He Chose Her Over Our Dead Child

Deidre tried to push herself up, but her arms were shaking too badly. Daria reached out with one finger and pressed it against Deidre's collarbone, shoving her back into the cushions. It was a tiny motion, but it held absolute dominance.

Daria swirled the wine in her glass, her eyes fixed on Deidre's chest, watching the erratic, labored rise and fall. "Tell me, Deidre. Do you remember the Hamptons yacht party? Five years ago?"

Deidre's breath caught. The Hamptons. The yacht. The explosion. The memories were a blur of fire, smoke, and agonizing pain. It was the event that had ruined her heart.

"Of course I remember," Deidre gritted out. "You almost died."

Daria threw her head back and laughed. It was a sharp, grating sound that echoed off the high ceilings. Some of the red wine sloshed out of her glass, staining the pristine white rug.

"You stupid girl," Daria said, wiping a tear from her eye. "Everyone thinks I'm the hero. Everyone thinks I pushed Danial out of the way just before the blast hit. Everyone thinks I was struck by the falling beam, destroying my heart to save the man I loved."

Deidre's jaw clenched. "That's exactly what happened. And Danial has spent the last five years treating you like glass because of it. You got your happily ever after."

Daria stopped laughing. She leaned in close, her face inches from Deidre's. "It wasn't me, Deidre. I was terrified. The moment the fire started, I jumped overboard and swam for my life. I didn't look back."

Deidre's mind went blank. The ringing in her ears returned, louder this time. She stared at Daria, her eyes wide with shock. "What?"

"I said, it wasn't me." Daria enunciated every word slowly, savoring the reaction. "The person who stayed behind in the fire, the person who shielded Danial with their own body, the person who took the hit from that steel beam... was you, Deidre."

Deidre's body began to tremble violently. The memories she had suppressed-the searing heat, the crushing weight on her chest, waking up in a hospital bed alone-rushed back. She had saved him. She had nearly died for him. And when she woke up, Danial had proposed to Daria.

"How..." Deidre's voice was a broken whisper. "How could you? How could you steal that?"

Daria stood up, looking incredibly smug. She reached up and unbuttoned the top three buttons of her silk blouse. She pulled the collar aside, revealing the skin below her collarbone.

There, marring her perfect skin, was a massive, jagged scar. It looked exactly like a burn wound, puckered and discolored.

"Medical tourism is a wonderful thing," Daria said, tracing the edge of the scar with a manicured nail. "I paid a small fortune to a specialist in Switzerland. He used laser ablation and skin grafts to create this masterpiece. It looks real, doesn't it? Even Danial believed it. He cried when he saw it."

Deidre lunged. She didn't care about the pain in her chest. She didn't care that she could barely stand. She just wanted to rip that fake scar off Daria's face.

But two large hands grabbed her shoulders from behind, slamming her back into the sofa. The bodyguards. They held her down, their grips like iron vices.

Daria looked down at her, shaking her head in mock pity. "He felt so guilty. He swore he would spend his life making it up to me. Every time he holds my hand, every time he buys me a gift, it's because he thinks I saved his life. And the best part? He thinks you're just a weak, useless burden he has to tolerate."

Tears spilled down Deidre's cheeks. She wasn't crying because she was sad. She was crying because of the sheer, cosmic injustice of it all. She had given her heart-literally-to Danial, and Daria had stolen the credit and used it to destroy her.

Daria reached for a document on the coffee table. She picked it up and threw it at Deidre's face. The sharp edge of the paper sliced across Deidre's cheekbone, drawing a thin line of blood.

Deidre looked down at the document. It was a property transfer agreement. Danial was gifting a sprawling mansion in Beverly Hills to Daria. The note, dated from last month, read: For our five-year anniversary. Thank you for my life.

The rage inside Deidre hit a boiling point. Her heart rate spiked, the organ fluttering wildly in her chest like a bird trapped in a cage. She clutched her shirt, gasping for air, her vision graying at the edges.

Daria watched her struggle, a cruel light in her eyes. "Not yet, Deidre. We're not done."

She snapped her fingers. The bodyguards released Deidre and stepped back. Daria walked to the mantelpiece and picked up a silver-framed photograph.

Deidre's heart stopped. It was the only photo she had of Lily. A tiny, wrinkled newborn with her eyes closed, cradled in Deidre's arms. It was the only proof that her daughter had ever existed.

"Put it down," Deidre snarled. Her voice was barely human. It was the sound of a mother protecting her young.

Daria ran a long fingernail over the glass, right across Lily's face. The scraping sound made Deidre's skin crawl. "Look at this. A dead little thing. She didn't even live long enough to open her eyes. And yet, she gets a fancy grave and a spot on the Ortega family tree. It's so unfair, isn't it?"

Deidre didn't think. She just moved. She shoved the heavy coffee table out of the way, the muscles in her arms tearing with the effort, and lunged at Daria.

Daria sidestepped easily. Deidre missed, crashing into the mantelpiece. She fell to the floor, her elbow landing squarely on a shard of broken glass from the dropped wine glass.

Pain shot up her arm. Blood immediately soaked through her sleeve, dripping onto the white rug. But Deidre didn't feel it. She only had eyes for the photo in Daria's hand.

Daria stood over her, looking down with a triumphant smirk. She had Deidre exactly where she wanted her: broken, bleeding, and desperate.

"You know," Daria said, her tone light and conversational, "you've always blamed God for taking your baby. You've always thought that ectopic pregnancy was just bad luck."

Deidre froze. The blood pounding in her ears seemed to stop. She looked up at Daria, a terrible premonition gripping her soul.

Daria smiled, a wide, terrifying smile. "What if I told you it wasn't bad luck at all? What if I told you that pregnancy was perfectly healthy?"

The words hung in the air, heavy and toxic. Deidre's mind refused to process them. The silence in the room was absolute, broken only by the sound of Deidre's ragged breathing.