Chapter 8: Elise’s Missing Piece
By morning, the restricted file was locked in Samuel’s desk, and I was standing outside a prenatal boutique with my phone in my hand.
Elise had sent the address before dawn. No apology, no explanation—just a time and one sentence: Come alone, or I won’t tell you.
The boutique windows glowed warm against the gray street. Inside, pale wood shelves held tiny socks and soft blankets, all of it arranged to make the future look gentle and purchasable.
I could have turned around. Instead, I went in.
Elise stood near a display of bassinets, one hand resting on the curve of her belly. Her face lost color when she saw me.
“You came.”
“You asked me to.”
A saleswoman glanced up from the counter. Elise waited until she’d moved toward the back of the shop, then nodded toward a narrow sitting area screened by shelves of folded blankets.
I followed, keeping my purse close. The ultrasound photo was inside it. I could feel its corner against my fingers, a private fact that seemed to grow heavier every time someone else spoke about babies.
Elise lowered herself onto a bench. For a moment, she looked less like the woman in my living room and more like someone who had been awake all night, afraid of what morning would bring.
“I’m not going to pretend I didn’t hurt you,” she said.
“Good. I’m tired of people pretending.”
Her mouth tightened. “Victoria told me you’d say that.”
“Victoria seems to know a lot about what everyone will say.”
Elise looked toward the front window. A dark sedan passed beyond it, and she flinched before it had even reached the corner. When she turned back, her eyes were bright but steady.
“I was hired as a consultant for the Vale Foundation,” she said. “Public relations, donor events, the family’s image. I was good at it. Then Victoria started asking me to stay close to Ryan.”
“Close how?”
“She wanted people to see us together. At events. In photographs. She said the divorce would be easier if everyone already understood that Ryan had moved on.”
The words landed with the same cold weight as the divorce papers on my porch. I had thought the humiliation was personal—Ryan choosing another woman while I stood there with a suitcase. Elise was telling me it had been arranged for an audience.
“You let her use you to make me look replaceable.”
“I did.” Elise’s fingers curled over the leather strap of her purse. “I knew what people would think. I told myself the story was already happening, and I might as well be paid for it.”
“That’s a convenient way to describe a choice.”
“Yes.” She swallowed. “It is.”
I hated that her honesty made it harder to hate her. I hated, too, that she didn’t ask me to forgive her.
“Why are you telling me now?”
“Because Victoria keeps changing the bargain.”
Elise took out her phone but didn’t unlock it yet. Her thumb hovered over the screen as if the voice waiting there might burn her.
“She promised financial security,” she said. “A place to live. Medical care. A future for my baby that wasn’t dependent on a man who doesn’t want to be a father.”
“Ryan?”
“No.” She met my eyes. “Ryan isn’t the father.”
My first feeling was shock. The second was anger—not at the child, but at the way Victoria had turned that child into a weapon and called it an heir.
“You stood in front of me and let me believe he was.”
“I know.”
“You watched me leave that house thinking you were carrying his baby.”
“I know.” Her voice cracked. “Victoria said the lie only had to last until you signed the settlement. She said after that, she would make sure I was taken care of.”
“And you believed her.”
“I needed to.” Elise looked down at her hands. “That doesn’t make it true.”
She unlocked the phone and opened a voice message. A woman’s crisp voice filled the little sitting area, unmistakably Victoria’s.
“Elise, keep the story alive until Madeline signs. Do not contradict what people already understand. Ryan’s future has to look settled before she can create another problem.”
The message ended with a soft click. Elise’s hand trembled around the phone.
“How long ago did she send that?”
“Three days.”
“Why keep it?”
“Because yesterday she called it a misunderstanding.” Elise’s expression hardened. “And because I realized she could take everything she promised me and still expect me to smile for the cameras.”
“You could have come to me before you let the story reach my home.”
“I know.” She held the phone out. “I’m not asking you to like me. I’m asking you to keep this.”
I didn’t take it right away. “If I do, there’s no pretending you were just caught up in it.”
“I know that, too.”
The saleswoman appeared at the end of the aisle with a folded blanket. Elise slipped the phone into my palm before the woman could reach us. The screen was warm from Elise’s hand.
I saved the message, then gave the phone back.
“Don’t erase it,” I said.
“I won’t.”
A quiet beat passed between us. In the front window, the street reflected back a version of the boutique where every cradle was empty and waiting.
Then Elise leaned closer.
“Victoria knows about your pregnancy.”
My hand tightened around my purse strap.
“What did you say?”
“She told me she knows. She said you’d learned the news before you left the house.”
My mouth went dry. I hadn’t told Ryan. I hadn’t told Victoria. I hadn’t told anyone.
“What is she planning?”
May you like
Elise looked toward the front of the store again, fear returning to her face.
“She’s scheduled a public announcement,” she whispered. “Tonight, at the foundation event. She’s going to name Ryan’s supposed heir—and she knows you’re carrying his child, too.”
