I look through the glass wall toward the bright smear of morning over the lake. “Go on.”
“There can be a margin of error, of course,” she says in that precise, maddeningly calm physician’s voice, “but based on the scan measurements and hormone levels, Miss Miller appears to be approximately five months pregnant.”
There’s silence, but not on her end. On mine. I hear the words. Understand them. And for one strange second, they refuse to mean anything. The doctor keeps speaking, somethingabout follow-up care and the next scan window, but her voice has already receded into static.
Five months.
I do the math without meaning to. Then I do it again, because the first answer feels like a fist to the sternum. Then a third time, because maybe I’m the one who’s tired, damaged, losing my mind. But the answer doesn’t change. Five months means that she was with Russo before Sienna died, or damn near close. It means she smiled at me with those blue eyes while she was sneaking off to him. But how?
The line crackles. “Mr. Conti?”
I realize the doctor is waiting.
“Yes,” I say, though the word barely sounds human. “Thank you.”
I end the call and set the phone down very carefully. Then I stand there in the quiet penthouse kitchen with one hand on the counter and let the realization move through me like poison.
She knew how far along she was and still lied to me.
Five months. That means every look she gave me was already filtered through what she was hiding. Every argument. Every touch. Every denial. Had she been laughing at me the whole time? Keeping me close because she needed something from me before returning to Russo with his child in her body? The thought turns black in my chest.
A floorboard creaks softly behind me, but I don’t turn. I know it’s her from the way the air changes. From the fact that I can feel her before I hear her.
“Who was on the phone?”
Her voice is rough with sleep. I turn to face her. Her feet are bare. One of my shirts hanging off her body, the hem brushing mid-thigh. Hair mussed. Face bare. A sight that should have softened me. It doesn’t. Not anymore.
“The doctor from London.”
And the moment our eyes meet, I know she knows. Not what the doctor said. But that something has shifted. Something fatal.
“What did she want?” she asks carefully.
I study her face. Every line. Every flicker. Looking now for what I missed before.
“How far along are you, Elizabeth?”
The question lands hard enough to drain the color from her face. There. Guilt or fear. The difference no longer matters to me.
She draws herself up, chin lifting. “I told you I wasn’t discussing this with you.”
I laugh. It’s the ugliest sound I’ve made in years.
“No,” I say softly. “You told me just enough to keep me in the dark.”
Her brows pull together. “What is that supposed to mean?”
“It means the London specialist finished reviewing your scans.” I take one step toward her. “It means you’re about five months pregnant.”
She goes completely still.
“Interesting number, isn’t it?”
“Lorenzo—”
“No.” I cut across her so sharply she flinches. “Do not say my name like that unless you intend to stop lying.”
Her mouth parts but I keep going, because now that the fury has started moving, it won’t stop until it’s stripped everything down to bone.
