baby?” I waited for him to respond.
The deafening silence was loud and clear.
The floodgates opened, and I ran up the stairs as fast as I could. Each step produced a sharp pain that started in my back and shot down through my legs. As painful as that was, it had nothing on my shattered heart. Why had I dared to hope? Why had I listened to my manipulative father-in-law? Worse, my heart?
I ran into my bathroom and slammed the door before rushing over to the shower and turning on the water. I felt more emotionally naked and exposed than I ever had, and I needed the noise to cover up the racking sobs that were on the verge of being unleashed. With my clothes shed, I stepped into the hot water. I sank down onto the tile, pulled my knees up to my chest, and let the emotion pour out of me while the water drenched me. Minute after minute after minute I let the water overtake me, wishing it could wash my pain down the drain. Yet the pain only swelled. I had to face the truth—Brock would never love me or my baby.
I had to find a way out. For everyone.
When my sobs turned to shudders, I leaned against the wall, shivering. Not because it was cold but because I was frightened. Scared to leave and scared to think I would have to stay. How does a puppet cut her strings? A better question was how does a puppet stand on her own with nothing to hold her up except sheer determination? Can she hide from the master?
A pounding on the door made me jump.
“Dani, are you . . . all right?”
Was that a real question?
“Dani,” his voice became more urgent.
I immersed my head into the shower’s spray and ignored him.
The pounding on the door got louder and his voice more frantic. “Dani, please answer me.” He banged some more. “Dani! Dani! Dani!” he screamed, panic and terror in his voice. “I’m coming in.”
No he wasn’t. I pulled my head out of the water. “Leave me alone,” I yelled as loud as I could.
The pounding and screaming stopped, replaced with only the sound of the water trickling over me.
“I’m sorry,” his voice cracked, piercing through the soothing sound of the water and my heart. “I didn’t think it would be this hard.”
Me either, but I was going to fix it.
I lay in bed that night, curled up in a ball, so emotionally and physically achy. The pain in my back was almost as acute as the one in my heart. It made it hard to think of an exit strategy. And the nausea was back. I wanted Grandma. But I couldn’t tell her I was pregnant, and if she saw me this sick, I knew she would insist I see a doctor. Maybe I had the flu—yet this felt different. Perhaps it was just my emotional state manifesting in physiological ways. All I knew was that I had to make it all better for the baby.
I thought about calling Brant to see if he could give me a better idea of what Edward was capable of and what he held over John’s head. Maybe he could help me. Although I knew that was probably dangerous. What if his phone was bugged or someone overheard? That sounded paranoid, yet I wouldn’t put it past Edward. And what did Edward know? It was bad enough that John was scared, that much I knew. And if he was scared, I should be terrified. Scared people were irrational. I knew John would do anything to protect his legacy and his family’s reputation. Where did that leave me?
Alone.
All night I shifted, trying to get comfortable while I thought of ways to escape, but the pain and nausea muddled my brain. All I could come up with was making the public and Brock think I’d had an affair so that Brock would be humiliated enough to divorce me. I wouldn’t really cheat, just make everyone believe I had. However, I couldn’t stomach the thought of humiliating Brock so publicly or damaging Children to Love in the process. Though if I followed through on that plan, I would leave Colorado forever.
If only I could disappear.
The night seemed to drag into an abysmal darkness of thought, punctuated by bouts of pain. I think I drifted off to sleep a few times only to be woken up by my thoughts and the urge to vomit. But I