Chapter 1 - The Ringing Phone|
The rain against the fourth-floor glass of Northwestern Memorial didn't sound like rain. It sounded like small, metallic stones hitting the pane, over and over, until the room seemed to vibrate with it.
Catherine Harrison didn't look at the window. She couldn't.
Her knuckles were white where she gripped the stainless-steel side rail of the delivery bed, her knuckles turning the precise shade of the linen beneath them. Her skin was damp, her hair clinging in dark, wet tendrils to the side of her throat.
On the small bedside table, her phone lit up again.
MICHAEL
The name glowed against the black glass, steady and bright, a beacon she had been staring at for three hours. The battery was at twelve percent.
She took a shaky breath, waiting for the contraction to ease its grip on her lower back, then reached out with trembling fingers and tapped the green icon.
She didn't speak immediately. She just waited for his voice—that deep, low rumble that had once made her feel like the safest woman in Pennsylvania.
Instead, a soft laugh came through the speaker.
It was light. Unhurried. Accompanied by the faint, distinctive clink of ice against crystal and the muffled beat of jazz music.
"Catherine," the voice said, smooth as polished marble. "You really need to stop calling tonight."
Catherine’s heart didn't leap; it froze, hanging suspended in her chest like a stone dropped into well water.
She knew that voice. She had heard it every Tuesday and Thursday morning for three years when she called her husband’s private line at his firm's Center City office.
Amber Collins. Michael’s chief executive assistant.
"Amber?" Catherine’s voice was a rough whisper, barely cutting through the sound of the storm outside. "Where is my husband?"
A soft sigh echoed through the line, heavy with irritation, as if Catherine were a persistent telemarketer who had refused to take a polite hint.
"Michael is with me," Amber said simply.
The air in the delivery room suddenly felt thin, as though someone had opened a valve and let out everything worth breathing.
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"Put him on," Catherine said, her voice dropping into a register she didn't recognize. "Amber, put my husband on the phone. Now."
"He’s busy, Catherine," Amber replied, her tone dripping with fake sympathy. "And frankly, your dramatic labor situation isn't his responsibility tonight."
