Chapter 4
The footage was reviewed within the hour.
There was no ambiguity.
Isabella blocking the door.
Isabella shoving Khloe.
The crystal breaking.
Khloe begging her to get away.
The heel strike.
Khloe collapsing.
Isabella’s face changing when the door opened.
She attacked me.
Elliot preserved everything.
Marcus watched the footage once.
Then asked to watch it again.
Elliot said no.
“Once is enough to know what you failed to believe.”
Marcus took it.
He deserved worse.
The police report was filed before midnight.
The foundation board was notified before sunrise.
Isabella’s employment was terminated that morning.
Her attorney tried to call it a misunderstanding caused by “heightened emotions during a stressful gala.”
Elliot responded with the video.
The attorney stopped using that phrase.
Khloe stayed in the hospital for three days.
The baby was safe.
Her side hurt.
Her pride hurt more.
Marcus slept in a chair outside her room the first night because she would not let him inside.
On the second night, she allowed him ten minutes.
He entered without flowers.
Without excuses.
Good.
He stood near the door.
“I am sorry.”
Khloe looked at him from the hospital bed.
“For what?”
The question was not simple.
Marcus understood that now.
He swallowed.
“For defending her when you warned me. For making you feel like you needed proof before I believed your fear. For leaving you alone at a gala when I promised I wouldn’t. For letting another woman become comfortable enough in our life to think she could touch you.”
Khloe’s eyes filled.
“That last one,” she whispered, “is the one I don’t know how to forgive.”
Marcus nodded.
“I know.”
“Do you?”
“I’m starting to.”
She looked at the monitor beside her.
“Our daughter moved when I hit the floor.”
Marcus’s face crumpled.
Khloe continued.
“I thought, for one second, that your loyalty to being polite might cost me our child.”
He sat down heavily.
Not close to her.
Just down.
As if his legs had stopped being useful.
“I will spend the rest of my life making sure you never feel that again.”
Khloe looked at him.
“Do not make promises in a hospital room because you feel guilty.”
He nodded.
“Okay.”
“Make changes.”
“I will.”
She did not answer.
But she did not ask him to leave.
May you like
That was all he received.
And more than he deserved.
