When I woke up again, I was alone in a guest room at the seaside estate. Oscar was in the adjacent room, keeping vigil over Sloane.
When Marcus delivered the news with his usual condescension, I felt a void where my heart used to be. I dismissed him with a single, sharp gesture.
Once the room was quiet again, I took out my phone and checked the encrypted email from my father.
[Everything is ready. The private jet is on standby. We're waiting for you to come home.]
Attached was proof of a three-billion-dollar trust fund established for me by Beaumont Enterprises and the profiles of a 24/7 personal security team.
It was the full, formidable power of a top-tier financial conglomerate on display.
Staring at the documents, the first flicker of hope I’d felt in days ignited within me. Three more days. Just three more, and I’ll be free.
Just as I was tucking the phone away, the door pushed open. Oscar walked in.
I quickly blanked my phone screen.
Oscar's eyes narrowed. "What were you looking at? Why so jumpy?"
I turned my head away, refusing to meet his gaze. He walked to the bedside and reached out, as if to stroke my hair.
"Be a good girl next time, and you won't have to suffer like this."
A cold laugh escaped me. "I understand."
There would be no next time. In three days, I would take our child and go somewhere he could never find us.
I tried to push him away with my indifference, but he didn't leave. Instead, he sat on the edge of the bed and scooped up a spoonful of soup to feed me.
The spoon never reached my mouth. A clatter from the doorway made me flinch. Sloane was crumpled on the floor, looking up at Oscar with wide, tear-filled eyes. The fallen spoon’s contents had splashed across my arm, the skin instantly blistering.
"I'm sorry," she sobbed. "I didn't mean to disturb you two. I just wanted to thank Clara for saving my life yesterday..."
Oscar immediately rushed to her side, helping her up. He then physically blocked the doctor who was moving to treat my burn.
"Check on her first!"
Watching his frantic state, I remembered our first vacation to the Maldives.
The yacht had an accident, and he’d pulled me from the water, ignoring his own broken ribs.
In that ramshackle island clinic, he’d given me the only oxygen mask.
He had gripped my hand and whispered, "Clara, you're more important than my life. If you die, I die too."
I had told my mother all of this. Though she’d had her doubts about me marrying into a family like the Ashfords, she had eventually relented.
Yet this man, who had once offered his life for mine, was now the one pushing me into the abyss, time and time again.
This disastrous marriage had cost my mother her life. And the root of it all was my inability to give him what he desperately wanted: a child, a legitimate heir for the Ashford family.
At first, bound by the terms of a family trust, he hadn't strayed. We’d tried every medical avenue together, a united front in our quest for a baby.
But as his brothers began producing heirs one by one, Oscar’s hope in me curdled into resentment.
The first time I caught him with another woman, I smashed every expensive thing in the hotel suite.
Back then, he would still hold me and apologize. But eventually, all that was left were his cold words:
"If you weren't barren, would I need to find other women?"
He waved a dismissive hand, his tone casual, as if I were a stranger. "Get out. Close the door on your way out."
In those days, the sight of a single, stark line on a pregnancy test would send me into a spiral of tears.
This marriage, once the envy of high society, had long been shredded by his coldness, his cruelty, and my mother’s death.
Now, pregnant at last, I was also, finally, awake.
I closed my eyes, feeling the searing pain on my arm and the faint, precious flutter of the small life inside my womb.
As I drifted into a deep, exhausted sleep, Oscar was still next door, comforting Sloane.
When I woke again, my arm was wrapped in a fresh bandage.
Oscar was sitting by the bed.
