Chapter 2

Lennox's POV

That night, I squeezed into the narrow, cramped maid's room with Nana Mae.

The thin single mattress dug painfully into my back, but I didn't dare to turn over, afraid of waking her up after she had finally fallen asleep.

I didn't go to the master bedroom, and Declan didn't come looking for me either.

The next morning, the morning sickness hit harder than it had in the past few days.

I leaned against the wall, dry-heaving for a long time, before I managed to force myself up to go to the kitchen and make Nana Mae her favorite corn chowder.

When I walked out carrying the soup, Sienna was lazily sitting at the dining island, wearing my favorite silk robe.

That robe was a birthday gift Declan had given me last year.

Declan was personally pouring her a cup of black coffee, his eyes filled with a tenderness that felt foreign to me.

"Morning, Lennox."

Sienna looked at me provocatively, dangling the dazzling diamond bracelet on her wrist.

That bracelet was the only thing my mother had left me.

Last month, Declan said the company had a cash flow problem and used it as collateral.

Now, it was sitting on Sienna's wrist, making her skin look even fairer.

"Who told you to wear that? Take it off!"

I slammed the soup bowl down, scalding liquid splashing onto the back of my hand, but I didn't have time to care about the pain.

I strode over, reaching out to rip the bracelet off her wrist.

Sienna flinched back behind Declan in fear.

"Declan, I saw it just sitting there gathering dust in the jewelry box, so I borrowed it. Why is Lennox being so petty about it..."

"Enough, Lennox!" Declan grabbed my wrist, his grip so tight it felt like he was trying to crush my bones.

"It's just a bracelet. Sienna has an industry gala to attend soon; what's the big deal if she borrows it for a day? You're just a housewife—wearing something like this would be a waste on you."

Housewife.

Three years ago, I was the top graduate of Columbia University's architecture program, hired with a hefty salary right out of school by one of New York's top three architecture firms.

Just one year into the job, his mother started pressuring us daily to have a baby.

Under the guise of "worrying that I was too exhausted," Declan forced me to quit that job—a position countless colleagues in the industry would have envied.

"Lennox, my company is just starting out. I need you. Be the woman behind me, and I promise you, half of my empire will belong to you one day."

I will never forget the day I walked out of that office carrying a cardboard box. It was drizzling outside, and my coworkers looked at me with nothing but pity in their eyes.

Now, my talent had built his empire, and it had also built Sienna's reputation as a designer.

And me? I had become a housewife who couldn't even protect a keepsake from her own mother.

Just then, Nana Mae walked out of the room.

Seeing Declan gripping my wrist so tightly, she panicked immediately, hurrying over with unsteady steps.

"Don't hit Lennox, please. She's always been so obedient, don't hit her..."

Nana Mae's hand accidentally bumped into a wine glass on the island counter.

The glass fell to the floor and shattered, fragments scattering everywhere.

Red wine splashed onto Sienna's smooth calf.

"Ahh—!" Sienna let out a shrill scream. "My leg! It hurts!"

Declan's face changed instantly.

He shoved me away hard and whirled around to yell at Nana Mae.

"What the hell are you doing, you crazy old woman?!"

The force of his shove sent me stumbling backward several steps, and I slammed hard into the corner of the dining table.

A sharp, stabbing pain shot through my lower abdomen, as if something inside was being violently torn apart.

I clutched my stomach and slid to the floor in terror, cold sweat instantly soaking through my back.

Nana Mae, seeing me fall, panicked and rushed to help me up, but in her haste, she stepped right into the pool of shattered glass and spilled wine.

Nana Mae fell hard onto the marble floor.

The back of her head struck the sharp corner of the island counter.

"Nana Mae!" I screamed in agony. Ignoring the searing pain in my abdomen, I scrambled and crawled toward her, pressing my hands desperately against the back of her head.

Hot blood kept gushing out between my fingers, no matter how hard I tried to stop it.

"Declan! Call an ambulance! Call an ambulance now!" I looked up at him, my hands covered in blood, my voice distorted with fear as I screamed at him.

Declan froze for a second, seemingly startled by the massive pool of blood on the floor.

He had just pulled out his phone when Sienna suddenly clutched her chest, gasping for breath dramatically.

"Declan... I can't breathe... my hemophobia is acting up... help me..."

Without a moment's hesitation, he bent down and scooped Sienna up into his arms, as if the person bleeding out on the floor wasn't the grandmother of the wife he'd been married to for three years.

"Lennox, call the ambulance yourself. Sienna can't handle this kind of shock; I need to get her out of here right now."

I stared at him in disbelief, trembling all over. Nana Mae's blood soaked through my pajamas in my arms, icy and bone-chilling.

"Declan, Nana Mae is bleeding! She's dying! If you walk out that door today, we are finished!"

Declan paused for a moment, his tone dripping with impatience.

"Don't try to threaten me with that. She just took a fall—how serious could it be? You're just overreacting."

With that, he carried Sienna out the door without so much as a backward glance.

I lowered my head, looking at Nana Mae, whose breathing was growing weaker and weaker in my arms. My tears fell drop by drop into the pool of blood, spreading in ring after ring.

The cramping pain tore through my abdomen in waves.

I might be about to lose the only two family members I had left in this world—at the very same time.