Chapter 3 - The Woman Who Knew Too Much
By noon, Margaret had three new security clauses drafted into the temporary divorce agreement.
By one, Adrian had fired two members of his household staff.
By two, he had called me six times.
I answered the seventh.
"What?"
"Bianca did not get the information from my staff."
"Then where?"
"I'm finding out."
"That is not an answer."
"It's the only honest one I have."
I sat at Margaret's dining table, one hand wrapped around a mug of ginger tea.
"You told her I was pregnant."
"No."
"You told someone who told her."
"No."
"Then how did she know?"
Silence.
I hated that silence.
"This is exactly why I want sole custody."
"I know."
That answer took the anger out of me for a second.
"You know?"
"Yes."
"You're not going to threaten to fight me?"
"Not while I cannot explain how a woman you never contacted knew the exact location of your private medical appointment."
I closed my eyes.
"Adrian..."
"I am not asking you to trust me. But until I know what happened, I want you somewhere secure."
"No."
"Elena."
"I am not moving back into that house."
"I did not ask you to."
That surprised me.
"There is a property in Lake Forest. It is not tied publicly to the Romano name. My sister used it during her separation. No staff unless you want them. No cameras inside. Margaret can inspect it. You can choose the security personnel, or hire your own."
I stared at the rain beyond the windows.
"And where will you be?"
"Not there."
Another surprise.
"Why?"
His answer came without hesitation.
"Because if I am the reason danger follows you, the safest place for me is somewhere else."
For the first time since the divorce conversation, I heard no ego in his voice.
Just fear.
Not the dramatic kind.
The quiet kind men like Adrian rarely admitted.
I agreed to let Margaret inspect the house.
I did not agree to move.
That changed at 6:43 that evening.
Margaret and I were in the guest apartment when something struck the front window hard enough to crack the outer pane.
I froze.
Margaret pulled me away from the glass.
Her building security arrived within minutes.
It was not a bullet.
It was a small stone wrapped in paper.
The note had six words.
Ask Adrian what Bianca already sold.
My hands went numb.
Margaret photographed the note before anyone touched it.
"We're leaving," she said.
"Where?"
"Lake Forest."
I wanted to argue.
Then the baby rolled from possibility to reality in my mind - not a heartbeat on a screen, not a pair of socks, but a child who could someday ask me why I had ignored a warning because I was too proud to accept protection.
"Fine," I whispered.
We left Chicago forty minutes later.
Adrian was not at the Lake Forest house when we arrived.
He had kept his word.
The property stood behind iron gates and tall trees near the water, elegant without being ostentatious. Margaret walked through every room with a private security consultant she trusted. I chose a woman named Dana Pierce to stay in the guest wing overnight.
At 10:18, Adrian called.
"Are you inside?"
"Yes."
"Dana is good."
"You know her?"
"By reputation. I did not hire her."
I appreciated the clarification.
"What did the note mean?"
His pause was long.
"I believe Bianca has been passing information about me to someone."
"Who?"
"I don't know yet."
"What kind of information?"
"Schedules. Meetings. Names. Possibly more."
I gripped the phone tighter.
"Why?"
"Money, leverage, revenge. I don't know."
"You were having an affair with a woman you didn't know."
He exhaled.
"Yes."
"You brought her into our life."
"Yes."
"You told me she needed you."
"I know."
Something in his voice made me stop.
"What happened?"
"I confronted her."
"And?"
"She said I was paranoid. Then she denied knowing about the appointment. Then she said someone had texted her anonymously."
"Do you believe her?"
"No."
I leaned back against the kitchen counter.
"Did you love her?"
The question escaped before I could stop it.
Silence.
My throat burned.
"Forget it."
"No."
I almost ended the call.
Then he said, "I thought I did."
Pain moved through me slowly.
"That's worse than if you said no."
"I know."
"Stop saying you know."
"Then tell me what to say."
"There is nothing to say."
His voice became quieter.
"I thought she saw something in me you no longer did."
I laughed once, bitterly.
"What? Need? Weakness?"
"Importance."
I closed my eyes.
"Adrian, I built my life around you. I managed your medications, your meals, your doctors, your family obligations, your impossible schedule. I remembered every anniversary in your family. I sat through dinners where men treated me like decoration because I knew you needed someone beside you who wouldn't create another war. I slept alone when you disappeared. I waited through surgeries. I made your life easier every single day."
My voice broke.
"How much more important did you need to feel?"
He did not answer for several seconds.
When he finally did, his voice was rough.
"I confused being needed with being loved."
"And punished me for loving you well."
"Yes."
A tear slid down my cheek.
I hated him for making me cry.
I hated myself for still recognizing the sound of his regret.
"Good night, Adrian."
"Elena."
"What?"
"There is something else."
My stomach tightened.
"What?"
"Bianca asked me for two million dollars tonight."
"For what?"
"To disappear."
I went cold.
"Did you give it to her?"
"No."
"Why not?"
