Chapter 66
CHAPTER SIXTY-SIX
Harper
Song- Be Her, Ella Langley
Two pink lines stare back at me.
Pregnant.
I've found out I'm pregnant in the bathroom of LA Press, hiding from my husband. I had to get Samantha to smuggle the test in because I don't trust Hudson. Not one bit. Not with any information about me.
It's bad enough I'm being forced to live with him. Work with him. Eat meals across from him while he talks about himself for hours and never once asks how I am. I feel like I can't breathe on my own anymore. It's suffocating. Every room in that house is a cage with nice furniture.
I cover my mouth to muffle the sobs, my other hand shaking as I hold the test. How the hell has this happened? I’m on the pill. I’m pretty good at remembering to take it.
My back slides down the bathroom door until I'm on the cold tile.
I don’t even care about the logistics. All that matters is its Aces. That I have a small part of him.
Our baby.
Mine and Ace's.
With my ass on the floor, I pull out my phone. It's ten p.m. I work all the hours I can now because I don't want to be at home. I don't want to see Hudson. I don't want to be in that house. I don't want any of it.
Every day, I get angrier and angrier. And every day, the anger has nowhere to go.
I thought there was no way out. That I had to see this through, take the hits, wait for the papers to be signed.
But seeing those two lines changes everything.
This isn't just about me anymore. This is a reason to fight. A reason to claw my way out of this marriage and back to the man I love.
To win Ace back.
And somehow, take down Hudson and his revenge porn scheme before he can use it against me or anyone else ever again.
My stomach sinks as my finger hovers over Ace's contact. I got a new phone, new number—did everything I could to protect it.
But Ace's number is one I'll never forget. Ten digits burned into my memory the way his voice is burned into my heart.
I just want to hear him. Just want him to tell me this is going to be alright. That the baby is going to be okay. That we're going to be okay.
I hit dial before I can spiral anymore.
It rings. And rings. He never used to wait this long. He used to pick up before the first ring finished.
And then it connects.
My heart is in my throat. He doesn't speak. I can hear music in the background. A bar maybe.
"Hello?" I say quietly.
"Hey." A woman giggles.
I can hardly breathe. I look at the screen, double-check the number. It's right. Ace's number. Ace's phone. In someone else's hands.
"Uh. Is Ace there?"
I should hang up. I don't know why I'm torturing myself with this. He's had years to make up for while he waited for me. A whole world to explore without me dragging him down.
The woman on the other end laughs.
"He's here somewhere, yeah. I think he's a little preoccupied, to be honest."
My blood boils. I have no right. I know that. I ended us. I married someone else. I pushed him away until he finally listened. I don't get to be angry that he moved on.
It doesn't mean it doesn't fucking kill me.
"Preoccupied? I need to speak to him," I hiss.
I need to tell him I'm pregnant. That I need help. That I can't do this on my own. That I can't live without him, even though I've spent so long pretending I can.
"No. My friend has had a crush on Ace Sterling for years. I'm not ruining this for her."
The tears stream down my face.
My mind flashes to every nightmare I've had.
Ace with someone else. His hands on another woman.
His mouth on another woman's skin. The spot below her ear that was supposed to be mine.
And as much as I want that man to be happy, to love someone better than I loved him, to have the porch and the kids and the easy life, it devastates me.
Because I can still be that woman for him.
I hear Ace’s deep laugh in the background, and my heart almost stops. He’s happy without me.
"Okay," I say, sucking in a breath that doesn't fill my lungs. "Then don't tell him I called. And delete the call history."
It sounds final. A door closing. A punch to the gut that I walked right into.
My hand wraps around my stomach as I try to hold myself together.
"I was planning on it. If it didn't work out last time, I think you're done. He's doing just fine without you, Harper," she tells me and cuts the call.
Bitch.
My mouth drops open as the voice clicks into place. That tone. That smugness. That petty, small-town cruelty I'd recognize anywhere.
Tiffany.
Tiffany fucking Lane has Ace's phone and is screening his calls in a bar while her friend tries to take home the man I love.
I fight the urge to scream. Instead, I wrap the pregnancy test in tissue and drop it in the trash, buried under paper towels. I can't risk taking it home. There is no way I can let Hudson find out about this baby. Not when he's already threatening to control every other part of my life.
I wipe my eyes. Brush my hair. Stare at myself in the bathroom mirror and plaster on a smile that doesn't reach anywhere close to my eyes.
The woman staring back at me is someone I barely recognize. Thin. Pale. Dark circles that concealer can't touch. A wedding ring that feels like a shackle and a secret growing inside me that changes everything.
This confirms one thing. I need a plan. A real one. Not wait for the papers, not one more month, not just hold on. I need to get far away from LA. I need to start a new life for this baby.
Even if I have to move countries. Change my name. Disappear so completely that Harper Jones ceases to exist. If I don't exist, Hudson's threats become nothing. You can't blackmail a ghost.
I rub at my chest. The ache that lives there is constant now. A dull, heavy pressure that never lifts.
No, that can't be my answer. Running didn't work six years ago. Running won't work now. Not with a baby. Not with Ace's baby.
There has to be another way.
I just have to find it before Hudson finds out what I'm pregnant. Before this city swallows me whole.
Before I lose the last piece of Ace Sterling I have left. Every day that passes, I’m losing him a little more.
I don’t care what he’s doing in our time apart; I deserve it. I just have to hold out the hope that once I get this figured out, Ace’s heart is still mine.