Chapter 3

A flicker of panic crossed Branson' s face. He tightened his grip on her, his voice urgent.

"It was just a task, Alyssa. A biological necessity. It meant nothing. I swear on my life, I felt nothing."

He raised his hand as if to make a solemn vow, his face a mask of desperate sincerity.

"Don't," she said, her voice flat. She couldn't bear to hear another one of his empty promises.

Something in her broke then. Or maybe it was the last thread of hope snapping. She would give him one more chance. One final chance to prove that any part of the man she loved still existed.

He saw the flicker of acquiescence in her eyes and visibly relaxed. The tension left his shoulders, and his embrace became proprietary, possessive.

"I was so scared," he whispered into her hair, his voice trembling with manufactured relief. "So scared I was going to lose you."

He held her for a long time. But by the time the sun began to rise, he was gone again. The space beside her in the bed was cold.

A gnawing emptiness pulled her from the bed. She walked downstairs, her bare feet silent on the cold marble floor. She knew where he would be.

The door to Chandler's guest room was slightly ajar. Alyssa stopped, her body freezing at the scene inside.

Branson was kneeling on the floor. Chandler was sitting on the edge of the bed, her robe hanging open, revealing the dark bruises and red marks that littered her skin. Branson was gently applying ointment to a particularly dark mark on her inner thigh.

Chandler' s skin was covered in the evidence of a rough, passionate night. She tilted her body slightly, a shy gesture that managed to expose even more of her bruised flesh.

"You were so rough last night, Branson," Chandler whispered, her voice a mix of complaint and pride. "It still hurts."

Branson's hand stilled. A flicker of something dark-desire-crossed his face before he masked it.

"Don't let Alyssa see you like this," he warned, his voice low. "You know she's my bottom line."

The words were a bitter joke. His bottom line was standing right outside the door, watching him tend to his mistress.

He leaned in, his lips brushing against the mark he had just treated. He whispered something Alyssa couldn't hear, and then his mouth moved to Chandler' s. The kiss was not chaste. It was hungry, possessive.

Chandler responded eagerly, her arms wrapping around his neck.

"But... Mrs. Davis is upstairs," she murmured against his lips, a pathetic attempt at feigned concern.

"She took a sleeping pill," Branson replied, his voice muffled. "She won't know a thing."

His hands moved under her robe, and they fell back onto the bed together, a tangle of limbs and silk.

Alyssa stood frozen in the hallway. Her mind went completely blank. The world dissolved into a silent, white noise. Her body started to shake, a violent, uncontrollable tremor that rattled her from the inside out.

He had drugged her.

He had put sleeping pills in the tea he' d brought her last night, the same tea he' d said would "help her relax." The man who swore he loved her, who claimed she was his bottom line, had drugged her so he could sleep with another woman without interruption.

His promises, his vows, his desperate declarations of love-they were all lies. Every single one.

She stumbled back to her room, a ghost in her own home. She didn't sleep. She sat by the window, watching the sun climb into the sky, feeling nothing but the slow, cold death of her heart.

Later that morning, she heard him return. He stood outside their bedroom door, talking on the phone in a low voice.

"Yes, Uncle. As soon as Chandler is pregnant, I'll arrange the wedding... A small one, of course. Just to give her a title, to legitimize the child... Don't worry, all my love is for Alyssa. This is just for the heir."

Alyssa bit down on her lip, hard. The coppery taste of blood filled her mouth. She squeezed her fists so tightly her nails dug into her palms, drawing more blood.

Her phone vibrated on the nightstand. It was a call from a private number.

"Mrs. Farmer," a professional voice said. "Just calling to confirm. Your son, Leo, is responding well to the new treatment. His latest tests are clear."

A single, hot tear finally escaped and traced a path down her cheek.

"Destroy all the records," she said, her voice hoarse. "Everything connecting me to him."

"Of course, ma'am."

She hung up. One month. In one month, Leo' s treatment would be complete. She would take her son, and they would disappear.

Branson Davis would lose her. And he would lose the son he never knew he had. He would never see either of them again.

But she didn't know then that Chandler was already a burgeoning cancer in their lives. She didn't know that she and her son would never leave.