Part 5
Adrian looked toward the hallway, then back at her, as if another explanation might enter the room.
“The drive?”
“You gave me access to your office. You liked showing me how clever you were.” Her smile thinned. “I paid attention.”
He moved abruptly. She backed toward the elevator and raised the phone again.
“Think before you touch me. There’s plenty left to explain, and I’m quite willing to explain it.”
He stopped close enough to see that she was not frightened of him.
She pressed the elevator button.
For weeks he had pictured Grant directing the collapse, rewarding Claire for leaving him, taking pleasure in ruining his life. All the while, Vanessa had been choosing which pieces of his private world to hand over.
The elevator arrived. She stepped inside without retrieving the wineglass.
Adrian watched the doors close on the woman for whom he had made his wife feel disposable.
He remained beside the elevator after it had gone down. The call button had gone dark. He pressed it once, then withdrew his hand before the car could return.
There was nobody he could summon who would make Vanessa take back what she had done.
Elsewhere, Claire gripped a hospital bed rail while another contraction tightened across her abdomen. She had been home from her first day of work only a few hours when the pain began. This time it had not eased with rest or water.
A nurse adjusted the monitor against her stomach.
“Try to let your shoulders come down, Claire. We’re watching him.”
Claire attempted a slow breath. Midway through it, she looked toward the doorway.
Grant appeared there, having followed after she was taken through triage. He crossed to the bed and held out his hand.
She caught it with both of hers.
“They’re too close together,” she said.
The nurse answered his questioning look. “She’s in preterm labor. We’re treating her and seeing whether we can slow the contractions.”
Claire was twenty-four weeks pregnant. She knew enough about the calendar to be frightened of every day her son had not yet had.
Grant pulled the chair close to the bed. “I’m here. You don’t have to explain anything else right now.”
A doctor came in, studied the tracing, and asked Claire to look at her.
“We’re concerned about changes in your baby’s heart rate. We’re taking steps to help him, but we need to discuss delivery in case those steps aren’t enough.”
Claire shook her head before she could stop herself. “He’s so little.”
“I know. Our neonatal team is preparing, and we’ll explain what they can do. We’re not deciding to deliver this instant. We need your consent for an emergency procedure if it becomes the safer option.”
Claire turned toward Grant. He looked frightened, too, though he kept his voice even.
“Ask her what you need to know,” he said. “I’ll listen with you.”
She asked. The doctor answered without pretending there were guarantees. When Claire finally nodded, a nurse remained beside her while the team prepared for either outcome.
For a few minutes, the room grew quieter. The contraction eased enough for Claire to lie back.
“I keep thinking I ought to send you home,” Claire said.
Grant eased his chair nearer so she did not have to raise her voice. “Would you rather I left?”
“No.” The answer came before she could soften it. She looked at their hands. “I’m sorry. You’ve already given me so much of your time.”
“You don’t have to earn the chair beside your bed.”
She tried to answer, but tears spilled onto the pillow instead. Grant gently freed a strand of hair from the tape near her temple.
“I know this isn’t your responsibility,” she managed.
“It’s where I want to be tonight.”
He did not let go while she cried.
A new contraction pulled her forward.
The nurse looked at the monitor, then called for the doctor. Staff returned quickly, changing Claire’s position and checking the tracing while Grant moved only when they needed space.
Claire kept hold of his hand until a nurse asked him to step back. He stayed where she could see him.
At the penthouse, Adrian had begun pacing again. Vanessa’s admission played through his mind in pieces, interrupted by images of Claire standing beside Grant outside the clinic.
He could no longer convince himself that Claire had arranged the evidence against him. That should have changed something. Instead, he clung harder to the one relationship he believed she could not end.
The baby was his son.
Adrian had missed appointments, silenced calls, turned away from the sound of a heartbeat. Yet he now thought of fatherhood as something no board could suspend and no wife could take away.
When a former coworker of Claire’s called, frightened because she had heard Claire was back in the hospital, he demanded the name of the hospital before she had finished speaking.
Then he drove there, changing lanes too sharply, leaning forward at red lights as if impatience could shorten them.
At the hospital entrance, he nearly collided with a man pushing an empty wheelchair.
“My wife was admitted,” he told the first staff member he reached. “Claire Voss. She’s pregnant.”
He was directed to a desk, where a nurse asked him to wait while she checked.
“I’m her husband,” he said, before she could finish typing.
The nurse’s manner became more careful. She spoke quietly to a colleague, then returned to him.
“Claire has restricted visitors. You’re not on her approved list.”
He stared at her.
“You’ve made a mistake.”
“We’re following her instructions.”
“I’m not a visitor.”
The nurse kept her voice level. “She has the right to decide who comes into her room.”
Adrian looked past her toward the secured doors. He had signed contracts that gave him access to buildings across the city. It seemed impossible that he could be stopped here by a decision Claire had made without him.
Then Grant came through the doors.
He had no jacket, and his shirt was creased where Claire had held it earlier. Adrian moved toward him at once.
“What have you told them?”
“Claire told them what she wanted.”
“Where is she?”
“Being cared for.”
“That’s my child in there.”
Grant glanced toward the nurse, then back at Adrian. “Then don’t make the staff spend time managing you.”
Adrian’s hands closed at his sides. “You don’t get to decide whether I see my wife.”
“I haven’t. She has.”
For a moment, Adrian seemed unable to find a reply. His anger lost its practiced shape.
“Just tell her I’m here,” he said. “She doesn’t know I’m here. She’ll want to talk to me.”
“She knows you may come. That’s why she left instructions.”
Adrian looked at the nurse, hoping for disagreement. She stayed beside the desk.
“I didn’t know it was this serious,” he said.
Grant’s expression did not soften. “She tried to tell you things were serious long before tonight.”
“I need five minutes.”
“She needs peace.”
The word seemed to offend Adrian more than a threat would have. He stepped closer, his voice rising.
“You can’t erase a marriage because you’ve decided to play rescuer.”
Grant stood his ground. “Claire has ended the marriage. Whatever papers remain, you don’t get to overrule her.”
People had begun to look toward them. Adrian noticed, and the familiar instinct to protect his appearance made him lower his voice.
“Please.”
Grant had never heard him say it without attaching a demand.
“I’m going back to her,” he said. “The staff can tell you what she authorizes them to tell you. You will not go through those doors against her wishes.”
Adrian turned to the nurse one last time.
She shook her head…
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