When Love Rebuilds From Frozen Hearts

ra

torming back into Dante's office, throwing the positive pregnancy test on his desk, and watching the cool

e died as quic

to him forever. My escape would be over. The gilded cage would become a fortress, and I would be its permanent prison

d not let

olve that had carried me through the last twent

l was to Mar

ow and urgent. "Hold them. Don't notify his cou

g on? Are you havin

certain than ever. Just... trus

all was t

e morning, Julian.

asked, surpris

" I said, the understa

th a kindness I desperately needed. "Be sa

side my sketchbooks, were the signed divorce papers and the positive pregnan

st time. It looked like a mausoleum, cold and lifeless. On the polished mahogany of Dante's bedside table, I left m

o open. It was filled with pictures from the past four years. Me at gallery openings, alone. Me on holidays, alone. Me at fam

The empty space beside

he door and di

I saw it on the news screen above the gate. A live shot from a private airfield. Dante and Isabella, climbing the steps to a sleek private jet, lo

y plane taxied down the runway, it passed the private airfield. I could see their jet, a silv

eater power and influence. I was fl

the sprawling city of Chicago shrink below me until it was just a pattern of lights aga

ettled over me for the first time in years

my still-flat stoma

ere