Chapter 1 - The Man on His Knees
“Your husband signed the order,” the doctor said.
My ex-husband was still holding my hand.
“What order?” Adrian asked.
Dr. Sloan looked from him to me.
“The one authorizing her delivery tomorrow.”
I was thirty-four weeks pregnant.
I had never agreed to deliver tomorrow.
And until twenty minutes earlier, Adrian Moretti hadn’t even known our daughter existed.
Twenty minutes.
That was how fast an ordinary Tuesday had turned into something I might not survive.
Before that, I’d been sitting in a downtown Chicago clinic, trying to get comfortable in a chair that seemed designed to punish pregnant women.
My ankles hurt.
My back hurt.
The baby had spent the morning kicking my ribs.
Then the waiting-room door opened.
Adrian walked in with two bodyguards behind him.
He saw me.
Stopped.
Looked at my stomach.
For once, the man Chicago feared had nothing to say.
“How far along?”
“Thirty-four weeks.”
His eyes lifted to mine.
We’d been divorced six months.
I watched him do the math.
“Is she mine?”
I hadn’t told him it was a girl.
Somehow, he knew.
“Yes.”
He went down on one knee, then the other.
A magazine slipped from someone’s hand.
“Adrian. Get up.”
“Did you try to tell me?”
The question landed harder than I expected.
“I called.”
“When?”
“The morning I found out.”
His face changed.
“I never got a call.”
“A woman answered your private number.”
He stared at me.
“She said you’d finally gotten rid of one problem. She told me not to bring you another.”
“Who?”
“I assumed you knew.”
His hand hovered near my belly.
“May I?”
I nodded because speaking suddenly seemed dangerous.
Our daughter kicked against his palm.
He closed his eyes.
“God.”
“Don’t,” I whispered.
“Don’t what?”
“Make this harder.”
He looked up.
“I thought you took the settlement and left.”
“I didn’t take a settlement.”
The silence between us turned sharp.
Before either of us could speak, a nurse called my name.
Adrian stood.
“I’m coming.”
“No.”
He stopped.
“This is my appointment.”
A muscle jumped in his jaw.
Then, to my surprise, he stepped aside.
“Will you let me come?”
I remembered every ultrasound I’d attended alone.
“One appointment.”
Ten minutes later, our daughter’s face filled the monitor.
Adrian gripped the chair.
Dr. Sloan moved the probe, frowned, and checked my chart.
Then she asked why I was scheduled for delivery.
“I’m not,” I said.
She turned the screen.
There it was.
My name.
Tomorrow’s date.
A procedure I hadn’t approved.
And beneath the authorization, Adrian’s signature.
He leaned toward the screen.
“That isn’t mine.”
Dr. Sloan clicked another tab.
Her mouth tightened.
“What?” I asked.
She didn’t answer.
May you like
Adrian did.
“Claire. Why does your chart say our daughter has already died?”
