Chapter 6 Chapter 6

The storm raged inside and out. Doris drove away from the estate, her hands shaking on the steering wheel. The cold rain had seeped into her bones, but she barely felt it. She was running on pure, adrenaline-fueled resolve.

She didn't go to a hotel. She went to the small, sterile apartment her lawyer had secured for her under a false name. It was anonymous. It was safe.

The next morning, she woke up on the couch, still in her damp dress. Her body ached. A deep, throbbing pain started in her lower back. She doubled over, a gasp escaping her lips.

Panic, cold and sharp, pierced through her numbness.

She knew this pain.

She stumbled to the bathroom, her legs trembling.

The evidence was undeniable. Blood. Too much of it.

The child she hadn't even known she was carrying. A tiny, secret life conceived in one of the rare, desperate nights he had come to her. A life that was now ending.

The pain was immense, a physical manifestation of three years of accumulated grief. She collapsed on the cold tile floor, the world dissolving into a vortex of agony.

She survived. Alone.

She cleaned herself up, her movements slow, robotic. She did not cry. The tears were gone, replaced by a hollow emptiness. This loss was not a shared tragedy. It was hers alone. Another secret she would carry away from that house.

Two days later, her lawyer called.

"Doris, are you ready?" he asked gently.

"Yes," she said. Her voice was a rasp.

"I've filed the papers with the court," he said. "And I've arranged for the summons to be delivered to Mr. Arnold this afternoon. Coincidentally, it's Gigi Kelley's birthday."

A bitter, fitting irony. A goodbye delivered on the day of his new beginning.

Before she could process that, her phone buzzed with another call. It was Emit. She let it go to voicemail.

He called again. And again.

Finally, she answered.

"What?" she said.

"Where are you?" he demanded. There was an edge of something unfamiliar in his voice. Not just anger. Something else. Panic.

"That's no longer your concern," she said.

"I went to your room. It's empty. Your things are gone." A pause. "The painting on the easel... did you paint that?"

The painting she had left behind. Her final statement. It was a dark, chaotic canvas. A depiction of the charity gala. A golden woman with the sapphire necklace, a hollow man beside her, and a shadowy figure watching from the darkness. A portrait of their twisted trinity.

"It's a gift," she said. "A housewarming present for the new lady of the house."

"Doris, this isn't a game," he snapped. "What about the merger? The family? You can't just disappear."

"Your world is no longer my problem, Emit," she said calmly. "My only concern now is the divorce. My lawyer should be arriving soon."

"Then come back to the estate," he said, the words rushed. "I'm moving my primary residence to the city penthouse with Gigi. It'll be empty. We can... we can sort this out."

It was the closest he had ever come to an admission that her presence mattered. But it was too little, far too late.

"There is nothing to sort out," she said. "We are finished."

She remembered one last thread. A foolish, sentimental one.

"There's one last thing," she said. "The old rose garden. The one your mother planted. It's overgrown. I was tending to it. Could you... could you ask the gardeners to look after it?"

It was a test. A final, stupid plea for him to acknowledge a piece of their shared past that wasn't tainted.

Silence.

Then, his voice, cold and sharp. "I'm having it torn out. Gigi wants to put in a tennis court."

That was it. The final cut. He had systematically destroyed every last piece of her, every memory, every connection.

"Goodbye, Emit," she said.

She was about to hang up when she heard a commotion on his end. A man's voice, formal and loud.

"Emit Arnold? You've been served."

Doris hung up the phone.

That night, she couldn't sleep. The phantom pains of her loss echoed through her body. She took one of the painkillers the doctor had prescribed. It barely touched the edges of her agony.

The doorbell rang, a harsh, insistent sound.

She knew who it was.

She looked through the peephole. Emit. Soaked from the rain, his hair plastered to his forehead. He looked wild. Undone.

She didn't open the door.

He started pounding on it, the sound reverberating through the small apartment.

"Doris! Open this door! We need to talk."

She leaned her head against the cool wood, her eyes closed.

The pounding stopped. She heard a fumbling sound. A key scraping in the lock.

How? How did he find her? How did he get a key? The answer was simple: he was Emit Arnold. A man for whom rules were merely suggestions and privacy was a commodity he could buy.

The door swung open.

He stood there, swaying slightly. He was drunk. His eyes were red-rimmed, unfocused.

He stumbled towards her, grabbing her arms. His grip was bruising.

"You can't leave me," he slurred, his face close to hers. He smelled of whiskey and desperation. "You can't."

He pulled her against him, his mouth crashing down on hers. It wasn't a kiss. It was an act of possession. A desperate, clumsy attempt to reassert his ownership.

She was too weak, too tired to fight. She stood limp in his arms, a doll made of stone.

He buried his face in her neck, his body heavy against hers.

He whispered a name.

A name that was not hers.

"Everleigh..."

The word was a death sentence. It killed the last lingering cell of pity she might have had for him.

She was nothing. A substitute. A warm body in a storm.

This was the ultimate insult. The final, unforgivable violation.