Chapter 1 - THE CALL HE SHOULD NEVER HAVE MADE
Dominic's desk phone rang for the third time before either of us moved. Beyond his windows, October sunlight made Lake Michigan look like hammered steel. Inside the office, the air seemed too thick to breathe.
"There's something you need to know about the doctor you saw today," he repeated.
I tightened my grip on my purse. "You have no right to know where I went."
"You're correct."
That answer caught me so completely off guard that I forgot to be frightened for a second.
He picked up the phone. "Ortiz." He listened without speaking. Then his jaw hardened. "Don't approach her until I say so. Find out who sent it." He hung up and reached into his desk drawer.
I stepped back. For four years I'd known the exact arrangement of everything on that desk: his brass letter opener, the leather blotter his father had used, the drawer where he kept spare cuff links. I had never wondered what it would feel like to be afraid of him personally. Now I knew.
He laid a photograph on the blotter.
It showed me walking toward the clinic at 10:43 that morning, one hand protecting my stomach against the wind. Across the lower edge, someone had printed a sentence in red: TWO LIVES. ONE CHOICE.
For a moment all I heard was the distant hum of the ventilation system.
"Who took that?"
"We don't know yet. It was delivered to my security office at noon."
"And that's why you called my doctor?"
"I called the clinic to warn them that someone was photographing a patient outside. I asked for Dr. Shah because her name was on the entrance directory. She refused to discuss her patients. She was right to refuse."
I searched his face. "Did she tell you anything?"
"No. She told me that if I believed somebody was in danger, I should contact the police. Then she ended the call."
Relief came first. Shame followed, because I was relieved by something I should have been able to expect: that my medical information belonged to me.
"How did you know it was my appointment?"
He glanced at the photograph. "I recognized you."
"How did you know I was pregnant?"
He said nothing.
"Dominic."
"I didn't know for certain." His voice dropped. "I suspected. The tea, the coffee, the way you've been ill in the mornings. I remembered that night."
I stood utterly still. We had never discussed that night, not once. I'd convinced myself silence was an agreement. In reality, silence was a room in which both of us had been waiting for the other to speak.
"The baby isn't yours," I said.
He looked wounded, which was almost worse than anger. "If that's what you need me to believe in order to talk about the photograph, I will not argue with you right now."
I sank into the chair opposite him because my knees were shaking. He didn't come closer. It was the first sensible thing either of us had done since I walked into the office.
"There's another problem," he said. "Someone contacted the clinic's outside scheduling service, claiming to be an authorized records specialist. Dr. Shah's office caught the request after it was logged. The clinic is investigating whether anything was accessed. That's all she was willing to tell our security team after they identified the threat."
"You had your security team calling my clinic?"
"Lena Ortiz handles threats to employees. She didn't request your medical information. I should have asked you before involving anyone."
"You think?"
A muscle moved in his cheek. He had faced rivals with guns and lawyers with subpoenas without giving an inch. Yet the simple fact that I was angry with him appeared to leave him uncertain what to do with his hands.
"I asked the executive floor to clear out because I didn't know whether someone was coming here next," he said. "You're not locked in. You can leave whenever you want."
I stared at him. "You've noticed my nausea and bought me ginger tea, but you didn't think to ask whether I wanted you involved in my life?"
"I was afraid you'd say no."
"So you decided not to give me the chance."
He lowered his gaze. "Yes. That was wrong."
I wanted to hold on to my fury, because anger felt sturdier than the terror threatening to split me open. Instead I thought of a heartbeat like a tiny galloping horse. I thought of a baby who had done nothing except exist, and of a man sending photographs to the baby's father before I had even made up my mind how to tell him.
"Do you think Victor Raines sent it?"
"He's capable of it. That isn't proof."
The answer surprised me. Dominic usually spoke as if uncertainty were something he could buy his way out of.
"Then let's call the police."
He hesitated.
I stood. "There it is. The part of your world I can't bring a child into."
"Penny—"
"No. A threat against a pregnant woman is not a business problem you solve by making somebody disappear. If I report it, I want an actual report number, an actual investigator, and evidence that can be used in an actual courtroom."
