Chapter 1
The wind hit my hair before I felt his hand tighten. We were over water, bright enough that the ocean looked flat and hard below us, and the side door of the helicopter was open to all of it. I had one hand on my belly. Richard had my other wrist. He wasn't trying to keep me from falling. He was holding me at the edge.
My coat was open and blowing back, beige trench over my white shirt, and the daylight coming through the door was so strong I could see every rivet on the overhead panel, the little red placard above his head vibrating with the rotors. The cliffs ran thin and white under us. He held me like I was something that might get away, not something he was afraid to lose.
My name is Olivia, and that morning I'd still believed I could talk him down.
It was just past noon when he told the pilot to keep us over the coast. I remembered checking my phone before we lifted — 12:14, a text from his assistant about lunch — and then the doors closed and the cabin filled with that loud, chopping roar. When he slid the side door open mid-flight, the wind rushed in so fast my eyes watered. I didn't understand at first. I thought it was for the view. Then his fingers found my wrist and pulled.
"Move closer," he said.
It wasn't loud. He had to lean in to say it, his suit jacket pulling at the shoulder, his face close enough that I could see the small muscle in his jaw working. I dug my other hand harder against my stomach, felt the tight curve there under my shirt, and tried to pull back without making it a fight.
"Richard, stop," I said.
I watched his grip, moment by moment. His thumb pressed over the veins on the inside of my wrist. The edge of the door was a foot behind my hip, open air and a six-hundred-foot drop to water that would not give. I could feel the vibration through the floor in my shoes. My breath came short and I had to force it slower, so the baby wouldn't feel only my panic. I kept my eyes on him because looking down made my knees go soft.
He didn't let go. He smiled, and that was worse.
"I love you, Olivia," he said.
It was the way he'd said it at our rehearsal dinner, like a line he'd practiced for the room. Controlled. Even. His hand was still locked around my wrist, and he used the words to cover what his hand was doing. I felt the lie in it, small and cold. For a second I didn't have anything to say back because there was no answer to a line like that when you were sitting that close to nothing.
Then the wind shifted and the whole cabin tilted just enough that my weight slid a half-inch toward the open side. My hand flared on my belly without thinking. Richard's fingers tightened again to hold me, not to pull me in.
"You really think killing me makes you rich?" I said. My voice was lower than I expected. I could hear it shake.
He didn't blink. "Everything becomes mine."
The words landed flat, sure of themselves. He'd believed that for a long time. I'd found the papers three months ago that proved how long — the extra life insurance rider he never told me about, the will where I left everything to him because I was pregnant and I was stupid in love. He'd been waiting on that version of me.
"Not anymore," I said.
The rotors beat above us. For a second he just stared, his mouth open a little, the wind pulling at his shirt collar. I saw the calculation stall out in his eyes.
"What did you do?" he said.
I had to pause to breathe. The air tasted like salt and jet fuel. My wrist ached where he held it, and my other palm was sweaty against the cotton of my shirt over my belly. I didn't look at the ocean. I looked at him.
"I changed everything three months ago," I said.
His grip didn't loosen, but his face changed. The controlled part slipped.
"What is that?" he said.
May you like
I turned then. Not because he pushed me, but because I needed the door at my back less than I needed him not to see me cry. I turned my shoulders toward the open side, my back half to him, both hands now over my stomach, and faced the wind and the water. The cliffs cut away below us and the sunlight threw our shadows long across the interior wall, his still behind me.
He didn't move. He stayed frozen a foot behind my back, his hand finally empty where my wrist had been, staring at the space where I'd been facing him, trying to do the math on what I'd changed and how much it cost him. The wind rose until it was all I could hear, pulling at my coat, my hair whipping across my cheek, the edge right there, open, waiting. I didn't step closer and I didn't step back.
