Chapter 4

Gemma Bruce POV:

The next morning, I woke up with a dull ache in my head and a hollow pit in my stomach. I had cried myself to sleep, curled into a ball on the far edge of the king-sized bed, as far from Elias' s side as I could get. He had come in late, moving silently in the dark, and hadn' t touched me.

I found him in the dining room, sitting beside Juli. He was patiently cutting her food into small, manageable bites, the same way he used to do for me when I was sick with the flu last winter. The scene was so grotesquely domestic it made me want to scream.

He looked up as I entered, his face a cold, unreadable mask. "Feeling better?" he asked, his tone laced with sarcasm.

I ignored him and turned to Juli. "Your arm seems to have made a miraculous recovery," I said, my voice dripping with ice. I gestured with my chin to the arm she' d been clutching so dramatically last night, which she was now using to lift a coffee cup to her lips without any sign of distress.

A flicker of panic crossed her face before she quickly replaced it with a pained wince. "It still hurts," she said weakly, "but I don't want to be a bother."

Elias shot me a look of pure venom. "Apologize, Gemma."

"For what?" I shot back, my hands clenched into fists at my sides. "For her cornering me after you locked me in a panic room? For her telling me I'm just a placeholder you plan to discard?"

His jaw tightened. He looked at Juli, a question in his eyes.

Juli' s eyes filled with tears, a masterful performance of wounded innocence. "I would never say such things," she whispered, her voice trembling. "I was only trying to reassure her. I told her you loved her, that I was just here to help with the baby. She must have misunderstood." She looked down at her lap, a picture of self-recrimination. "It's my fault. My illness makes me a burden. Perhaps I should just leave."

"No," Elias said instantly, his voice firm. He reached across the table and took her hand. "You're not going anywhere. You are not a burden." He then turned his furious gaze back to me. "See what you've done? You've upset her."

"She's manipulating you!" I insisted, my voice rising with desperation.

"The only person manipulating anyone here is you," he retorted coldly. "You've always had a flair for the dramatic, Gemma. It was charming, at first. But this... this is pathetic. You come from nothing, and I gave you everything. Is a little gratitude too much to ask for?"

The words struck me harder than a physical blow. You come from nothing. He had never spoken of my background before, but now he was wielding it like a weapon, reminding me of my place. I was the charity case, the girl from the working-class neighborhood he had plucked from obscurity.

A bitter laugh escaped my lips. "Gratitude? You want gratitude for what? For using me? For plotting to carve up my father like a Thanksgiving turkey?"

"That's enough!" he roared, slamming his hand on the table. The silverware rattled, and Juli flinched theatrically.

He stood up, his towering frame casting a long shadow over me. "I'm going to give you one last chance to salvage this. Apologize to Juli. Now."

I looked at his face, contorted with rage, and then at Juli' s, a mask of false vulnerability with a flicker of triumph in her eyes. I saw my entire future in that moment: a life of being gaslit, belittled, and tormented by this woman, with my husband as her willing accomplice. And I knew I couldn't do it. I wouldn't do it.

A strange calm settled over me. The calm of absolute certainty. "No," I said, my voice quiet but firm.

His eyes narrowed. "Fine," he bit out. "There's a charity gala tonight at the museum. The one you were so excited about. You will go. You will stand by my side, and you will smile at the cameras. You will act the part of the devoted, happy wife. And if you dare cause a scene, if you so much as look at Juli the wrong way, I promise you, you will not like the consequences."

It was a punishment designed to humiliate me, to parade me around as his possession while he doted on another woman.

"And if I refuse?" I challenged, my chin held high.

His smile was a cruel, chilling thing. "Then I'll call your father. I'll tell him you've had a psychotic break due to the pregnancy hormones. I'll tell him you've become violent and that for his own safety, he can't see you until you've had extensive treatment. He trusts me, Gemma. Who do you think he'll believe?"

Checkmate. He had my father, and he knew it. He would use him to control my every move.

The gala was torture. I stood beside him for hours, a fixed smile plastered on my face, my hand resting on a stomach that felt like a battlefield. Elias was the perfect husband in public, his hand always on the small of my back, his lips brushing my temple for the benefit of the photographers. But his touch was cold, his whispers venomous.

"Smile, Gemma. You look like you're attending a funeral."

"Straighten your back. You're representing me."

"Don't forget why you're here. For your father."

I watched him across the crowded room, laughing with Juli, who looked radiant in a sapphire gown. He touched her arm, leaned in to hear her whisper, his eyes sparkling with a life and warmth he never showed me anymore. Each interaction was a fresh stab of pain, a confirmation of a truth I could no longer deny.

He wasn't the man I married. Perhaps that man had never existed at all.

As we were leaving, he cornered me in the marble rotunda. "You did well tonight," he said, his voice devoid of warmth. It wasn't a compliment; it was the assessment of a handler whose animal had behaved.

I didn't respond. I just stared at the intricate mosaic on the floor, feeling as shattered as the tiny pieces of stone that formed the image.

He sighed, a sound of deep exasperation. "I don't know what's gotten into you, Gemma. This jealousy... it's beneath you."

I finally looked at him, my eyes burning with unshed tears. "Is it?" I asked, my voice barely a whisper. "Everyone in this city says she's the one you've always loved. They say I was just warming your bed until she came back. Tell me they're wrong, Elias. Look me in the eye and tell me you don't love her."

He stiffened, his jaw clenching. He opened his mouth to speak, but no words came out. He couldn't say it. He couldn't lie about this, not directly.

And in his silence, I had my answer.

The drive home was a suffocating blanket of quiet. As soon as the car stopped, I fled. I ran up the grand staircase to our bedroom, my borrowed diamonds feeling like stones weighing me down. I ripped off the necklace, tore the earrings from my lobes, and stepped out of the suffocating gown.

I needed to leave. Not in nine days. Now. Tonight. I had to get to my father.

A wave of dizziness washed over me, and my knees buckled. I caught myself on the edge of the bed, my body trembling with exhaustion and stress. The baby. I had to think of the baby. I couldn't just run into the night. I needed a plan.

Just then, the bedroom door opened. It wasn't Elias. It was my father.

"Dad?" I gasped, my heart leaping into my throat. "What are you doing here?"

"Elias called me," he said, his face etched with worry. He rushed to my side, his warm, familiar hands taking mine. "He said you weren't feeling well, that you were under a lot of stress. I wanted to see for myself that you were okay."

I tried to form a smile, but my lips trembled. "I'm fine, Dad. Just tired."

He frowned, his gaze searching my face. "You don't look fine, Gem. You look... haunted." He squeezed my hands. "Is he treating you right? I know I was hesitant about him at first, a man with that much power... but he's always been so good to us."

Before I could answer, Elias appeared in the doorway, a charming smile on his face. "Garner, I'm so glad you could make it. I thought your presence might be just the tonic Gemma needs."

He walked over and kissed my forehead, a possessive, performative gesture for my father' s benefit. "She's just been a bit overwhelmed," he said, his voice smooth as silk. "The pregnancy, the hormones. You know how it is."

He then draped an arm around my father' s shoulders. "We need to get you scheduled for your next check-up, Garner. Your health is our top priority. How does next Tuesday sound?"

My blood turned to ice. Ten days from the phone call. Tuesday was nine days from now. It was the day. The day he planned to take my father' s liver.

My father, oblivious, nodded. "Tuesday sounds wonderful, son. Thank you for taking such good care of me."

Elias's smile was bright and reassuring. But as his eyes met mine over my father' s shoulder, they were cold and hard as diamonds, filled with a silent, chilling warning. Defy me, and he pays the price.