He studied me for several seconds. Then he pressed the intercom. "Lena. Bring up the original envelope. Call the police. Tell them a member of my staff has received a credible threat and wishes to make a statement."
"I haven't agreed to make a statement yet," I said.
He released the button. "You're right."
I could almost hear the machinery of his certainty grinding into a different shape.
A knock came at the door. Lena Ortiz entered carrying a clear evidence sleeve. She was compact, with close-cropped dark hair and the kind of steady eyes that registered everything without giving away much. I'd worked with her for two years. She had never once treated me like office furniture.
"The envelope was handled with gloves," she said. "Security cameras show a courier leaving it at reception, but the delivery account belongs to a company that doesn't exist."
"Please don't open my purse," I said suddenly.
She looked surprised. "I wasn't planning to."
"And if anyone wants to speak to my doctor, they speak to me first."
"Understood." Lena glanced at Dominic. "No exceptions."
He nodded.
Lena placed a business card on the table. "This is Detective Ana Morales. She handles threats and stalking cases. You decide whether to call. If you'd rather have a lawyer with you, I'll help arrange it without telling anyone your private information."
I took the card. A woman willing to tell Dominic Bellano there were no exceptions was a woman I could work with.
My phone vibrated. A text from Harper Quinn, my old college roommate: IF YOU EVER NEED TO ESCAPE CHICAGO, I STILL HAVE THE ROOM ABOVE THE BAKERY. NO QUESTIONS ASKED.
I had written to Harper yesterday about needing a change, without explaining why. The message might have been coincidence. For once, I wanted coincidence to be allowed.
"I need to go home," I said. "Alone."
Dominic nodded too quickly. "Lena can take you—"
"Alone means I choose what happens next."
He looked at the photograph of me outside the clinic. "There may be someone watching your building."
"Then tell Detective Morales. Don't put a stranger at my door without asking."
For a long second, I thought he would refuse. Instead he asked, "Would you accept an unmarked car several blocks away while the police look into this? Not following you unless you request it?"
"Only if Lena gives me the details."
"Fine."
I reached for the ginger tea. It had cooled enough to drink. I hated that he'd remembered my preferences, hated how much that small tenderness still mattered, and hated myself a little for wanting to cry.
"One more thing," I said.
He waited.
"I was planning to resign on Friday."
His expression changed, but he did not interrupt.
"I don't know whether I'm still planning it. What I do know is that I can't be your secretary while we have this conversation. Every decision I make will feel like it belongs to the man signing my paychecks."
"Then I won't be your boss," he said.
"You don't get to solve a problem by declaring it solved."
"Tell me how."
"Start by letting me leave this room."
I walked past him. At the door, he spoke my name so softly I almost missed it.
"Penelope. I never regretted that night. I regret making you feel that you had to carry what happened afterward by yourself."
I couldn't turn around. If I saw the sincerity in his face, I might confuse it with a promise. And I'd spent too long working for a man whose promises had always been backed by someone else's fear.
In the elevator, I called Detective Morales. I described the photograph, the anonymous delivery, and the possibility that a medical scheduling system had been accessed. She gave me an appointment that evening and advised me to keep the original messages. When she asked whether I believed the baby's father might be involved, I paused.
"I don't know," I answered truthfully.
The elevator reached the lobby. A woman in a courier uniform stood beside the revolving doors, studying her phone. She looked up when she saw me. Her expression vanished behind professional indifference, but I noticed the same silver crescent pin I'd seen on the courier in Lena's security still.
I walked toward the staffed security desk rather than the street. The woman followed me for three steps, stopped, and turned away.
I called Lena. "Don't send men with guns," I whispered. "Just come downstairs. I think the courier is here."
Lena appeared as the revolving door turned. The woman was gone by then, but she'd left something on the reception counter: a folded white napkin from the Lakeshore Grand Hotel.
Inside was a photocopy of my ultrasound.
May you like
On the back, in neat block letters, someone had written: ASK DOMINIC WHAT HAPPENED AT WAREHOUSE NINETEEN.
I had come to work terrified that the man I loved might discover my baby. I left knowing that somebody had already discovered both of us—and believed Dominic was hiding a truth far worse than our forbidden night.
