CHAPTER FIVE
ISABELLA
Some humiliations happen in front of crowds and leave behind enough witnesses to confirm every painful detail. Others require only one person.
I fold a blouse and place it in the suitcase, then do the same with another even though I can barely see what I am doing.
Tears fall without permission, blurring the clothes and my hands, but I keep moving because stopping would mean allowing myself to understand the full extent of what just happened.
Alexander told me to leave, so I am leaving. It is the only decision I am still capable of making.
I pack enough clothes for a few days, although I have no idea where I will go after that.
I add my documents, laptop, the medication Dr. Patel recommended, and my phone charger, moving mechanically through the list of things a person might need for a short absence even though, somewhere beneath the shock, I already know this will not be short.
My wedding dress is being kept in a room at the end of the corridor.
The designer brought it over last week and covered it so Alexander would not see it before the ceremony.
I have to pass that door to reach the bathroom, but I keep my eyes fixed on the floor because I know that if I look at it, whatever is still holding me together may finally give way.
In the bathroom, I collect my toothbrush, the products I use every day, and the bottle of prenatal vitamins I started taking that morning. The word printed on the label sends another wave of tears down my face.
Only a few hours ago, I was walking through London with one hand resting on my stomach, trying to imagine our baby’s face. Now I am packing a suitcase to leave our home because the father of that child believes I slept with another man.
Back in the bedroom, I open my lingerie drawer. At the very back, beneath something I almost never wear, I find a small card.
I recognize Alexander’s handwriting before I even pick it up.
He wrote it on our first anniversary and hid it beside a box containing a necklace. The necklace was beautiful, but I kept the card because those two lines meant more to me than the jewelry ever could.
I still haven’t worked out how you got into my life without asking permission. Don’t leave.
I sit on the edge of the bed as a broken sound escapes my throat, and I have to cover my mouth to contain it. My entire body hurts even though no part of me has been physically injured.
I want to call Clara, my mother, or anyone capable of telling me what I am supposed to do next. I do not call because saying it aloud would turn what happened downstairs into a reality I could no longer deny.
Alexander thinks I betrayed him. He believes the baby inside me belongs to another man.
The man who knows my passwords because I am always forgetting them, who sleeps with one hand around my waist and has seen every version of me, does not believe the one thing he should know about me without requiring proof.
I hear footsteps in the corridor.
Alexander stops in the doorway but does not come inside.
“Can I…”
“No.”
Silence stretches between us.
“Do you need help?”
A horrible, wet laugh escapes me. “Packing after you told me to get out?”
His throat moves. “I didn’t want—”
“Don’t finish that sentence.”
“Isabella.”
“What do you expect me to say? That I understand because your test results seem convincing? That Richard saw something that didn’t happen and you’re frightened?”
Alexander runs a hand through his hair. His tie is gone and the first buttons of his shirt are undone. On any other evening, the sight would have meant he was home.
Now I no longer know what this house means.
“It isn’t only what Richard said.”
“I know. It’s your tests.”
“Three tests performed by different specialists.”
“And me.”
His mouth closes.
I stand and walk toward him. “I’m evidence too, Alexander. Two years beside you, every day of them. Every trip, every night, every opportunity I had to betray you and chose not to.”
“I can’t simply ignore—”
“I never asked you to ignore anything. I asked you to investigate.”
“I will investigate.”
“After throwing me out.”
“I need space to think.”
“To decide whether I’m a whore?”
His expression hardens. “Don’t say that.”
“It’s exactly what you’re saying.”
“I never used that word.”
“You didn’t have to. Every question you asked said it for you.”
I close the suitcase and pull the zipper around it. The sound feels horribly final.
“I’ll take the paternity test.”
Alexander looks at me. “Isabella…”
“I’ll take as many tests as you want. I’ll give blood, answer questions, provide whatever records are necessary, because I have nothing to hide.”
I move closer until there is almost no space left between us.
