Arianne had been back at Rochefort Group for several days now. The work came back to her like a shirt she’d worn a hundred times—familiar, comfortable, hers. She’d missed the quarterly reports and the board summaries and the endless stream of decisions that needed her signature. She’d missed the clean satisfaction of a solved problem and the low hum of an office that ran because she’d built it that way.

Something was different now.

Gio had cut her workload without asking. Meetings that ran past four got rescheduled. Documents that arrived after five stayed unread until morning. He stood at her door every day at five, tablet in hand, face unreadable. She argued once. He said, "Franz asked me to make sure you rested. I agreed. The matter is settled."

She didn’t argue again.

She didn’t agree. Some fights weren’t worth winning.

No one at the office knew she was pregnant.

The small swell of her belly stayed hidden under structured jackets and loose blouses, the kind of clothes that said executive instead of mother. No one asked. No one noticed. The secret was hers.

Today she stopped working at three.

"I have an appointment," she told Gio, closing her laptop. "Refill on the prenatal vitamins and the medication."

"I’ll drive you. Franz is still on set."

"You don’t have to—"

"I’ll drive you."

She didn’t argue. Gio had been waiting for an overseas call since lunch—something about a business contact in another time zone—but he pocketed his phone and picked up his keys. Some things weren’t worth fighting. This wasn’t one of them. She just didn’t have the energy.

The hospital was calm at this hour. The midday rush had faded into the slower pace of late afternoon. Arianne went into the consultation room alone.

Dr. Johnson was efficient and direct. She ran through the standard questions: how was she feeling, was she eating, was the medication helping, and nodded with satisfaction at the answers.

"The bleeding stopped," Arianne said. "The morning sickness is much better. I’m still tired, but I can function."

"That’s all good news. Keep taking the vitamins. Keep resting when your body tells you. And don’t push yourself too hard at work."

"I’ve been told."

"Good. Then I don’t need to repeat it." Dr. Johnson smiled and handed over the prescriptions. "Same pharmacy as before. They’ll have the refill ready."

The appointment was brief. Ten minutes, maybe less. When Arianne emerged from the consultation room, the hallway was empty. Gio was nowhere to be seen.

She paused, scanning the corridor. He’d been waiting for that overseas call since lunch. He must have stepped away to take it. She didn’t blame him. The call was important, and she was perfectly capable of picking up her own prescription.

She walked to the pharmacy alone.

The pharmacy waiting area was a small alcove off the main lobby, lined with plastic chairs and a counter staffed by two pharmacists in white coats. Arianne handed over her prescriptions. "A few minutes," they told her. She stepped aside to wait.

Her mind drifted to the evening ahead. Dinner with the twins. The lists they’d been updating for the nursery. Franz coming home from set.

"Arianne."

The voice cut through everything. Too familiar.

She turned.

Dominic was standing a few meters away, near the entrance to the pharmacy. He looked terrible. His face was ashen, and dark circles carved shadows under his eyes. His suit was expensive but rumpled, like he’d slept in it or hadn’t bothered to change. He was staring at her with an expression she couldn’t place. Shock, maybe. Disbelief. A desperate, hollowed-out weariness.

She gave him a nod. The same nod she’d given him in the hotel hallway a few weeks ago. Acknowledgment. Nothing more.

Then she turned back to the counter.

Her heart was already moving faster. She didn’t know if it was anger or something else. She didn’t want to find out.

Behind her, he hesitated. The old Dominic would have walked right up, would have smiled, would have filled the silence with charm and confidence and the particular arrogance of a man who believed he deserved whatever he wanted. This Dominic lingered. She could feel him watching her, could sense the uncertainty in how he held himself.

Finally, he stepped forward and spoke to the pharmacist. "I’m here to pick up a prescription. Under Blackwood. Eleanor Blackwood."

His mother. Arianne filed the information without turning around. Eleanor Blackwood was elderly, she knew. She and Dominic had never been close—Eleanor had disapproved of the engagement, had called Arianne cold and unsuitable, had made her opinions known at every family function. She was his mother. And she was apparently ill enough to be hospitalized.

The pharmacist disappeared into the back. Dominic remained at the counter, his hands resting on the surface, his posture rigid. He was watching her. She felt his gaze on the back of her neck, and her skin tightened.

Another pharmacist emerged with a small white bag. "Ms. Summers? Your refill."

Arianne took the bag and turned to leave.

"Arianne. Wait."

She stopped.

He’d moved closer. His hand was half-outstretched, as if he’d been about to touch her arm and had thought better of it at the last second.

"Do you have time for coffee?" His voice was hesitant, uncertain. "There’s a café downstairs. I just—I’d like to talk. If you can spare a few minutes."

She looked at him. At the exhaustion in his face. At the way his hand dropped back to his side. At the man who had destroyed her in front of everyone she knew, who had been used as a tool by someone to hurt her on purpose, who had spent six years married to the woman he’d left her for and looked at Arianne like she was something he’d lost.

Her chest tightened. Her fingers curled around the prescription bag.

She pulled out her phone and called Gio.

He answered on the second ring. "Where are you? I stepped away for a call and you were gone."

"I’m at the pharmacy," she said. "I ran into someone I know." She paused. "Dominic. I’ll be at the café below the hospital. You can meet me there."

A longer pause. When Gio spoke again, his voice was neutral. "I’ll be there in ten minutes."

"Thank you." She ended the call and looked at Dominic. "I can spare a few minutes. Not long."

"That’s fine." His voice was low. "A few minutes is fine."

They walked to the elevator in silence.

The corridor stretched between them, long and white and sterile. Arianne walked with her usual unhurried pace, her heels clicking against the polished floor. Dominic walked beside her, but not close. There was a distance between them that had nothing to do with physical space—a gap that had opened years ago and never closed. She did not look at him. She did not need to. She could feel his presence at the edge of her awareness, familiar and foreign all at once, like a scar that had long since healed but that pulled tight in certain weather.

They reached the elevator. Arianne pressed the button. The doors slid open.

They stepped inside together. The doors closed.

The silence was absolute. Neither of them spoke. Neither of them looked at the other. They stood on opposite sides of the elevator, the distance between them so obvious it was almost a physical presence in the small space. The man who had betrayed her. The woman he had betrayed.

Descending together toward a conversation neither of them knew how to have.

The elevator chimed. The doors opened onto the ground floor.

Arianne stepped out first. Dominic followed. The café was visible through the lobby windows, with its plastic tables and tired barista waiting behind the counter.

Gio’s car was already pulling up outside.