Chapter 4

Eliza Todd POV:

Dante froze, his eyes locked on the crimson stain spreading across the pale fabric of my dress. He looked from the blood to my face, his own paling in shock.

"Eliza... why are you bleeding?" he stammered.

I tried to push myself up, but my body felt like dead weight. A wave of dizziness washed over me.

"Call... an ambulance," I gasped, the words barely a whisper. "The baby..."

"Don't be dramatic, Eliza," Kamala scoffed from the sidelines. "You probably just got your period. Go home and lie down."

A flicker of disappointment crossed Dante's face. "You're not pregnant?" he asked, his voice flat. He had already accepted Kamala's cruel, dismissive explanation.

The pain was a roaring fire in my abdomen, stealing my breath, making it impossible to explain.

He grabbed my arm, trying to haul me to my feet. "Come on. I'll take you home, then I'm coming back. I can't miss this."

He was going to leave me. He was going to drop me off like a package and return to his party, to her.

"What the hell is going on?"

A new voice cut through the chaos. Jace. He was standing at the entrance to the gallery, his face a mixture of confusion and concern. He must have been worried when I never came home.

His eyes found me on the floor, then darted to the blood. All color drained from his face.

"Oh my God, Eliza, not again," he breathed, rushing to my side. He knelt down, his voice urgent. "Did you call the doctor? She said if the bleeding started again you had to go to the ER immediately."

He looked up at Dante, his eyes blazing with a fury that took me by surprise. "The doctor told her to be on complete bed rest. She's pregnant, you idiot! What is she doing in a bar?"

The entire room fell silent. You could have heard a pin drop.

Dante stared at Jace, then at me, his mouth opening and closing like a fish.

"Pregnant?" he whispered, the word sounding foreign on his tongue. "She... she never told me."

Jace gently took my hand. "How could she, when you weren't there to listen?" he shot back, his voice dripping with contempt. "Now get her to the hospital before you lose your child!"

The rest was a blur. The frantic car ride, the sterile white walls of the emergency room, the cold gel on my stomach for the ultrasound. I floated through it all, detached and numb.

The doctor's face was grim when he came back into the room.

"I'm so sorry, Mrs. Williams," he said, his voice heavy with a sympathy that felt a million miles away. "You've had a miscarriage."

The words didn't register at first. Then, they crashed down on me, and a sound of pure agony was torn from my throat. The tears came then, hot and endless, a river of grief for a future that had been stolen from me.

"No," Dante said, his voice shaking. He grabbed the doctor's arm. "No, check again. We've been trying for five years. Five years of IVF, of shots, of appointments. It can't be gone."

The doctor looked at Dante, his expression hardening. "Perhaps you should have thought of that before you took your pregnant wife, who was already experiencing complications, to a bar and forced her to drink alcohol."

Dante flinched as if he'd been slapped, all the color draining from his face. He had no defense.

He turned to me, his eyes full of a desperate, panicked regret. "Eliza... honey, I'm so sorry. We can... we can try again."

"No," I said, my voice eerily calm through the tears. "We're done. I want a divorce, Dante."

He stared at me, utterly baffled. "Because of this? It was an accident. Why didn't you tell me you were pregnant?"

A bitter, broken laugh escaped my lips. "Tell you when, Dante? When you were ignoring my calls on our anniversary? When you were buying another woman jewelry? When you were accusing me of faking an illness for attention?"

I looked at the ceiling, my heart a hollow cavern in my chest. "Maybe this was for the best. This baby was too good for us. Too pure. It didn't deserve a father like you."

I expected him to argue, to yell, to agree even. I thought he would be relieved to be free, to finally be with Kamala without any guilt.

But he just stood there, silent and pale. Then he shook his head.

"No," he said, his voice cracking. "I'm not signing anything. We've been married for five years. We're not throwing that away."

"We are," I said, my voice as cold as the grave. "Now please, get out. Or I'll have the nurse remove you."

He left, but not to argue. He went to the hospital cafeteria. He came back twenty minutes later with a greasy slice of pepperoni pizza and a can of Coke.

I stared at the food. I'm allergic to pepperoni. It was the first thing I ever told him about myself on our first date. After five years of marriage, he still didn't know.

But he knew Kamala liked oat milk in her lattes.

I turned my head away, refusing the food.

"Don't be difficult, Eliza," he sighed, his patience already wearing thin.

"You know Kamala can't eat shellfish," I said, my voice flat. "You make sure every restaurant you take her to knows it. You carry an EpiPen for her in your briefcase." I met his shocked gaze. "I'm allergic to pepperoni. Did you know that?"

His face flushed a deep, shameful red. He mumbled something about getting me something else and fled the room.

Just then, Jace walked in, carrying a thermos. He unscrewed the lid, and the warm, comforting scent of homemade chicken soup filled the air.

Dante returned a moment later, just in time to see Jace carefully feeding me a spoonful of broth.

His face darkened into a thunderous scowl.

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