“When the results show that this baby is yours, I hope you remember every second of tonight.”
Something shifts in his face, and for a moment he looks afraid.
“And if they don’t?”
The question cuts straight through my chest, but there is no hesitation in my answer.
“They will.”
“You’re certain?”
“Completely.”
Alexander studies me for a long moment. I know that look; it is the one he wears in meetings when he is searching for the weakness in an argument. I never imagined there would come a day when he would examine me as though I were an adversary.
“Then who was Daniel Mercer to you?”
My stomach turns, although this time the nausea has nothing to do with pregnancy.
“My colleague.”
“Were you alone together?”
“At times, yes. We were working.”
His jaw tightens. “In a room?”
I take a step back. “Go to hell.”
“Answer me.”
“No.”
“Isabella.”
“No, not because it’s a secret, but because you’ve lost the right to turn my professional life into an interrogation. Anything I tell you now will be used to build the version of events you’ve already decided to believe.”
I pull the suitcase off the bed, its wheels catching against the carpet.
Alexander is still standing in the doorway.
“Move.”
“I don’t want you driving when you’re this upset.”
“Then call your driver.”
“Bella—”
“You’ve already decided I’m a liar. Don’t pretend you still have the right to take care of me.”
That works. He steps aside.
I pass Alexander without touching him and begin walking downstairs. Every step feels like part of a funeral. When I reach the sitting room, the box is still where it fell, with the pregnancy test and one of the tiny socks lying on the floor.
Only one.
I stop when I realize the other is in Alexander’s hand. He followed me downstairs in silence and now opens his fingers, staring at the tiny piece of crumpled fabric in his palm.
For a second, I want to tear it away from him. I want to tell him he has no right to hold anything belonging to this baby after what he has done.
Then I realize I no longer want to argue. I do not want anything that depends upon Alexander’s ability to believe me.
I pick up my handbag and walk toward the door.
“Isabella.”
My hand stills on the handle. “What?”
When I turn, he looks lost. I have never seen Alexander lost; not even at the hospital after Edmund’s last heart attack did his control disappear like this.
I almost go back to him.
That is the cruelest part. Even now, after the accusations and the order to leave, my body still wants to cross the distance between us. Some part of me wants to touch his face, explain everything again, and promise that we will find the answer together.
“I…” Alexander begins.
The doorbell rings.
We both look toward the door.
He frowns and opens it before I can object.
Richard is standing outside.
“Sorry to turn up unannounced,” he says, then notices my suitcase. “What happened?”
I say nothing. Neither does Alexander.
Richard looks between us before his attention moves to the fallen box on the floor. I see the exact moment he recognizes the pregnancy test.
Or pretends to.
“My God.”
Anger gives me back the clarity that pain had taken from me.
“You.”
Richard raises his eyebrows. “Excuse me?”
“You were the one who told him about the hotel.”
“Isabella,” Alexander warns.
“No. I want to hear it from him.”
I turn to Richard. “What exactly did you see?”
He adopts an uncomfortable expression. “I don’t think this is a good time.”
“What did you see?”
“You and Daniel Mercer.”
“Doing what?”
Richard glances briefly at Alexander. “Getting into the lift.”
“That’s all?”
“He had his hand on your back.”
I let out an incredulous laugh.
Daniel touched my back for less than a second because a waiter nearly walked into us with a tray. We moved out of the way, got into the lift with other members of the team, and went to a meeting room.
A fraction of a second observed from a distance has somehow become evidence that I destroyed my relationship.
“You told Alexander we looked intimate.”
“I also said it might have been work.”
“After putting the image in his head.”
Richard frowns as though he is genuinely offended. “That wasn’t my intention.”
“Of course it wasn’t.”
Alexander touches my arm, and I pull away immediately.
“Don’t touch me.”
His hand drops to his side and his expression closes.
Richard looks at the suitcase. “Perhaps it would be better if everyone took a moment before making any decisions.”
