4

Chapter 4

I went upstairs and yanked open my closet.

Every suit, every dress I’d worn to fit his image—it all looked foreign now.

The suitcase thudded shut.

The sound was final, like the gavel at the end of a trial.

Then I opened my jewelry box—and froze.

My mother’s silver bracelet was gone.

I tore through every drawer. Nothing.

When I went back downstairs, I saw it immediately—gleaming around her wrist.

“Take it off.”

Clara blinked, feigning confusion. “Oh, this? Ethan gave it to me.”

My blood went cold. “That’s my mother’s.”

She lowered her gaze, but her lips curved ever so slightly.

“He said it would make me feel better. After everything I’ve lost.”

The room went silent, the air thick enough to choke on.

“Clara,” I said slowly, “you’re wearing something that doesn’t belong to you.”

Ethan stood between us, raising his hands.

“Sarah, please. Don’t make this worse. It’s just a bracelet.”

“Just a bracelet?” I whispered. “That was the only thing she left me.”

He sighed, frustrated. “Fine. I’ll buy you ten more.”

The laugh that escaped me sounded hollow even to my own ears.

“You don’t get it. You’ve already given away everything that mattered.”

“Sarah—”

“Enough!” I snapped. “Tell her to take it off.”

Clara hesitated, then smiled faintly—and let the bracelet fall.

It shattered against the marble floor.

The sound echoed through the house like a verdict.

Something inside me broke cleanly in half.

I slapped her before I could think.

Ethan grabbed my arm, fury flashing across his face. “How dare you?!”

“She destroyed my mother’s bracelet!”

“And you struck a pregnant woman!”

His hand came down before I saw it coming.

The sting burned across my face. The silence that followed was deafening.

“You…” My voice trembled. “You hit me—for her?”

Ethan froze, realization dawning too late.

“Sarah, I didn’t—”

Ethan’s eyes blazed as he snapped, his voice full of fury:

“How dare you hit Clara over some broken bracelet? How could that piece of junk mean more to you than her—and my child?”

My breath caught.

My child.

Not Lewis’s.

He’d admitted it.

For a heartbeat, the world tilted.

The man standing before me wasn’t the husband I’d loved for five years—it was a stranger wearing his face.

I knelt slowly, gathering the shattered fragments of my mother’s bracelet from the floor.

The sharp edges cut into my palm, but I didn’t flinch.

When I looked up, my voice was calm—too calm.

“Very well, Ethan. We’re finished.”