Chapter 61
“She’s bound to take her in. I’m sure of it.”
“Do you remember the little birthmark I tattooed on Lara’s neck? A petal, just behind her ear? Well, the daughter you and I lost, Blanche, she had the exact same one.”
“All she has to do is see that little mark, and she’ll want to keep her.”
“That’s wonderful news!” Jeannette rose up on her toes, threw her arms around Eddy’s neck, and pressed a kiss to the corner of his lips. “Thank you, Eddy.”
Her eyes sparkled with adoration and a bashful, girlish glow, the kind that made her impossible to resist. Since getting pregnant, Jeannette’s body had grown softer, more yielding, molding perfectly against Eddy’s hard chest-enough to stoke his desire with just a touch.
His dark eyes, always mysterious, now brimmed with a tenderness so deep it seemed to pour out of him. He was smiling, but it was a smile deeper and softer than his usual, fixed on Jeannette as if she were the only thing in the world.
The way he looked at her was exactly how he’d once looked at Blanche.
Blanche had been standing outside for what felt like forever-long enough that her feet seemed to have taken root in the floor.
Eddy swept Jeannette up in his arms and carried her behind a blue curtain into the exam room.
He set her gently on the examination chair. Jeannette’s legs settled into the stirrups, and she let out a shy little gasp. “The door-the door isn’t closed…”
“You weren’t worried about the door when you were trying to seduce me, were you?”
Chapter 61
“It’s not closed? Doesn’t that make it even more exciting?”
Their flirtation hung thick in the air, their voices low and sweet, mixing with the creak of the exam chair-each sound crashing over Blanche’s heart, threatening to pull her under for good.
Just then, Sophie approached.
She paused, frowning at the sounds coming from behind the curtain, swallowing her disgust before handing Blanche the medical report she’d been holding-the one about the white pill Blanche had given her earlier, along with the tube of blood she’d drawn in Sophie’s office.
Blanche felt herself coming back to reality. She reached out for the report, scanning it quickly. Her heart clenched so sharply she nearly dropped the paper. Her voice was so faint it barely escaped her lips: “He switched my vitamins!”
Clutching her aching heart, she struggled to speak. “Ever since I gave birth to Healy, he’s been feeding me birth control.”
“No wonder… After I got pregnant with my daughter, he came up with some excuse to make me stop taking the vitamins. Then, after I lost her, he convinced me to start again.”
“So my daughter’s death… Was it because of the pills? Or was it because I fell down the stairs?”
“Blanche, birth control isn’t poisonous, but taking it for so long isn’t good for your body,” Sophie explained, steadying Blanche by the arm, afraid she might collapse. “You went into early labor because of the fall, but your child was undernourished in the womb. The pills made your body less able to carry a baby to term.”
“In other words… The pills weren’t the direct cause, but they played a part.”
Those words hit Blanche like a physical blow. She remembered how her daughter’s warmth faded in her arms, how she never even made it to the
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incubator.
Her heart ached so fiercely she could barely breathe, tears streaming down her cheeks.
She gripped Sophie’s hand, forcing herself to stay upright.
“Blanche, you have to hold on,” Sophie whispered gently. “You still have Healy. He needs you.”
Behind the curtain, Jeannette’s moans grew louder. Neither she nor Eddy had any idea that Blanche and Sophie were there, their private
conversation drowned out by passion.
Blanche pulled away from Sophie and staggered into the office, her grief leaving her so weak she felt she might collapse at any moment.
But she would not fall. She had to stand up-for her daughter, for herself. She reached into her coat, pulled out her phone, and prepared to record evidence of his betrayal, determined to end things once and for all.
Blanche lifted the blue curtain.
