Chapter 2 - The Dinner That Never Happened
By the time the first startled guests appeared in the ballroom doorway, the engagement dinner was already dead.
Rhett ordered security to clear the observatory threshold and send every guest back to the ballroom without questions. His tone was so flat, so controlled, that nobody challenged him. The wealthy donors and family friends retreated in whispers, clutching wine glasses and rumors.
Savannah remained near the fireplace, one hand over her belly, breathing slowly through the shock. Rhett saw the slight redness on her fingertips and the burned edge of her dress hem and turned instantly toward the hall.
“Get a medical kit,” he snapped to one of the staff. “Now.”
Celeste pushed herself up from beside the collapsed display screen, white with humiliation and rage.
“Rhett, she showed up here to trap you—”
“Don’t speak.” His voice was soft. That made it worse.
Gavin groaned and tried to sit up among the telescope frames, but Rhett ignored him too. He crossed back to Savannah, crouched carefully in front of her, and lowered his voice for the first time.
“Did they touch your stomach?”
“No.”
“Did you fall on it?”
“No.”
“Is the baby moving?”
Savannah swallowed. “Yes.”
He nodded once, holding her gaze, making sure she meant it. Then he stood and faced Celeste again.
“You knew,” he said.
Celeste blinked. “About what?”
“Don’t insult me.”
The scorched ultrasound was still in his hand.
She straightened her shoulders. “I knew she was unstable. I knew she’d try something dramatic.”
Savannah gave a bitter laugh, but didn’t interrupt.
Rhett looked at Gavin. “And what did you mean when you said she’d never come here?”
Gavin wiped blood from his lip and recovered a little of his old arrogance. “I meant exactly what it sounded like. I thought she had more pride.”
Savannah finally spoke, voice raw.
“Tell him how many times I tried to reach him.”
Rhett turned sharply.
Celeste stepped in at once. “Rhett, don’t let her manipulate this. She disappeared six months ago, and now she shows up pregnant at our dinner—”
“Our dinner?” Savannah repeated, incredulous. “I spent six months getting shut out of every place he might listen.”
Rhett’s eyes narrowed.
That line landed.
Not because he trusted Savannah yet—too much had happened too fast—but because something inside it fit the look he had seen on Gavin’s face. Not annoyance. Recognition.
Savannah drew a shaky breath. “I called you. I wrote to you. I came to your office twice. Your hotel once. Tonight was the first time I got close enough to be heard.”
Celeste snapped, “Liar.”
Rhett didn’t look at her.
“Did you?” he asked Savannah.
“Yes.”
“And I never answered?”
“No.”
The staff returned with a first-aid kit. Rhett opened it himself, handed Savannah burn cream and gauze, and watched while she dabbed her fingertips.
It was an oddly intimate silence in the middle of chaos.
When she finished, Rhett spoke without lifting his eyes from the ultrasound.
“When did you find out?”
“Almost four months ago.”
“Why didn’t you come to me sooner?”
Savannah laughed once, with no humor in it.
“I just told you. I did.”
That was the moment Rhett’s expression changed again.
Not yet belief.
But the first fracture in the story he had been living.
He turned to Celeste and Gavin.
“If either of you leaves this house,” he said, “you’ll regret it.”
Then he looked back at Savannah.
“Start from the beginning.”
May you like
And for the first time since she had walked into the observatory, Savannah believed he might actually listen.
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