Bleeding Out Alone, I Return His Ring

While shopping at the mall, a child suddenly slams into my five-month pregnant belly. Blood immediately pools on the floor.

With trembling hands, I call my boyfriend, Garrett Holloway, and beg him to come get me as quickly as possible. But even after I am rushed into surgery and finally pulled back from the brink, he never shows up.

But through the glass, I see him helping another woman into the hospital for a prenatal checkup.

"She only stumbled a little, and her husband got so worried. He brought her to the hospital right away. Some people are just luckier than others. Not everyone gets a man who cares for them so attentively."

Listening to the nurses whisper among themselves, I tighten my grip on the miscarriage report in my hand.

Then, I send a message to my family.

I write, "Mom, I'll go with your arrangement. I'm not marrying Garrett anymore."

The nurses finished their gossip and glanced back at me, lying helplessly in the hospital bed, unable to move. Their expressions shifted from envy to contempt.

They filed out of the room, but their deliberately lowered voices still carried through the door.

"A miscarriage at her age? Then why'd she go and get knocked up in the first place?"

"I asked when I was filling out her forms, and she's not even married."

"Gosh. Who knows what she's been getting up to out there?"

I lay numb on the bed. My heart felt like it had been torn apart so many times there was nothing left to tear.

My phone buzzed. It was a message from my mother.

"Have you finally come to your senses? I've told you a thousand times, sticking with a man while he builds himself from nothing is the worst deal a woman can make.

"You've been together for five years. You were carrying his child, yet he hasn't said a single word about marriage. What more proof do you need?

"Come home. We have more than enough money. You could find a hundred men like him."

Mom was the most clear-headed woman I'd ever known. Years ago, some broke nobody had chased her for seven straight years, and she never once looked back. She poured every ounce of attention into herself and ended up marrying my father, a Prescott.

I'd always thought she was shallow, that she didn't understand what love was. But it turned out I was the naive one, believing everything could be justified by it.

I replied with a single "OK", dragged my weak body out of bed, and took a cab home.

The moment I pushed open the front door, I saw Garrett Holloway standing there with a spoon in his hand, feeding Sienna Cole a prenatal tonic one careful sip at a time.

"Keira, you're back so soon?" He stood up and set the bowl behind his back, guilt written all over his face.

I recognized that tonic. It was for stabilizing a pregnancy. So he'd taken Sienna to the hospital and confirmed she was carrying a child.

"Sienna wasn't feeling well, so I told her to rest here for a bit," Garrett explained.

He walked toward me with an ingratiating smile. "You're back early, so the baby must be fine, right? I knew it. We've been so careful, nothing was going to go wrong."

Garrett reached out to touch my stomach, still smiling. I slapped his hand away before he could touch me. He froze where he stood, the smile disappearing from his face.

Sienna spoke up from the side, quick to defend him. "Keira, Garrett was really worried about you. The second he got the call, he rushed to the hospital. If you want to blame someone, blame me. I started feeling sick out of nowhere, and it held him up."

She lowered her eyes with a look of self-reproach. The pallor of early pregnancy gave her just the right amount of fragile beauty, and something like tenderness flickered across Garrett's face.

After a pause, he offered to go make something to eat for both of us and disappeared into the kitchen.

Sienna waited for the kitchen door to close. The two tears that had been threatening to spill vanished without a trace. She picked up the bowl from the nightstand and stirred it idly, a completely different person from the one she'd been moments ago.

"See, that's where you're not smart about it, Keira. Men are simple. You show a little weakness, play a little helpless, and they'll treat you like you're precious.

"You're always fighting him head-on. No wonder he'd rather have me stay late at the office with him than come home to you."

My gaze dropped to Sienna's long, slender fingers.

Showing weakness and playing helpless? If I'd actually done that, Garrett would never have climbed to where he was today, not without my help.

I walked toward her, one slow step at a time. I took the bowl of tonic from her hands and smiled.

"You didn't stir this well enough. It won't work if you drink it like this."

Sienna looked at me, her smug smile faltering. It shifted into wary confusion as she tried to read what I was about to do.

The corner of my mouth lifted, and I flicked my wrist. The scalding tonic splashed across Sienna's face.

Garrett came running at the sound of Sienna's scream. He took one look at the dark liquid dripping down her face, and the air left his lungs.