The ambulance turned sharply.
I gripped the rail.
Julian reached for my hand, then stopped before touching me.
That hesitation hurt more than I expected.
At the hospital, everything became bright lights and fast voices.
Doctors determined that the bleeding required immediate monitoring and that the baby was under stress.
They moved me into a labor room and warned that if either of us deteriorated, they would deliver him early.
Julian remained outside while the medical team examined me.
For the first time since leaving him, I had nothing to do except lie still and listen to my son’s heartbeat on the monitor.
Fast.
Steady.
Then fast again.
I whispered to him that he was safe even though I wasn’t sure I believed it.
An hour later, the bleeding had slowed.
The doctors were cautiously hopeful, but labor had begun and could not be stopped safely.
My son was coming six weeks early.
When the nurse asked whether I wanted the baby’s father in the room, I stared at the ceiling.
Eight months of hiding told me to say no.
But the image of Julian reading that addendum wouldn’t leave me.
He hadn’t looked triumphant.
He had looked betrayed too.
“Let him in.”
Julian entered without his tie.
His sleeves were rolled to his forearms.
I had seen him face hostile boards, collapsing markets, and lawsuits worth hundreds of millions of dollars without losing composure.
He looked terrified of the plastic chair beside my bed.
He sat.
“I spoke to my office,” he said.
I tensed.
“The folder you were given isn’t the folder I signed.”
I turned toward him.
“What?”
“My executed dissolution agreement has twenty-three pages.”
I remembered the thickness of Arthur’s folder.
“The one in the conference room has twenty-seven.”
My mouth went dry.
Julian continued, “The addendum is part of those additional pages.”
“So you didn’t sign it.”
“No.”
“But your signature was there.”
“On the original agreement.
They attached additional provisions behind it.”
The room seemed suddenly colder.
“Who is they?”
Julian held my gaze.
“I don’t know yet.”
But both of us knew whose shadow filled the silence.
Victoria.
My next contraction interrupted us.
Julian stood instinctively.
I crushed the blanket in my fists.
“Can I help?” he asked.
“No.”
Then another wave hit harder.
“Yes.”
He came closer.