“You are not part of this,” I tell him.
“Isabella—”
“You are not part of my pregnancy.”
Richard stops.
Alexander goes rigid beside me. The shock on his uncle’s face looks genuine, but I no longer trust anything that comes from him.
“Pregnant?”
“Yes.”
Silence fills the hall.
Richard looks at Alexander rather than me. “But…”
The pause is perfect.
“I thought the doctors said you couldn’t…”
He does not finish. He does not need to.
Something inside me collapses because it is no longer only Alexander’s certainty against my word. There is someone else standing here confirming that what I am telling him should be impossible.
Alexander hears the confirmation too. I watch the doubt settle more firmly across his face.
Richard lowers his voice. “Alex…”
“No,” I interrupt.
Both men look at me.
“I don’t want to hear it.”
I tighten my grip on the suitcase handle. “I was with Daniel because of a meeting. There was an entire team at that hotel, cameras in the corridors, and records showing who entered and left. You can check every one of them, but none of it will change what happened here.”
Richard opens his mouth, but Alexander silences him with a gesture.
“Why did you come here?” he asks his uncle.
“I called and you didn’t answer. I was worried after our conversation.”
The explanation sends a chill across my skin. Richard appeared only hours after planting the suspicion and at the exact moment it produced the most destructive possible result.
Perhaps it is coincidence. I am too shaken to decide.
I pull my suitcase toward the door.
Alexander is still between me and the way out.
“Move.”
“We can wait until tomorrow,” he says. “You don’t have to leave now.”
“A few minutes ago, you couldn’t even look at me.”
“I was angry.”
“And now you have a witness?”
His face hardens. “That isn’t what this is.”
“Then what changed?”
Alexander does not answer.
“You want to know whose baby this is?” I ask.
He remains motionless. “I do.”
I place one hand over my stomach, and when I speak again, my voice no longer shakes.
“It’s yours. We made this baby together. This child is part of me and part of you, even though right now I wish there were nothing of you inside them.”
Pain crosses his face, nearly enough to make me falter, but I force myself to continue.
“One day, you’ll have to live with the fact that when I came to give you the most impossible and precious thing that has ever happened to us, you called me a liar.”
“Isabella…”
“Don’t use fear as an excuse later. I’m frightened too. I spent two days not knowing what was happening inside my own body and went to the doctor alone because I wanted to be certain before I gave you hope. Not once did I consider lying to you.”
Alexander closes his eyes for a moment. When he opens them again, I can see the war between what he feels for me and the certainty his medical results have built inside him.
He should know which one to choose.
“Don’t use another man’s child to make me a father.”
The world stops.
Richard says something, but I do not hear it. Every sound disappears beneath the words repeating inside my head.
Another man’s child.
I look at the man I was supposed to marry in twenty-one days and recognize nothing in him.
His hand closes around the tiny sock as though he too has finally understood what he has just destroyed.
It does not matter.
I reach for my engagement ring. It resists because my fingers have swollen from the heat and from gripping the suitcase handle so tightly, and I have to pull hard enough to hurt before it finally comes free.
I place it on the console table.
Alexander looks at the ring as though I have set down a piece of his body.
“Bella…”
“Don’t call me that.”
I open the door.
This time, he does not try to stop me.
I leave with a suitcase in one hand and our child inside me.
When the door closes behind me, I make it down only one step before my strength gives out. I fold over the suitcase, pressing one hand against my mouth to contain the sobs while the other moves instinctively to protect my stomach.
For several seconds, I wait for the door to open and hate the part of myself that still wants Alexander to come after me, fall to his knees, and tell me he does not believe a single word of what he just said.
The door remains closed.
I force myself upright and keep walking even though every part of me wants to turn around, because there is someone other than myself to protect now.
As I drag my suitcase away from the house where I once imagined raising our family, I make my first promise to my child: I will never allow anyone to make you believe you have to beg to be loved.