“I’m sorry, Ms. Emerald,” he said at last. “Your husband… he arranged it. He wanted the heart given to Amber’s child. He used his influence. He made sure the transplant went to their boy.”
The words hit like an avalanche. The phone call, the yacht lights, the child’s voice—everything snapped into a brutal, clear picture. Nathan had chosen. Nathan had given my child’s heart away.
I sat down until the world stopped spinning enough to think. There was one thing I could do that didn’t wait for time to punish him: call Reid.
My fingers found his number as if they’d practiced the motion. I hadn’t seen him in years—ever since Reid got involved with the mafia and our father forced me to cut ties—but despite everything, we’d always been close, and I knew he would come. He answered on the second ring.
“Brother, help me, please! Nathan hurt me! Take me home and I’ll do everything you want me to do.”
The morning light touched the edge of my canvas, turning the wet paint into tiny sparks of gold. I’d been painting for almost an hour—colors spilling, soft strokes calming my chest. It felt foreign and familiar all at once, like breathing after being underwater too long.
Then the door burst open.
“Where are my clothes, Emerald?!” Nathan’s voice crashed through the room. “And my breakfast? My presentation files? Have you forgotten everything?”
I froze, brush midair. His face was red, his tie half-done, frustration already curdling into anger.
“I don’t want to do it anymore,” I said quietly, my voice barely leaving my throat.
He blinked. “What?”
I set the brush down, hands shaking. “I said I don’t want to do it anymore. The cooking. The preparing. The pretending.”
For a heartbeat, there was silence. Only the sound of the ceiling fan and the faint smell of turpentine filled the room.
Since we got married, I had done everything for him. His meals, his clothes, his schedules, his meetings—things a secretary could do, things a wife shouldn’t have to prove love through.
I used to think I was being supportive, but over time, I’d become something else—a servant in the shell of a wife. I forgot how to paint, how to live, how to be myself. The canvas in front of me was the first time I’d picked up a brush in three years.
Nathan’s jaw tightened. He looked at the painting, then at me, as if it were an insult. “You’re kidding me.”