Traitorous Hearts

CHAPTER ONE — 39 WEEKS

It had been almost three months since my father called to tell me Damon Blackwood had finally come looking for me.

Three months since he finally realized that leaving me hadn’t magically cured him of loving me.

That he regretted it.

That he’d stood in my father’s home and asked where I’d gone.

That apparently it had taken him six months to realize walking away from the woman he claimed to love might have been a spectacularly stupid decision.

I shifted on the sofa and immediately regretted it.

There was no comfortable position anymore.

Sitting hurt.

Standing hurt.

Lying down required the kind of planning usually reserved for strategists.

And rolling over in bed?

I’d stopped calling it rolling. It was a controlled relocation.

A small foot pressed hard beneath my ribs.

I frowned down at the enormous curve beneath my loose black dress.

“Don’t.”

The foot pushed harder.

“Jacqueline.”

Another kick.

I placed my palm over the offending spot.

“Your mother is attempting to work.”

Apparently, my daughter had inherited her father’s stubbornness.

My laptop sat abandoned beside me, an email half-written on the screen. I’d been staring at the same sentence for ten minutes.

I blamed pregnancy.

It was easier than admitting I’d been thinking about Damon again.

I looked toward the windows instead.

Beijing stretched beneath me, endless and alive, the afternoon haze softening the buildings in the distance. Eight months ago, I couldn’t have imagined living here.

Now there was a nursery down the hall.

A ridiculous number of tiny dresses in a wardrobe.

A stroller that had required an instruction manual thick enough to qualify as literature.

And a child currently attempting to remove one of my ribs from the inside.

This was home.

Or I was trying very hard to make it one.

My phone lay facedown on the coffee table.

Damon’s number was still in it.

Of course it was.

I’d never deleted it.

I’d considered it.

Several times.

Once, at three in the morning, I’d even opened our old messages and hovered over his contact long enough for Jacqueline to kick me as if personally offended by my weakness.

I hadn’t called.

Not when Papa told me Damon had come looking for me.

Not when he told me Damon loved me.

Not when he said Damon regretted leaving.

And certainly not when my father quietly asked whether I wanted Damon to know where I was.

I’d said no.

Immediately.

Then I’d gone into the bathroom, locked the door and cried until I couldn’t breathe properly.

Pregnancy hormones.

Obviously.

It couldn’t possibly have been because some stupid, broken part of me had spent six months wanting Damon to come after me, only for him to finally do it when I had already learned how to live without him.

Mostly.

Another kick.

I rubbed my stomach.

“Fine. I’m lying.”

Silence.

“Your father still has the ability to ruin my day from six thousand miles away.”

A gentler movement this time.

I smiled despite myself.

“Yes. Very impressive.”

I had imagined telling him.

That was the humiliating part.

Not once.

Hundreds of times.

In some versions, I called him the moment I saw the two lines.

In others, I waited until I could say the words without crying.

In one particularly pathetic fantasy, he somehow appeared at my door, took one look at me and knew.

Then he’d put his hands on my stomach.

He’d look at me with those gray eyes.

And he’d—

I shut the thought down.

No.

Damon had made his choice before either of us knew there was a child involved.

Jacqueline didn’t erase that choice.

She didn’t turn abandonment into sacrifice.

And she certainly wasn’t going to become the reason I begged a man to return to a life he’d voluntarily left.

If Damon ever stood beside me again, it would be because he chose me.

Not because biology cornered him.

That was the one thing I’d been certain of from the beginning.

Papa understood.

He didn’t necessarily agree.

There was a difference.

He’d asked me once whether keeping the pregnancy from Damon was something I could live with.

I’d asked him whether Damon leaving me was something he could live with.

Papa hadn’t asked again.

Instead, he’d redirected his considerable energy toward becoming the most unbearable grandfather on the planet.

Jacqueline wasn’t even born yet and already owned enough clothes to survive several childhoods.

A bassinet had arrived from Paris.

A handmade rocking horse from Lyon.

