Chapter 1
The paramedic crouched in front of me while the ballroom blurred behind her: white tablecloths, silver balloons, a hundred faces suddenly pretending not to stare.
“Can you tell me your name and how many weeks pregnant you are?”
“Ava Bell. Thirty-three weeks.”
My mother stepped in beside me. “She got startled, that’s all. She didn’t fall.”
The paramedic kept her eyes on me. “I need to hear from Ava.”
The words were gentle. Their effect wasn’t. For years, I had let Lorraine answer first, explain me, smooth over whatever she’d decided I meant. Now I pressed both hands to my stomach and looked at her.
“I stumbled,” I said. “I felt a tightness low down afterward. No bleeding.”
My mother’s mouth tightened, as if I’d insulted her by telling the truth.
The paramedic checked my pulse and asked more questions. I answered each one myself. The tightness had eased, but fear still sat beneath my ribs, heavy as a stone.
“Given your pregnancy and what you felt, we’d like you evaluated,” she said. “We can take you in, or someone can drive you.”
“I’ll go with you.”
Behind her, Chloe stood near the ballroom doors, bouquet still in her hand. Blake had one arm around her shoulders. Neither of them looked like they knew what to do with their faces.
My BMW keys pressed into my palm. I had curled my fingers around them so tightly the metal teeth had left little dents in my skin.
Lorraine glanced at the keys. “Ava, you don’t need to make this into a bigger thing.”
“I’m going to get checked.”
“I’m your mother. I know when you’re fine.”
“You don’t get to answer for me.”
For a second, something like surprise crossed her face. Then it hardened into offense. I looked away before I could be pulled into the old argument—her hurt, my apology, everyone else allowed to forget what had happened.
The paramedics helped me stand. My legs felt unsteady, but I walked with them toward the doors.
“Ava.” Chloe hurried after us, her heels clicking fast over the ballroom floor.
Lorraine called her name, sharp enough to stop half the guests from breathing. Chloe paused, then kept coming.
At the entrance, she caught my sleeve. Her fingers were cold.
“Mom promised Blake the cottage,” she whispered.
I stared at her. “What cottage?”
“Our cottage. Dad’s. The one we inherited together.”
For a moment, the room tilted in a different way. I saw the lake through summer heat, the narrow dock my father had patched himself, Chloe and me fighting over the upstairs bedroom before we were old enough to understand what inheritance meant.
“She promised him our cottage?”
Chloe’s eyes flicked toward the ballroom. Blake was watching us now.
“I’m sorry,” she said.
The paramedic waited beside the open ambulance doors. I wanted to ask Chloe how this could possibly be true, but my mother’s voice carried from behind us.
“Chloe, get back here.”
My sister flinched.
I didn’t tell her it was all right. It wasn’t. I let the paramedic guide me into the ambulance, keeping my keys in my fist.
The doors shut between me and the party.
As the ambulance pulled away, the tightness in my stomach came and went. I sat still, breathing as the paramedic had instructed, while the roadside lights slid past the windows in long yellow streaks.
Ethan called before we reached the hospital.
“I’m coming,” he said. “I stopped at the venue first.”
“Why?”
“Because the manager said your mother had asked him to ‘let the evening end quietly.’ He’s preserving the footage now.”
I closed my eyes. Even after taking my keys in front of everyone, Lorraine had still believed she could decide which parts of the night counted.
“Did he agree?”
“He confirmed it to me. I’m on my way to you.”
The paramedic glanced over, checking my expression. I nodded that I was all right, though the word felt too large to claim.
At the hospital, a nurse brought me into a room with soft lights and a curtain that didn’t quite close. They checked the baby’s heartbeat and monitored me while the clinician asked what had happened. I told her about the stumble and the tightness. I didn’t soften the part about my mother.
The baby’s heartbeat came through the monitor, quick and steady. I held my breath until the clinician told me what I was hearing.
“That’s a reassuring sound,” she said. “We’ll keep monitoring you for now. If you have bleeding, worsening pain, or a change in the baby’s movement, call us right away.”
I nodded, watching the monitor trace its small, bright hills. For the first time all evening, the fear loosened enough for me to breathe past it.
Ethan arrived with his tie undone and his face drawn tight. He crossed the room and took my free hand, careful not to disturb the monitor.
“I’m here.”
“I know.”
He looked at the keys in my other hand. I hadn’t put them down once.
“Chloe’s outside,” he said. “She followed the ambulance.”
I looked toward the curtain. “Let her in.”
Chloe came through slowly, no bouquet now. Her mascara had smudged beneath one eye, and she looked younger than she had at the party—not innocent, exactly, but frightened enough to stop pretending she knew how this would end.
Ethan moved to the other side of the bed. He didn’t leave.
“What did Mom promise Blake?” I asked.
Chloe wrapped her arms around herself. “I told you. The cottage.”
“How?”
“I don’t know.”
“You were standing there when she offered him my car. You knew something else was happening.”
“I knew she’d been talking to him about Dad’s place. I didn’t know she’d—” Chloe stopped, swallowing. “I thought it was just talk.”
“Then why did you look scared?”
She glanced at Ethan, then back at me.
“I didn’t want to believe Blake when he said it.”
My fingers tightened around the keys.
“Believe what?”
May you like
Chloe’s mouth opened, but no words came. The silence stretched until the monitor’s steady beat seemed to fill the room.
Then she said, “Blake told me the cottage was already included in a loan package.”
