1191 After Six Days With His Mistress, a Billionaire Husband Returned to the Hospital to Find His Pregnant Wife Gone, Their Baby Dead, and a Letter Revealing the Truth About Her Injury

The wrought-iron gates of Crescent Crest opened slowly, parting the drifts of accumulated snow as my town car rolled up the long, winding drive.

The estate rose out of the pines like a gothic monument to old money. Four stories of limestone, slate turrets, and towering arched windows looking out over the Atlantic cliffs. It was the house where I had grown up under my mother’s suffocating scrutiny, the house I had brought Meline to as a young bride, and the house she had fled when the lies became too poisonous to breathe.

Meline stared out the tinted glass as the car stopped before the main portico. Her hands were clenched tightly in her lap.

"Nothing has changed," she whispered, her voice laced with dread.

"Everything has changed," I corrected quietly. "My mother is dead. Sterling is in federal custody. The staff has been replaced down to the security guards at the perimeter."

"The walls haven't changed, Nicholas," she said, finally turning to look at me. "The memories haven't changed."

Mrs. Gable, the new housekeeper Arthur had vetted, opened the front heavy oak doors as we mounted the steps. Samuel clung to Meline’s neck, wide-eyed at the vastness of the grand entrance hall with its sweeping double staircase and crystal chandelier wrapped in dim canvas dust covers.

"Welcome home, Mrs. Vance," Mrs. Gable said respectfully, bowing her head. "I have prepared the east wing suites as instructed. Nursery adjoins the master sitting room. The pantry is stocked to your specifications."

"Thank you, Mrs. Gable," Meline said, her tone polite but guarded. She glanced up the stairs, where the west wing corridor vanished into darkness. "And Mr. Vance’s quarters?"

"The west wing library suite has been readied," I interjected. "Across the gallery. Two heavy oak doors and seventy feet of hallway between us."

Meline gave a single, curt nod. Without waiting for me, she carried Samuel up the wide marble stairs, her boots clicking with deliberate cadence against the stone. I watched her ascend, the heavy silence of the house descending around us.

An hour later, after the luggage had been brought up, I walked down the east corridor. The door to Samuel’s nursery stood half-open. Soft light spilled onto the hardwood floor.

I paused by the doorframe. Meline had stripped off her coat and was sitting in a low rocking chair, nursing Samuel with a warm bottle Mrs. Gable had prepared. The room was warm, painted in soft creams and pale blues, a sharp contrast to the cold grandeur of the rest of the mansion.

Samuel was drifting off, his eyelids heavy, one hand batting softly at the air before resting against Meline’s collarbone.

"You don't need to stand in the shadows, Nicholas," she said softly, not looking up. "It’s your house."

"It’s his house," I replied, staying in the doorway. "How is he taking it?"

"He likes the fire," she said, glancing toward the hearth where small birch logs crackled behind an iron screen. "He spent eight months in a two-room cottage in Vermont. He’s not used to rooms where his voice echoes."

"We can make it smaller. We can close off sections."

"Don't patronize me," she said, looking up, her gaze steady and unblinking. "We are here because of a legal maneuver to save him from a foster home. Don't start playing the solicitous husband. It doesn't suit the man who left his wedding band on our nightstand before boarding a private jet to Colorado."

The reminder hit like a physical blow. The six days in Aspen—the six days orchestrated by my mother to separate me from Meline while the clinic was paid off to fake Samuel's demise—were the permanent stain on my soul.

"I didn't leave the ring because I didn't care, Meline," I said, my voice low and raw. "I left it because my mother told me you had terminated the pregnancy and fled to Europe with your old college partner. She showed me wire transfers. She showed me medical receipts with your forged initials."

Meline froze. The bottle slipped slightly in her hand, though Samuel didn't wake. She stared at me, her eyes widening with a sudden, horrible shock.