Chapter 4 - The Strike on the Marble FloorTears welled in Elise’s eyes, hot and stinging, but she fought with everything inside her not to let them fall. She raised her left hand, holding out the small white photo she had carried like a shield.
"Daniel, please, just look at this," Elise pleaded, her voice shaking with desperate emotion. "I came because... because I have something to tell you. We're having a baby, Daniel. I'm three months pregnant. It's a boy."
Daniel stared at the small grayscale image for a split second.
Instead of shock, instead of joy, instead of a single drop of human warmth, his eyes hardened into pure, unadulterated venom. To Daniel, that tiny photo wasn't a blessing; it was an anchor designed to drag him down into the ordinary life he was so desperately trying to escape.
"A baby?" Daniel spat, his voice laced with absolute disgust. "You think a damn kid is going to trap me with you?! You think I'm going to waste my career playing happy family in a cheap house while men like Arthur Vance build empires?!"
With a sharp, violent flick of his wrist, Daniel slapped the sonogram photo right out of her hand. The paper fluttered uselessly through the air, landing in a dirty puddle of spilled champagne near the baseboards.
"Daniel, no!" Elise gasped, reaching down instinctively.
"Get out of here!" Daniel roared, completely losing control as he shoved her backward with both hands pressed against her chest.
The push was brutal, calculated, and heavy.
Elise’s heels slipped on the slick marble tiles. She lost her balance entirely, her body twisting in mid-air as she tried frantically to protect her abdomen. Her shoulder slammed hard against the sharp stone edge of the pillar, sending a blinding flash of pain through her upper body before she crashed heavily onto the cold, polished floor.
She curled up on her side instantly, wrapping her arms tightly around her stomach, breathing in shallow, terrified gasps as her heart pounded against her ribs.
I'll protect you, she whispered wildly in her mind, her forehead pressed against the freezing marble. I'll protect you, my baby, I swear it.
Daniel stood over her, his chest heaving, his tie slightly crooked from the effort. He didn't reach down to help her up. He didn't check if she was bleeding. He didn't even look at her face.
"Don't lie there acting like a victim," Daniel sneered, adjusting his cuffs with cold precision. "You fell because you're clumsy. Get up, take a cab home, and if you ever show your face near my workplace again, I'll make sure you don't get a single dollar when I file for divorce."
He turned on his heel and walked calmly back into the bright, glittering ballroom.
From across the room, Michelle Vance watched him approach with a sly, knowing smile. She reached out, gently straightening his silk tie, and whispered something in his ear that made him laugh out loud—a bright, booming laugh that echoed straight back into the dark alcove where his pregnant wife lay on the floor.
Several junior executives standing nearby had witnessed the commotion behind the pillar. They had seen the push. They had heard the heavy thud of her body striking the stone.
Not a single one stepped forward. Not a single man raised his voice. They simply turned their heads, raised their champagne glasses, and pretended the woman on the floor didn't exist.
Three minutes passed in suffocating darkness.
Then, a pair of crisp, immaculate high heels clicked rapidly down the hallway.
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Vivien Clark stepped around the marble pillar. She stopped dead in her tracks, her breath catching violently in her throat as her eyes landed on the heir to the Lauron empire lying curled in a ball on the cold, dirty floor.
"ELISE!" Vivien shrieked, dropping her leather portfolio entirely as she dropped to her knees beside her.
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