"Because she said if I didn't, she would tell you something that would make sure you never let me near the baby."
The room seemed to tilt.
"What could she possibly tell me that I don't already know?"
Adrian's answer was almost a whisper.
"I don't know."
Then the line went silent.
The move to Lake Forest happened so quickly that I had packed the wrong things.
Three sweaters. Two pairs of jeans. No comfortable shoes. Six books I had no concentration to read. A charger for a laptop I had forgotten in Chicago.
Pregnancy brain, Margaret called it.
Trauma, I called it.
The first night there, I wandered through the guest room at two in the morning unable to sleep.
The house was too quiet.
Our mansion had never been quiet. There was always a radio murmuring in the security office, a door opening downstairs, a car coming through the gate, someone waiting for Adrian.
I had once mistaken that constant activity for importance.
Now it felt like noise I had escaped.
Dana found me in the kitchen eating dry cereal from a mug.
"Can't sleep?"
"Apparently the baby enjoys 2 a.m. meetings. Takes after the father."
She poured herself water.
"You want my professional opinion?"
"Are you going to tell me to sleep?"
"No. I'm going to tell you that feeling safer can make you more anxious at first."
I frowned.
"That makes no sense."
"Your body gets used to waiting for trouble. When trouble stops, your brain starts looking harder for it."
I stared at the cereal.
"That's depressing."
"Most useful facts are."
I almost smiled.
The next morning, Adrian's sister Lucia arrived with three grocery bags, a pregnancy pillow, and the exact brand of ginger candies I liked.
"I come bearing carbohydrates," she announced.
"You may enter."
We sat by the windows overlooking the gray lake.
Lucia did not ask about Adrian for almost an hour.
When she finally did, her question was careful.
"Do you want me to tell you how he's doing?"
I appreciated the choice.
"No."
She nodded.
Then I changed my mind.
"Yes."
Lucia smiled sadly.
"He's terrible."
I looked at her.
"Terrible how?"
"He burned eggs yesterday."
I blinked.
"That's the crisis?"
"You have to understand. Adrian has apparently spent forty years believing breakfast simply appears."
A laugh escaped me before I could stop it.
Lucia watched my face soften.
"He asked me how long eggs last in the refrigerator."
"No."
"I swear."
"He owns restaurants."
"Exactly what I said."
I laughed harder.
Then the laughter turned into tears with no warning.
Lucia moved beside me but did not touch me until I leaned toward her.
"I hate that I still care whether he eats," I whispered.
"Of course you care."
"I don't want to."
"That isn't how eight years works."
I pressed a hand to my eyes.
"He chose someone else."
"Yes."
"Don't defend him."
"I'm not. He was cruel and stupid and arrogant."
That sounded so much like a sister that I laughed again.
Lucia squeezed my shoulder.
"But loving him after he hurt you doesn't make you weak. Going back before you're ready would be a choice. Feeling something isn't."
I carried those words with me after she left.
That evening, the note hit Margaret's apartment window.
The next day, while Dana's investigator traced the vehicle, I received a message from Adrian.
I am changing every access credential Dominic or his people could have touched. Your current address will not be entered into any Romano system. Margaret will have the only written copy outside your own records.
I read it twice.
Then another message came.
I should have protected your privacy before it became useful to someone else. I am sorry.
There was something different about an apology that named the failure instead of simply naming regret.
I did not respond.
But I saved the message.
That afternoon, I opened the closet in the Lake Forest nursery.
It was empty.
No crib. No clothes. No tiny socks.
Just white shelves waiting for a life that had not arrived yet.
I stood in the doorway and realized that despite everything, hope still existed in me.
Small.
Terrified.
Stubborn.
I pressed both hands over my stomach.
"We are going to build something quieter," I whispered.
I meant a home.
At the time, I did not know I might also be describing Adrian.
Later that night, Adrian called again, not to argue about the house but to give me a name.
"The access trail points to one of Dominic's contractors," he said. "Not proof yet. But enough that I am treating every shared system as compromised."
"And Dominic?"
"He says I'm imagining enemies because of the divorce."
I closed my eyes.
"Convenient."
"Very."
"Do you believe he would use me?"
Adrian was silent for a moment.
"Yesterday, I would have said no."
"And today?"
"Today I am trying to stop confusing history with character."
That sentence stayed with me.
Eight years was history too.
So were wedding vows, anniversaries, hospital rooms, inside jokes, and thousands of breakfasts.
History could explain love.
It could not guarantee character.
Before we hung up, Adrian asked, "Do you have everything you need?"
I almost said yes automatically.
Then I remembered I no longer had to make needing nothing into a virtue.
"I need the blue suitcase from the dressing room," I said. "The one with my winter clothes."
He paused.
"I'll have Margaret arrange pickup."
No offer to bring it himself.
No excuse to enter the house.
"Thank you."
When the suitcase arrived the next afternoon, my favorite wool scarf was folded on top.
I knew Adrian had put it there.
May you like
He did not mention it.
Neither did I.
