Chapter 1 - “Mrs. Cross?”
Dr. Elaine Mercer’s voice pulled me back into the room.
For half a second, I had forgotten where I was.
The white walls. The muted painting of Lake Michigan. The examination table beneath me. Dorian standing near the window with his hands in the pockets of his charcoal coat, looking as though he had been carved there.
“Yes,” I said.
Dr. Mercer glanced at him, then at me.
“Would you prefer to speak privately?”
Dorian answered before I could.
“Yes.”
I looked at him.
He was already moving toward the door.
No argument. No wounded expression. No attempt to remind anyone that he was my husband.
At the threshold, he stopped.
His eyes met mine.
“I’ll be outside.”
The door closed behind him.
For some reason, that small act nearly undid me.
Dr. Mercer pulled a chair closer.
“How are you feeling now?”
“Embarrassed.”
“That’s not a medical symptom.”
“It should be.”
She smiled faintly.
“Nausea?”
“Yes.”
“Dizziness?”
“Sometimes.”
“Fatigue?”
I hesitated.
“Yes.”
“Change in appetite?”
“I hate coffee now.”
She nodded as if coffee had personally confessed something.
“When was your last menstrual period?”
This time, there was no Dorian in the room to make the question feel like an accusation.
I gave her the date.
Dr. Mercer’s expression stayed professionally calm, but she did a quick calculation.
“Have you taken a pregnancy test?”
“No.”
“Any particular reason?”
I stared at my hands.
My wedding ring was still there.
I had meant to remove it before meeting the divorce attorney.
I had stood in my apartment that morning with my fingers around it for nearly five minutes.
In the end, I had told myself it was only jewelry.
That had been a lie too.
“I think I was afraid of what it might say.”
Dr. Mercer’s voice softened.
“Then we don’t have to guess anymore.”
Bloodwork was taken.
There were more questions. Basic ones. Gentle ones.
No alcohol recently. No medication beyond the occasional headache tablet. No known medical conditions. No fainting. No pain.
Then we waited.
Twenty-five minutes can be a very long time when your future has narrowed itself into the result of a laboratory test.
I sat alone for ten of those minutes before opening the door.
Dorian was standing exactly where I expected him to be.
Caleb and Noah had disappeared farther down the hallway, giving us privacy.
Dorian looked at me immediately.
“Well?”
“They’re still running the test.”
He nodded.
I should have gone back inside.
Instead, I leaned against the doorframe.
“Why did you look frightened?”
His face changed.
“At the law office.”
He glanced toward the empty hallway.
“You were sick.”
“You’ve seen sick people before.”
“Yes.”
“Then why did you look like that?”
His jaw worked once.
“Because you almost fell.”
“That isn’t the whole answer.”
“No.”
“Are you going to give me the whole answer?”
He held my gaze for several seconds.
Then he said, “Not in a hallway.”
I laughed without humor.
“Of course.”
“Alina—”
“You know what I’ve realized? For six months, every answer from you has been not here, not now, later, when it’s safe, when I can explain. Except later never comes.”
Something tired passed over his expression.
“I know.”
“You sent me divorce papers instead of an explanation.”
“I know.”
“And now you’re standing outside a hospital room acting like you still have the right to be worried about me.”
“I never stopped being worried about you.”
The words landed between us.
I looked away first.
The door opened behind me.
Dr. Mercer stepped out.
“Mrs. Cross?”
My heart stopped.
Dorian went utterly still.
She looked at me, not him.
“The test is positive.”
For a moment, the hallway lost all sound.
No footsteps.
No elevator bells.
No air-conditioning hum.
Nothing.
I heard myself ask, “Positive?”
“You’re pregnant.”
I closed my eyes.
I had imagined hearing those words before.
Years ago.
In our kitchen, maybe.
Dorian behind me with his arms around my waist.
A home full of afternoon light.
A life that made sense.
Not this.
Not divorce papers waiting across town.
Not six months of unanswered questions.
Not a husband standing three feet away looking as though happiness and grief had arrived in the same envelope.
“How far?” I whispered.
“Based on the date you gave me, approximately seven weeks. We’ll confirm with an ultrasound and additional bloodwork.”
Seven weeks.
