Chapter Seven
Emily
The automatic doors of the boutique slid open, and Emily stepped out onto the sidewalk, the midday sun hitting her oversized sunglasses. She adjusted the grip on her shopping bags—three glossy, heavy bags from the few high-end stores that were still open in this part of town.
Retail therapy was a cliché, but it worked. New clothes for a new life.
She scanned the line of cars parked along the curb until she found Harrison’s sedan. He was sitting in the driver’s seat, staring blankly through the windshield at a brick wall, his hands gripping the steering wheel so hard his knuckles were white.
He looked wrecked. He hadn't slept, and he hadn't shaved. To anyone passing by, he looked like a man whose life had just imploded.
Emily smiled softly, adjusting her purse on her shoulder.
She knew he was hurting. She knew he felt like a villain right now.
But that was only because he was still deprogramming himself from the Cult of Sarah.
He was going through withdrawal from his "perfect life," and withdrawals were always ugly.
But she wasn't worried. She loved him enough for both of them.
She walked toward the car slowly, enjoying the click of her heels on the pavement. People looked at her—at the bags, at her chaotic hair, at the man waiting for her—and probably saw a mess. They saw a mistress, a homewrecker. But they didn't know the history. They didn't know the timeline.
I saw him first, she thought fiercely, pausing by the passenger door to look at him through the glass. I loved him first.
The humid air reminded her of San Diego. That summer, the air had tasted like salt and possibilities. Harrison hadn't been a project manager then; he had been a force of nature. They had burned so bright she thought they would turn into ash.
She regretted letting him go. God, she regretted it every day.
But she had been twenty-two. She was getting bookings. Her face was in magazines. She didn't want a husband; she wanted the world. She thought Harrison was just a chapter, a beautiful detour on her way to superstardom.
Then came the fall. Her agent’s embezzlement scandal. The blacklisting. The phone stopped ringing. The parties stopped.
She had come back to the Midwest with her tail between her legs, terrified of poverty. That was why she said yes to Michael.
Michael was safe. Michael was old money. He was a portfolio, not a person.
She remembered looking at the engagement ring Michael gave her—a flawless three-carat cushion cut—and feeling absolutely nothing. He was a hobby. A placeholder. A way to keep the lights on and the clothes expensive.
But then... Sarah had to ruin it. Sarah had to bring him back.
When Sarah and Harrison moved into the estate, it was like someone had pumped oxygen into a room where Emily had been slowly suffocating.
Living with them was exquisite torture. Every morning, watching Harrison drink coffee in his boxers. Every night, hearing the muffled sounds of their TV through the wall.
She watched Sarah "care" for him. Sarah with her meal prep. Sarah with her color-coded calendars. Sarah treated Harrison like a pet project, something to be managed and optimized.
She doesn't know him, Emily thought, watching Harrison finally notice her and unlock the car doors. She doesn't know the hunger in him. She doesn't know that he wants to be devoured, not nurtured.
That was why Emily had ended things with Michael weeks ago.
It wasn't a whim. It was a clearing of the deck.
She remembered Michael standing in the foyer, confused, holding a bouquet of apologies after she had been distant.
"Just tell me what I did wrong," he had begged. "We can fix this, Em."
"You didn't do anything," she had told him, cold and detached. "You're just... not him."
"Who is him?" Michael had asked.
She hadn't answered. She just kicked him out. And when he came back a few days later, banging on the door, asking her to rethink, she had threatened to get a restraining order. She cut the safety net. She burned the bridge.
Because by then, the basement trysts with Harrison had started. By then, she knew she had the real thing back.
She opened the car door and slid into the passenger seat, tossing the bags into the back. The air inside the car was stale and tense.
"You took forever," Harrison muttered, not looking at her. "I've been sitting here for forty minutes."
"I needed things, Harry," she said lightly, reaching over to touch his arm. He flinched, pulling away, but she didn't mind.
She knew Harrison was struggling. In the motel last night, when he said it was "just sex," when he said she was an "addiction," it stung. Of course it stung.
But she forgave him. He was scared. He was trying to cling to the morality that Sarah represented. He didn't realize yet that the addiction wasn't the problem—it was the cure.
He needs me, she told herself. He said it himself. I’m like air. You can't live without air.
She looked at her reflection in the side mirror. She looked tired, pale, but victorious.
Slowly, she placed her hand on her stomach, hidden under her blouse.
It was still flat. But she knew.
She had missed her period six weeks ago. Two tests, both positive, hidden inside a hollowed-out book in her room back at the estate.
She hadn't told him yet. She had been saving it.
She wanted to wait for his birthday, or maybe Valentine's Day.
She wanted to present it as the ultimate gift—a new life, a new start, a permanent bond that Sarah could never replicate.
Sarah, with her five-year plans and her "we're not ready yet" speeches.
Emily had been ready immediately.
She rubbed her thumb over the fabric of her skirt, pressing against the secret growing inside her.
This changed everything.
He could scream at her. He could say it meant nothing. He could try to go back to Sarah.
But he couldn't leave his child.
Harrison was a good man. That was his core. He was responsible. He would never abandon his own flesh and blood.
A small, triumphant smile touched Emily’s lips as Harrison put the car in gear.
Sarah had the past. She had the wedding photos and the shared taxes.
But Emily had the future.
"Let's go, baby," she whispered, buckling her seatbelt. "We have a lot of planning to do.”