A silver rattle so absurdly expensive I’d called Papa and asked whether he expected the baby to auction it when she turned eighteen.

His response had been:

“Ma petite, my granddaughter will not be chewing plastic.”

My little one.

As though babies had historically suffered from insufficient access to sterling silver.

I smiled at the memory.

Then Jacqueline shifted again and my smile disappeared.

“Oh, come on.”

I pushed myself to my feet.

Slowly.

Very slowly.

At thirty-nine weeks pregnant, dignity had become an abstract concept.

One week.

That was all I had left.

Seven days until my due date.

Papa was coming soon. He’d arranged his schedule so he could arrive before the birth and stay afterward, which meant I was about to be supervised like a national security threat.

I was looking forward to it more than I’d admitted to him.

Beijing had given me exactly what I’d needed.

Distance.

Anonymity.

Work.

Space to become someone who wasn’t constantly walking past places where Damon had kissed me, argued with me, protected me, infuriated me.

Loved me.

But distance had a cost.

I missed my people.

Vivienne called constantly.

Theo was worse.

Neither knew.

That particular achievement probably qualified me for some sort of award.

I’d become exceptionally talented at strategic camera angles.

Video calls happened from the shoulders up.

Loose clothing was mandatory.

When Vivienne demanded to know why I hadn’t sent her a full-length photograph in months, I’d told her Beijing had made me mysterious.

She’d told me Beijing had made me annoying.

Theo occasionally threatened to appear without warning.

I’d told him I’d have him deported.

He thought I was joking.

I wasn’t entirely sure I was.

They knew I’d needed to leave.

They knew Damon had broken my heart.

They knew Papa had eventually told me he’d come looking for me.

What they didn’t know was that every morning I woke up with Damon’s daughter moving beneath my heart.

And I wasn’t ready to share her yet.

Maybe that was selfish.

Maybe it was fear.

Maybe Jacqueline was simply the one piece of my life Damon hadn’t touched and broken, and for a little while longer I wanted her entirely protected from everything that came before her.

Even the people I loved.

My phone buzzed.

I glanced at it.

VIVIENNE

Naturally.

I considered answering.

Then looked down at myself.

Absolutely not.

I declined the video call.

Three seconds later, a message appeared.

VIVIENNE: Rude.

I smiled.

ME: Busy.

VIVIENNE: Doing what?

I looked around my silent apartment.

ME: Running an empire.

Her response arrived immediately.

VIVIENNE: You’re lying on a sofa aren’t you?

I narrowed my eyes at the phone.

Witch.

ME: Goodbye, Vivienne.

VIVIENNE: I miss you.

My fingers stopped.

The smile softened.

ME: I miss you too.

A pause.

Then:

VIVIENNE: Come home.

My chest tightened.

Home.

Such a small word for something that had become so complicated.

I typed three different answers before deleting all of them.

Finally:

ME: Soon.

I didn’t know if it was true.

The doorbell rang.

I frowned.

I wasn’t expecting anyone.

My housekeeper had already left. The groceries had arrived that morning. Papa wasn’t due yet.

The bell rang again.

“Patience,” I muttered.

I pushed myself upright properly, smoothed my dress over my stomach out of habit and made my way toward the door.

Whoever was on the other side knocked before I reached it.

I stopped.

People who delivered things didn’t knock like that.

I checked the monitor.

And froze.

No.

Absolutely not.

I stared at the screen.

Then at my stomach.

Then back at the screen.

“You have got to be kidding me.”

Jacqueline moved.

“Not helpful.”

I hadn’t seen him since I left New York.

Hadn’t told him where I lived.

Hadn’t invited him.

And yet there he stood outside my apartment looking irritatingly expensive and completely at ease with himself, one hand in the pocket of his coat.

Nicolas.

I considered pretending I wasn’t home.

Then he looked directly into the camera.

Of course he did.

His mouth curved.

I hated him a little.

I opened the door.

“Nicolas.”

His smile widened.

“There she is.”