Chapter 4

4: 4

Linda's words hit like a thunderclap, and my ears rang.

Stiffly, I turned my neck to face Brandon.

"That girl is your father's mistress? Not your girlfriend?"

Brandon didn't answer. He seized my arm instead, gripping hard enough to snap the bone.

"You're pregnant? Madison, you're forty-six! What business do you have being pregnant!"

Spit flew into my face.

His eyes were bloodshot, wild enough to devour me.

"How can you be so selfish!"

"You just have to saddle me with a stumbling block, don't you, so I spend my whole life dragging around your extra baggage!"

A shudder ran through me. Something like rotten cotton was stuffed into my chest, packed so tight I couldn't breathe.

Who would willingly gamble on a high-risk delivery, on hemorrhaging, on the agony of childbirth?

In the hospital database, no bone-marrow match for him had ever turned up.

His white cell count kept climbing, and the doctor said if we waited any longer it would be too late.

I was risking everything to carry a second child, all to save the cord blood, so he could have the stem cell transplant!

"It's not what you think..."

My eyes burned, and I reached for him, my voice gone hoarse.

"Listen to me. It's because..."

"Enough!"

Brandon flung my hand off without a shred of mercy.

The force nearly knocked me down.

He didn't spare me an ounce of pity.

Every word out of his mouth was pure cruelty.

"Don't try to fool me with your excuses!"

"All you care about is having one of each, a son and a daughter. You don't care whether I live or die!"

"Dad is a thousand times more worthy than you! He gives me resources, he clears a path for my future, all you do is cause trouble!"

Leaning against the door frame, Linda had finally worked out that I was the real wife, the one she'd never seen.

Yet in this moment she didn't look the least bit guilty.

She twirled a lock of hair around one perfectly manicured nail, her whole face a taunt.

"Ma'am, you really are too obsessed. Brandon's this impressive, and if you won't help him, fine, but you have to go and have a baby to drag him down too."

"No wonder Mr. Gilbert would rather come to me than spare you a single glance."

"Anyone would find a wife and mother as selfish as you unbearable."

The whole thing struck me as absurd, laughable.

I pointed at Linda's shallow, ugly face and asked Brandon.

"Your father took a mistress about your own age right under your nose, and you still think he's the good one?"

Brandon gave an indifferent sneer.

"So what!"

"Dad's a man who's made something of himself. What's wrong with keeping a young girl!"

"At least he didn't go and get one pregnant!"

"He only betrayed you, not me!"

"And you having a second child, that's the real betrayal of me!"

Cold spread through me, every breath a sting.

"You actually... think that way?"

Brandon wasn't moved in the slightest. He pressed in closer, his words sharper by the second.

"That's exactly right! Dad is the backbone of the Gilbert family. You're just a housewife, and the fact that he hasn't divorced you means you should be down on your knees grateful!"

"Me stopping you from making a scene, that's all for your own good!"

"You just have to keep clawing at my dad's private business."

"Keep pulling this nonsense and see if he doesn't divorce you on the spot and leave you to walk away with nothing!"

My vision went blood-red, and it all felt endlessly ironic.

The blood in me ran cold.

On the surface I don't work, but behind the scenes I hold a controlling stake in seven companies. Dragonet Law Firm is only one of them.

Charles was the one who'd married up, living off his wife.

I'd never said a word about it, afraid my son would look down on his own father.

The tears finally fell, salty and bitter.

Linda looked even more pleased with herself. The corner of her mouth curled into a smile both saccharine and vicious.

"At your age, who knows if the baby you're carrying is even healthy."

"What if it comes out disabled, or slow? Isn't that just a sin? And then Brandon would be the one left to clean up after you."

Brandon's face grew darker still. He gave the order with no regard for how I felt.

"You're going to the hospital right now to get rid of it."

"You dare have it, and don't blame me for refusing to call you my mother."

I was shaking all over.

It felt like someone had torn a hole clean through my chest.

There was no point arguing anymore.

I turned and started for the door.

But Linda came over, pretending to help me.

The moment her hand touched me, she let out a shriek. "Oh!"

As if I'd shoved her, she dragged me hard down the steps with her.

Brandon instinctively caught Linda.

And watched me tumble down the steps of the European-style entryway.

Warm blood ran down the leg of my pants.

The baby was gone.