Chapter 1 - The Cold Marble of Betrayal
The marble floor of the Grand Belmont Hotel was unforgivingly freezing. Claire knew this intimately because she was currently on her hands and knees, desperately trying to gather her scattered maternity clothes. Only moments ago, Richard had violently hurled her suitcase across the expansive, opulent lobby, the heavy impact bursting the zipper and spilling her life across the polished stone.
She was thirty-two weeks pregnant. Her ankles were swollen to the point of throbbing agony, her lower back felt as though it were being slowly crushed in a vice, and the child inside her womb kicked frantically. It was as if the unborn baby could absorb the raw, unfiltered terror flooding its mother’s bloodstream.
Standing towering above her was her husband. Richard Sterling wore an immaculate, bespoke charcoal suit, not a single thread out of place. His jaw was clenched so tightly that the muscles twitched beneath his skin, and his eyes—eyes she had once believed held love—were now entirely devoid of humanity. They were cold, flat, and absolute in their disdain.
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"You are pathetic, Claire," Richard sneered, his voice dropping to a harsh, venomous whisper that cut through the ambient hum of the luxury hotel. "Pick up your garbage and get out of my sight."
This trip to Chicago was supposed to be their "babymoon," a final, desperate attempt to salvage a marriage that had been quietly rotting from the inside out for months. Claire had clung to the hope that a few days away from the city would remind Richard of the family they were building. Instead, the illusion had been detonated just fifteen minutes prior in their suite.
