They Humiliated His Pregnant Wife at His Engagement Gala—Then His Grandmother’s Secret Box Revealed Why He Had Forgotten Her

Chapter 07 - The Night Their Daughter Came Early

Emily gripped the banister as another contraction tore through her. Isabella stared at the water spreading across the pale fabric of Emily's dress. The flash drive slipped from her fingers, bounced once on the marble, and skidded beneath a cabinet.

Alexander reached Emily seconds later. She tried to tell him not to touch her, but the pain stole her voice. He caught her before her knees hit the floor.

“Call an ambulance!” he shouted.

The ballroom erupted. Guests moved aside as paramedics rushed in from the gala's medical station. Emily was thirty-four weeks pregnant, too early for labor and too far along to ignore it. Her blood pressure climbed dangerously. The nearest hospital was twenty minutes away.

In the ambulance, Alexander sat across from her, his hands clasped so tightly his knuckles turned white.

“You don't get to disappear again,” Emily whispered between contractions.

“I won't.”

“You can't promise that.”

“You are right.” His eyes filled. “Then I promise something I can control. I will tell you the truth, even when it makes you hate me. I will never let another person speak for me.”

At the hospital, doctors rushed Emily into surgery after the baby's heart rate dropped. Alexander was stopped at the doors because Emily had not listed him as her emergency contact. The fact crushed him more effectively than any accusation.

Grace Carter arrived in flour-covered jeans, having run from the bakery. She found Alexander in the hallway holding the crushed red roses.

“You have no right to ask her for anything,” Grace said.

“I know.”

“And if she wakes up and tells you to leave?”

“I will leave. But I will stay close enough to help without being seen.”

Grace studied him. “That is the first decent thing you have said.”

An hour later, a doctor entered. Their daughter had been born by emergency cesarean. She weighed four pounds, eleven ounces and needed help breathing, but she was stable. Emily had lost blood and remained unconscious.

Alexander pressed both hands to his face and sobbed.

Across town, police searched Langford Estate. The flash drive was gone.

Isabella was gone too.

At three in the morning, Emily woke to the quiet rhythm of machines. Through the glass wall, she saw Alexander standing beside an incubator, one finger resting against the tiny hand of their daughter.