Austen Bates POV:
My fingers tightened on the reporter's tie, pulling him closer until our faces were inches apart. The scent of cheap cologne and fear filled my nostrils. "You'd better be lying," I snarled, my voice a low, dangerous rumble. "Because if you're not, if you dare to spread such a vicious rumor about my wife, I will personally ensure your career is over. Understood?"
The reporter, pale and trembling, stammered, "Mr. Bates, I-I saw the photos. She was there, alone. And she looked… devastated." He gestured vaguely to a colleague. My eyes darted to the other reporter, who quickly pulled out a tablet.
Isolde, standing beside me, placed a delicate hand on my arm. "Austen, darling, don't be so aggressive. It must be a misunderstanding, a cruel rumor." Her voice was soft, soothing, but I felt her hand subtly tighten, a possessive gesture.
"A misunderstanding?" I scoffed, ripping my tie free from the reporter's grasp. "What kind of misunderstanding involves my wife being distressed at a women's clinic?" I grabbed the tablet from the reporter, my gaze falling on the screen.
And there it was. A blurry, distant shot of Hailey. Her profile, etched in pain, standing alone at the clinic entrance. Her hand, clutching her stomach. And then, another photo, taken from a different angle, of her walking into the clinic, her shoulders slumped, her head bowed. The caption screamed: Fashion Influencer Hailey Wall Seen Alone at Women's Clinic Amidst Husband Chiaroscuro's Grand Comeback with Former Muse Isolde Roth.
My blood ran cold. The phone call. Her whispered words: I'm having a procedure. A surgery. Right now. I had dismissed it, called her "overreacting," told her her "little social media posts" could wait. I had been so consumed by Isolde's crisis, by the intoxicating rush of being "Chiaroscuro" again, that I hadn't paused, hadn't listened.
Then, a short video clip started playing automatically. The quality was poor, grainy, but the audio was clear enough. It was Hailey's voice, raw and broken, muffled by tears. "I'm so sorry, my love," she whispered, her voice barely audible. "Mommy… mommy couldn't protect you."
My knees buckled. I closed my eyes, a tidal wave of nausea washing over me. Hailey… pregnant? And I… I had made her go through this. Alone.
Images flashed through my mind: Hailey's pale face when she'd asked me to take her photos, her trembling voice when she' d asked if I' d drop everything for Isolde, the way she clutched her stomach when she hung up the phone. All the signs. All the subtle tells I'd been too blind, too selfish, too obsessed to see.
I remembered her asking me, just this morning, Do you even know what day it is? It was our anniversary. The day she was going to tell me. The day I had left her sobbing in our apartment to rush to Isolde's side.
My heart felt like a block of ice, shattering into a million pieces inside my chest. Regret. A cold, bitter, agonizing wave of regret washed over me, drowning me. How could I have been so callous? So cruel? So utterly, unforgivably blind? I had been so desperate to reclaim my past, to feel that artistic fire again, that I had incinerated my present.
My hands trembled violently as I handed the tablet back to the stunned reporter. "Book me the first flight back to New York," I barked at my assistant, who stood nearby, wide-eyed. "Immediately."
Isolde's face, which had been contorted in a mask of feigned concern, now shifted to one of genuine alarm. "Austen, no! You can't leave! The after-party, the interviews, the momentum! This is huge for us!" She grabbed my arm, her manicured nails digging into my skin.
"Us?" I ripped my arm away, my gaze burning into her. "There is no 'us,' Isolde. There never was." My voice was laced with a venom I hadn't known I possessed. "And your photographer, the one who 'couldn't capture your essence'? You told me he quit in a fit of artistic despair. But I heard him talking to a PR rep backstage. He said you fired him because you wanted 'Chiaroscuro' back, because you knew my presence would skyrocket your media coverage."
Isolde's face went white. Her perfectly made-up features crumpled, her eyes wide and innocent. "Austen, that's not true! I… I missed you! I missed your talent, yes, but I missed you! I just… I needed help. You know how vulnerable I am."
I laughed, a harsh, humorless sound that echoed in the luxurious backstage area. "Vulnerable? Isolde, you're a predator. You always were. You don't need help; you need someone to climb over. And you nearly convinced me to sacrifice everything, again, for your climb." I looked at my hands, the hands that had just released the tie of a man who had told me the truth, the hands that had so carelessly dismissed my wife's pain. My hands, that had held Isolde' s camera, that had, in fact, been Hailey' s camera.
The rage was a firestorm in my gut, but it was directed inward now. Not at Isolde, not at the reporters. At myself.
"I need to go," I said, my voice hoarse. I grabbed the expensive camera I'd been using-Hailey's camera-and slammed it onto the ground, the sound of shattering plastic and glass echoing through the stunned silence.
I walked away from the flashing lights, the whispers, the stunned faces. Walked away from the career, the fame, the woman who had once been my entire world. She wasn't my world anymore. She was a ghost, a toxic memory.
My world was currently lying in a sterile hospital bed, alone, heartbroken, and irrevocably changed. And I, her husband, had put her there.
I had to find her. I had to apologize. I had to beg for her forgiveness. I had to tell her… I had to tell her how much I loved her, truly loved her, not the phantom of a past romance. I had to make her understand. I had to make her see that I was, finally, truly, back.
And this time, I would never leave.
