Chapter 2: The Locked Studio

"Which man?" Damien asked, his voice calm enough to make the room feel colder.

The dining room fell silent.

Even Eleanor stopped eating.

I pushed the swinging kitchen door open before Colette could answer.

"I was at the hospital," I said evenly.

Colette froze, her face losing every bit of confidence she had worn seconds earlier.

"Hospital?" Eleanor repeated. "Now what excuse is this?"

"A routine medical appointment."

I walked toward the console table, opened my handbag, and removed a folded document.

Without hesitation, I placed it in front of Damien.

"The appointment slip," I said. "If you'd like, the doctor's report is inside my bag as well."

Damien lowered his gaze to the paper.

His expression didn't change.

He didn't touch it.

He simply read the hospital's name before looking back at me.

"You expect me to inspect your medical paperwork over dinner?"

"You asked where I was."

"And the man?"

Before I could answer, Colette hurriedly spoke.

"Madam was smiling with him outside the entrance. He even opened her car door."

I turned toward her.

"That man was the hospital valet."

My tone remained steady.

"Would you like me to call the hospital and ask for his employee number too?"

Colette's cheeks flushed scarlet.

She lowered her head immediately.

"Enough," Damien interrupted quietly.

His fingers wrapped around the wine glass.

He took one slow sip before setting it back onto the table.

"Stay clean, Vivian."

"I always have."

"See that you continue to."

He dismissed Colette with nothing more than a flick of his fingers.

She disappeared almost instantly.

Not a single apology came my way.

Not from Damien.

Not from Eleanor.

I waited for one anyway.

When none arrived, I quietly excused myself and climbed the grand staircase.

The Ashford mansion always became eerily silent after ten.

Servants disappeared into their quarters.

Lights dimmed.

The enormous corridors echoed with nothing except the ticking of expensive clocks.

I sat alone inside the guest bedroom.

It had become my room more often than our marital bedroom.

Whenever Damien buried himself in work until dawn, I stopped pretending to wait.

A worn leather tool roll rested across my lap.

I slowly untied its cord.

Inside lay only one carving knife.

Broken.

The blade had snapped years ago.

Most people would've thrown it away.

I never could.

Nathaniel had given it to me.

"Every real jeweler keeps their first tool forever," he'd laughed while handing it over on my seventeenth birthday.

"Even after it breaks."

Nathaniel.

My older brother.

Gone for three years.

The memories still felt fresh enough to hurt.

I brushed my thumb across the worn wooden handle.

Another face surfaced beside his.

Elias.

My brother's closest friend.

The boy who'd stood outside our house the night of my eighteenth birthday, nervously adjusting his tie as though preparing to confess something.

Nathaniel interrupted him before a single word escaped.

"Don't scare my little sister with that ugly tie," he'd joked.

Everyone laughed.

Including Elias.

After that night...

He never tried again.

I rolled the leather closed and slid it beneath the pillow.

Sleep wasn't coming.

It rarely did anymore.

Instead, another ache pulled at me.

Not toward Damien.

Toward Verline.

My studio.

The place where I once felt alive.

Quietly, I slipped into the hallway.

The east wing remained dark.

Nobody ever came here anymore.

At the end of the corridor stood a heavy mahogany door.

Dust coated the brass nameplate.

VERLINE.

Damien believed he'd collected every key.

He didn't know Nathaniel had always insisted on keeping spares.

"Real artists never trust one lock," he'd once joked.

I knelt beside the linen closet next door.

My fingers searched beneath the wooden baseboard.

Exactly where I'd hidden it.

The tiny brass key remained taped underneath.

I smiled sadly.

"Still here."

The lock clicked open.

A familiar scent greeted me.

Wax.

Silver polish.

Old paper.

Dust.

Moonlight poured through the tall windows, illuminating furniture hidden beneath white sheets.

Everything looked frozen in time.

As though I'd merely stepped out for lunch instead of abandoning it almost a year ago.

I removed the cloth covering my drafting desk.

The wood beneath felt smooth beneath my fingertips.

"I miss you," I whispered.

No answer came.

Only silence.

The drawers were almost empty now.

Damien's lawyers had boxed everything after closing the business.

Only one drawer still held something.

I slowly pulled it open.

A single photograph rested inside.

I knew exactly what it was before turning it over.

The ultrasound.

Its edges had curled with age.

The glossy paper had faded slightly.

Yet one thing remained perfectly clear.

11W.

Eleven weeks.

My thumb gently traced the tiny blurred figure.

"I'm sorry," I whispered.

Everyone believed that child belonged to Elias.

Nobody asked me.

Nobody wanted the truth.

Rumors spread faster than explanations.

By the time I tried speaking...

Judgment had already won.

The child was never Elias's.

Never.

A floorboard creaked outside.

I instantly straightened.

"Vivian?"

Damien.

Before I could hide the photograph, the room exploded with white light.

The ceiling lights buzzed overhead.

I blinked painfully.

Damien stood in the doorway.

His jacket was gone.

The sleeves of his white shirt had been rolled neatly to his forearms.

His hand still rested on the switch.

"What are you doing here?"

"Sitting."

"In a room I specifically ordered locked."

"It belongs to me too."

"Not anymore."

He stepped inside.

Each footstep echoed against the wooden floor.

"I collected every key."

"Apparently not."

"You lied."

"I kept a spare."

"Which means you lied."

His eyes slowly wandered around the studio.

"Still pretending you'll reopen this place?"

"I never stopped hoping."

"Hope doesn't pay bills."

"Verline paid plenty before you closed it."

His jaw tightened.

"You're my wife."

"I was also myself before that."

For several seconds, neither of us spoke.

The distance between us suddenly felt much smaller.

"What's in your hand?" he finally asked.

"Nothing important."

"Show me."

"It's old."

"Vivian."

"Please."

"Give it to me."

"No."

His eyes darkened.

"Don't test my patience."

I hurried to slide the ultrasound back into the drawer.

My trembling elbow struck the edge of the desk.

The photograph slipped free.

Time seemed to slow.

It floated gently through the air before landing face-up beneath the bright lights.

Silence.

Absolute silence.

Damien stopped walking.

His gaze lowered onto the photograph.

His breathing became almost imperceptible.

His eyes fixed on the ultrasound.

Then on the small printed text in the corner.

11W.

His jaw clenched.

Every muscle in his face froze.

For the first time since our marriage...

I watched Damien Ashford look genuinely shaken.

He didn't ask a question.

He didn't accuse me.

He simply stared at the image of a child he had never known existed.