Chapter 4

I had never noticed any of it before.

I dug through the closet and packed a few sets of the clothes I wore most.

Odette walked in, gave my suitcase one glance, and came straight to my side.

Her eyes were red-rimmed. "Greta, could you let me have John?"

"Our baby is already three months along. I don't want it growing up as a bastard everyone points at."

I'd known about the two of them for a while now, and still my chest closed up.

She gripped my hand, her eyes pleading.

Something bitter rose in my throat. I held back the tears and used the motion to pull my hand out of hers.

She didn't get an answer from me, so she dropped the act entirely, snatched the scissors off the table, and rushed out the door, shrieking.

"Greta, I'm begging you, give me and my baby a way out!"

I walked out slowly and heard John's hurried footsteps.

He soothed Odette with worry all over his face, took the scissors from her hand and tossed them at my feet, then shot me a small glance.

"When you hurt yourself like this, it breaks my heart."

Odette looked at me, her eyes lit with the taunt of someone already certain she'd won.

"I told Greta the truth. She wants me to abort the baby, told me not to wreck what the two of you have."

John's gaze lifted to me, thick with disgust, and his hands started to move in angry sign.

I bit down hard on my lip and forced my voice out, shaking. "I can hear you talking."

John stepped up in front of me and looked down at me from above.

"Greta Henson, if anything happens to Odette, I will never forgive you."

There was no joy in his eyes at hearing that I could hear. He never asked me once for the truth.

He only kept blaming me.

I threw it back at him, cold. "This has nothing to do with me. What gives you the right to take her word for it and decide I'm the one in the wrong?"

John seemed to laugh a little, his voice full of scorn.

"As if I don't know what kind of person you are."

"They say like mother, like daughter. Your mother threw herself at a man to be his mistress and still wouldn't take you."

"What makes you think you're any better than she is?"

The tears spilled over at once. "You're lying!"

She and I were nothing alike.

Back when we were still in love, I told him how my mother had gone off to be another man's mistress while my father was barely in the ground.

I told him I wasn't the kind of person who deserved to be loved.

He'd only ruffled my hair, tender with me. "That was her mistake, not yours."

"You're this good. You deserve my love."

He clamped down hard on my wrist and dragged me over in front of Odette.

"Apologize to Odette, and promise you'll take good care of her baby from now on, and I'll think about keeping you by my side as a mistress."

I stared at him, unable to believe it. "In your dreams."

Edgar had come upstairs too. He stood off to the side, wanting to speak and not speaking.

Odette slapped me across the face, pleased with herself. "John, since Greta won't do it, then forget it."

Only then did John let me go. I pressed a hand to my aching cheek.

They were the ones destroying everything with their own hands.

Just then the housekeeper came running up, flustered. "Sir, there's a crowd of people outside, saying they're here for Miss Henson."

She had finally come. I went back to my room, dragged out my suitcase, and headed for the door.

Behind me John clenched his fist and said, cold, "If you dare walk out, don't ever come back."

I walked on without turning my head and answered softly, "I'm never coming back."