him to? Yes. A hundred times, yes. The answer was as clear and cold as the IV fluid dripping into my veins.

The next morning, while he was out of the room talking to a doctor, I used the small, disposable phone my father had slipped me.

"Dad," I whispered, my voice hoarse. "It's time. The yacht. Tonight."

"Are you sure, Ava? You're not well."

"I'm sure," I said, a cold certainty settling in my bones. "They took everything. Now, I'm taking it back."

The door opened. I hung up and shoved the phone under my pillow just as Chloe Jenkins walked in. She was carrying a bouquet of funereal white lilies.

"I came to see how the patient was doing," she said, her voice dripping with fake concern. She placed the lilies on the bedside table, the scent thick and cloying. "Tragic, what happened. Absolutely tragic."

She leaned in closer, her smile turning venomous. "You know, I have to hand it to you, Ava. Getting pregnant was a smart move. A classic trap. I'm just better at the game."

I stared at her, my silence a wall she couldn't breach.

"Don't worry about your little art career," she continued, examining her perfectly manicured nails. "I've already made some calls. That grant you were so hoping for? The committee heard about a very compelling new artist. Me. And as for your reputation... well, let's just say a story about a mentally unstable artist who fakes a pregnancy to trap a rich man is very persuasive."

A rage, so pure and hot it burned away my grief, surged through me. I sat up, ignoring the searing pain in my abdomen.

"You're a monster," I hissed, my voice low and shaking.

She laughed. "I'm a winner. There's a difference."

I lunged at her. I didn't have much strength, but it was enough. I grabbed the vase of lilies and hurled it against the wall. Water and shattered glass sprayed across the floor. I grabbed her by the collar of her expensive silk blouse.

"You will not destroy me," I snarled, my face inches from hers.

Her eyes widened in genuine shock, her smug composure finally cracking. She struggled against my grip.

Suddenly, the door flew open again. Liam stood there, his face pale.

"What the hell is going on?" he yelled.

He rushed forward and pulled me off of her. For a moment, I thought he would side with her, protect her.

But he turned to Chloe, his eyes blazing with a fury I had never seen before. It was real this time. Not part of the act.

"Get out," he said, his voice dangerously quiet. "Get out now and don't you ever come near her again."

Chloe stared at him, bewildered. "Liam, what are you doing? She attacked me! It's her, she's the one who's crazy!"

"I said, GET OUT!" he roared, pointing a trembling finger at the door.

Chloe stumbled back, her face a mask of disbelief and fury, and then she fled the room. Liam turned to me, his chest heaving. He looked from my furious face to the shattered vase on the floor, and for the first time, I saw a flicker of something in his eyes. Not guilt. Not remorse.

Fear. The fear of a man who was starting to lose control of his own game.