Chapter 3 - The Empty PenthouseThe penthouse on Park Avenue was silent when Nathan unlocked the private elevator door at 11:30 PM.
"Emma?" he called out, stepping into the grand foyer.
No answer. Only the quiet hum of the climate control system greeted him.
Nathan walked through the minimalist living room, half-expecting to find her sitting on the sofa by the floor-to-ceiling windows with a glass of wine, waiting for an explanation. But the room was pristine and untouched.
He walked into the master suite. The bed was made. On the vanity table where she usually kept her jewelry, her daily items were missing. Her favorite perfume was gone.
Nathan threw his suit jacket onto the chair and walked into her walk-in closet.
Half of the space was empty. Her luggage was gone. Her modest personal items—the ones she had brought into the marriage before the Whitmore stylists rebranded her—were gone. But all the designer gowns, the diamond necklaces he had bought her for anniversaries, and the luxury handbags were left neatly arranged on the shelves.
She hadn't taken a single thing he had bought her.
Nathan’s hand shook slightly as he reached out and touched an empty hanger.
"This is crazy," he muttered to himself, grabbing his phone again. He called her best friend, Clara.
The call connected on the fourth ring.
"Nathan?" Clara’s voice was icy cold.
"Where is she, Clara?" Nathan demanded, pacing the empty closet. "She left the gala, left her ring with my mother, and cleaned out half her closet. Where did she go?"
"She went somewhere you can't hurt her anymore," Clara snapped. "Do you have any idea what she’s tolerated from you over the last three years, Nathan? The late nights? The rumors with your associates? You treated her like an accessory you only wore when you needed to look like a respectable family man."
"I provided her with a life most women dream of!" Nathan shouted, his pride flaring up to mask his rising panic. "She wants for nothing! I work eighty hours a week to build an empire!"
"You built an empire for your ego, Nathan," Clara said flatly. "Emma built a home, and you let it burn. Don't call me again."
The line went dead.
Nathan stared at the screen, his chest heaving. He slammed the phone down on the vanity table.
As he did, his eye caught a small piece of paper sticking out from beneath a leather-bound notebook on Emma's desk.
He walked over and pulled it out.
It was a receipt from a private medical clinic in Midtown dated three days ago.
Nathan glanced down the printed lines: Obstetric Ultrasound - Package B. Patient: Emma Whitmore.
Nathan’s heart stopped beating.
His eyes locked onto the handwritten note at the bottom from the attending physician: Fetal development normal. 18 weeks. Congratulations, Mrs. Whitmore.
The room seemed to tilt beneath his feet.
"Eighteen weeks?" Nathan whispered, his voice cracking in the empty, silent room.
May you like
He dropped the paper as if it had burned him. She was pregnant. Four and a half months pregnant.
And while he had been spinning Olivia Grant around a ballroom floor in Manhattan, his wife had walked away from him carrying his child.
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