I did not apologize to Chloe.
Julian came home two hours earlier than usual the next day.
I was waiting in the living room.
My phone lay unlocked on the coffee table, open to my message history. Beside it sat the ultrasound printout from my appointment, folded once through the middle because my hands had not stopped shaking since morning.
Julian did not sit.
"Explain last night."
"Read the messages," I said. "Read my call log. Then ask the arena for the footage. I did not threaten Chloe."
He barely glanced at the phone.
"You could delete messages."
I stared at him.
Three years of marriage. Three years of managing his passwords, travel records, medical files, and financial paperwork without once abusing his trust.
And now I was apparently a criminal mastermind because Chloe cried convincingly.
"You really believe I would fabricate an entire phone history?"
"I believe you are angry."
"Of course I am angry."
"You keep going through the accounts. You refused to help her. You treat every room she enters like a battlefield."
"Because you invited a war into our home and called it responsibility."
I picked up the ultrasound.
My pulse pounded behind my ears.
"She is not the only one who is pregnant, Julian."
For one second, his face went blank.
Then a voice came from the stairs.
"Please stop."
Chloe stood halfway down, one hand on the banister and tears already shining in her eyes.
"I don't want you fighting because of me," she said. "I can leave."
I closed my eyes.
Of course she could.
She could also have stayed upstairs for thirty more seconds and let me finish a sentence.
I slipped the ultrasound into my purse.
"I'm going out."
Julian's phone rang before he could stop me. His agent's name flashed across the screen.
He answered and stepped toward the kitchen.
I headed for the front door.
Chloe moved fast.
The moment Julian was out of sight, she came down the last few stairs and blocked the landing.
Her tears vanished.
"Do you really think a baby will save your marriage?" she whispered.
I kept moving. "Get out of my way."
"He already chose mine."
"Move, Chloe."
Her hand closed around my wrist.
Hard.
Her nails cut into my skin as she pulled me toward her.
I jerked my arm back.
Chloe stepped sideways, into the narrow section of the landing hidden from the hallway camera by the decorative stool she had moved earlier.
At the time, I did not notice the stool.
I only noticed her grip.
"Let go of me."
I yanked free.
Chloe threw herself backward.
Her heel hit the edge of the lower step. Her body twisted, and she fell down the last three stairs with a scream sharp enough to cut through the whole house.
Julian ran out of the kitchen.
His phone hit the floor.
Chloe lay crumpled on the hardwood, clutching her stomach.
I stood two steps above her, stunned.
"She pushed me," Chloe sobbed. "Julian, she pushed me."
He did not ask me what happened.
He dropped to his knees beside her.
"Do not move. I'm calling an ambulance."
"Julian, she grabbed me first. Check the camera."
He looked up at me, rage already replacing thought.
I pulled the ultrasound from my purse with shaking fingers.
"And listen to me this time. I am pregnant too. Eight weeks. I was trying to tell you."
His eyes flicked toward the paper but did not focus on it.
"You knew she was pregnant and still put your hands on her?"
"She grabbed me. Check the camera."
"If anything happens to my baby because of you-"
"Your baby?" My voice broke. "I just told you I am carrying your baby."
Sirens rose outside.
Paramedics rushed through the front door moments later with a stretcher.
They knelt around Chloe, taking her blood pressure and asking about pain.
The adrenaline that had kept me upright began to drain.
A deep ache spread across my lower abdomen.
I pressed a hand below my navel.
"I need to be checked too," I told one of the medics. "I'm eight weeks pregnant."
The woman looked toward me.
Before she could step closer, Julian moved between us.
"Stay away from her."
"Julian, I am asking the paramedic, not you."
"You just shoved a pregnant woman down the stairs."
"I did not shove her."
He stepped closer.
"Get out of the way."
I tried to move around him.
His hand hit my shoulder.
The shove was fast and angry, not measured.
My sneakers slipped on the polished wood.
My lower back struck the edge of the landing.
Pain flashed through my pelvis.
I fell backward down two steps and hit the floor.
For a second, I could not breathe.
The ceiling tilted above me.
Julian looked down.
Shock crossed his face, but it disappeared behind anger almost immediately.
"Pack your things," he said. "I want you out tonight."
He turned back to Chloe.
I pressed one hand to the wall and forced myself upright.
My legs shook.
Warmth slid down the inside of my thigh.
I looked down.
Blood spread across my pale pants.
The world went silent.
"Julian."
He was walking toward the door beside Chloe's stretcher.
"Julian, I'm bleeding."
He stopped for half a beat.
I saw his shoulders stiffen.
Then he kept walking.
"Not tonight, Eva," he said without turning around. "Stop making this about you."
The front door closed.
I stood alone in the foyer with blood running down my legs.
The paramedics were gone.
My husband had taken the ambulance escort with another woman.
I sank to the floor and unlocked my phone with fingers that barely worked.
"Nine-one-one. What is your emergency?"
"I'm pregnant," I managed. "Eight weeks. I fell. I'm bleeding heavily."
The dispatcher kept me talking until the second ambulance arrived.
A paramedic pressed gauze into my hand and asked where I had hit.
"My back. The stairs."
"Any loss of consciousness?"
"No."
"Where is your partner?"
I looked at the closed front door.
"At the hospital," I said. "With someone else."
As they lifted me onto the stretcher, my phone lit up on the floor.
A message from Julian filled the screen.
Do not come back tonight.
I stared at it until the paramedic turned my phone face down.
Then the ambulance doors closed.