I counted backward automatically.
And remembered.
A January night.
Snow against the windows.
Dorian had come home after midnight.
We had barely spoken for days.
I had been asleep on the couch.
He had carried a blanket downstairs and sat beside me.
For one brief night, the wall between us had cracked.
Neither of us had talked about it afterward.
Apparently our bodies had remembered what our pride had refused to acknowledge.
“Is everything all right?” Dorian asked.
His voice was different.
Almost hoarse.
Dr. Mercer turned to him.
“So far, nothing suggests otherwise. But I’ll need a medical history from both parents eventually.”
Something flickered across his face.
Again, fear.
There it was.
I saw it clearly now.
Dr. Mercer saw it too.
“Is there something medically significant in your family history, Mr. Cross?”
“No,” he said.
Too quickly.
I looked at him.
“Dorian.”
His eyes closed for the briefest instant.
Then he opened them.
“My father had a heart condition.”
My stomach tightened.
“What heart condition?”
“I don’t know all the details.”
“You never told me.”
“He died of something unrelated.”
“That doesn’t answer me.”
Dr. Mercer raised a hand gently.
“We don’t need to solve this today. Many cardiac conditions have no meaningful hereditary implication. We can review records if they’re available.”
Dorian nodded.
But he had gone pale.
I knew then that there was more.
There was always more.
An hour later, after an ultrasound appointment had been scheduled and Dr. Mercer had handed me a folder full of instructions, I found myself sitting beside Dorian in the hospital’s private waiting lounge.
Neither of us spoke.
Finally, he said, “I’ll have the car take you home.”
“My apartment.”
“Yes.”
“You’re not going to insist I come back to the house?”
His expression tightened.
“No.”
That surprised me.
He looked at his hands.
“I’ve done too much insisting.”
The sentence was so unlike him that I studied his face.
“Who are you?”
A humorless smile touched his mouth.
“A man discovering that ordering people around is considerably easier than explaining himself.”
“Congratulations on the insight.”
“I deserve that.”
I didn’t know what to do with his agreement.
Anger is much easier to hold when the other person fights back.
“Are you still divorcing me?” I asked.
His eyes lifted.
“I don’t know.”
“You don’t know?”
“I know what I want.”
“And what is that?”
“You.”
The answer came without hesitation.
It hurt.
I stood.
“No.”
Dorian rose too.
“I’m not asking you to come home.”
“Good.”
“I’m not asking you to forgive me.”
“Also good.”
“I’m telling you that the divorce was never because I stopped loving you.”
I stared at him.
“That makes it worse.”
“I know.”
“No, I don’t think you do.”
My voice shook now, and I hated it.
“If you stopped loving me, I could understand that. People change. Marriages end. It happens. But if you loved me while you spent six months making me feel invisible, then you chose to hurt me.”
He absorbed that without moving.
“Yes.”
The answer stunned me.
“Yes?”
“I chose silence. I chose distance. I told myself I was protecting you. What I actually did was make decisions about your life without giving you the dignity of understanding them.”
For several seconds I could only stare at him.
“That sounds suspiciously like something a therapist would say.”
“My mother said it.”
I blinked.
“Your mother?”
Dorian’s mother, Eleanor Cross, was a mystery almost equal to Dorian himself.
I had met her three times in five years.
She lived in Wisconsin near Lake Geneva, painted landscapes badly and proudly, and had the unnerving ability to silence Dorian with a raised eyebrow.
“You told Eleanor?”
“Some of it.”
“She knows about the divorce?”
“She told me I was an idiot.”
“Your mother and I finally agree on something.”
His mouth nearly smiled.
Nearly.
Then the elevator opened.
Noah stepped out.
“Car’s ready.”
I picked up my folder.
Dorian reached toward it automatically.
I moved it away.
His hand fell.
That tiny gesture told me more than any argument.
Whatever happened now, we were no longer pretending everything could return to normal merely because a test had turned positive.
In the SUV, Dorian sat beside me rather than opposite.
Not touching.
Just closer.
Halfway to my apartment, he said, “You should have your own attorney review everything.”
“The divorce papers?”
May you like
“And anything involving the baby. Your finances. The Cross estate. All of it.”
I turned toward him.
