Now, she looked at him, and her eyes were flat. Dead. Like she was looking at a smudge on a window.
"Mr. Miller," Sarah’s lawyer began, sliding a stack of documents across the table. "These are the finalized asset division papers."
Harrison nodded. He couldn't speak. His throat was closed up.
He reached for the pen. His hand was trembling.
She doesn't know, the voice in his head screamed. She’s sitting three feet away from you, and she doesn't know that the woman who destroyed her marriage is currently carrying your child.
The guilt was a physical thing, a parasite eating him from the inside out. It was heavier than the shame of the affair. The affair was the past. The pregnancy was the future.
He looked at Sarah’s stomach—flat, hidden beneath the navy fabric. He thought of the phantom child they were supposed to have. Then his mind flashed to Emily, waiting in the car downstairs because he refused to let her come up, her hand resting on the bump that wasn't there yet but loomed like a storm cloud.
If I sign this, he thought, the pen hovering over the signature line, I am sealing the secret. I am walking away, and when she finds out—because she will find out—she will hate me with a violence I can't even imagine.
"Mr. Miller?" Sarah’s lawyer prompted.
Harrison looked up. He caught Sarah’s eye for a split second. He wanted to vomit. He wanted to scream, I'm sorry, I'm trapped, help me.
But she just blinked, her expression unreadable. She was waiting for him to leave.
He looked down at the paper. Harrison James Miller.
He scribbled his name. The ink looked like blood. It looked like a surrender.
"Thank you," the lawyer said, snatching the papers back as if afraid Harrison might infect them.
Harrison stood up. His knees felt weak. The room was spinning slightly. The walls of the glass cage were closing in.
He had to get out. He had to get back to the darkness where he belonged.
"I..." Harrison started, looking at Sarah. He wanted to say I love you. He wanted to say I'm sorry.
But he had lost the right to those words.
He turned and fled the room, walking fast, his head down, the weight of his unborn child crushing his spine.
Sarah
Sarah watched him go.
She didn't feel the triumph she expected. She felt a profound, hollow sadness.
Harrison looked terrible. The man who had just practically ran out of the room wasn't the man she had married. That man had been vibrant, confident, with a laugh that filled a room.
This man was a ghost. He was gray-skinned, his suit hung loosely on his frame as if he had lost fifteen pounds in a month. His eyes were rimmed with red, darting around like a trapped animal. He looked haunted.
Good, a part of her thought. He should suffer.
But the other part—the part that had spent five years loving him—just felt pity. He had blown up his life, and for what? For a cheap thrill in a basement. For a woman who would tire of him the moment the drama faded.
"It’s done," Mr. Vance said, organizing the papers into a folder. "The deed transfer will be recorded tomorrow. The house is yours, Sarah. Sole ownership."
"Thank you, Robert," Sarah said. Her voice was steady.
She stood up. She felt lighter. The legal tether was cut. She was Sarah Bennett again. The house was hers. The future was a blank slate.
"Good luck, Harrison," she whispered to the empty chair he had vacated.
