Chapter 2
Fletcher arrived in twelve minutes. He didn’t ask questions until I was safe inside his car, wrapped in his jacket, and had swallowed half the bottle of water he handed me.
Then he turned in the driver’s seat and looked at me—really looked at me—with eyes that had seen too much to be shocked.
“Start from the beginning,” he said. “Everything.”
I told him. The call downstairs. The marble hall. The words. The suitcase. The way Reginald had stood there, calm and unyielding, like he was signing a contract rather than ending a marriage.
Fletcher listened without interrupting. His jaw tightened once, twice, but he said nothing until I finished.
“Caroline,” he said slowly. “A man like Reginald Whitfield doesn’t kick his pregnant wife out in the middle of the night because he suddenly doubts paternity. Not unless there’s something he doesn’t want you to find out. Something he thinks this baby threatens.”
I frowned. “What could a baby threaten? An inheritance? He already has a grown daughter from his first marriage. She’s twenty-seven. She doesn’t need my son’s share.”
“Exactly,” Fletcher said. “Unless… the timing is wrong.”
“Timing?”
“When did he make this decision? Tonight? Or weeks ago?”
I thought about the way everything had been arranged. The staff gone. The suitcase waiting. The practiced calm.
“He’s been planning this,” I said quietly. “For weeks. Maybe longer.”
Fletcher nodded. “Then he didn’t just wake up suspicious tonight. Something happened. Something changed. And he needs you gone before the baby arrives. Before you can connect the dots.” He paused, his gaze sharpening. “When was the last time you saw him truly… unsettled?”
I closed my eyes and thought back. Two weeks ago. Reginald had come home late, hours later than expected. He’d been quiet. Distracted. He’d locked himself in his study until dawn. And he’d been on edge ever since.
That was also the week he’d started asking me questions. Over dinner. Casually. About doctors. About due dates. About exactly when I had conceived.
I’d thought he was being attentive.
I’d been wrong.
“He’s hiding something,” I said. My voice steadied as the realization settled cold and clear in my chest. “And he’s using me as a distraction. If everyone believes I cheated, if I’m the villain who got kicked out for infidelity, no one will ask why he really wanted me gone.”
May you like
Fletcher started the car.
“Then we don’t play his game,” he said. “We don’t disappear quietly. We find out what he’s protecting. And we make sure he pays for every single thing he’s done.”
