The Don Announced His Heir, But Our Baby Was Already Dead

Three days before my due date, Don Adrian Moretti got behind the wheel himself and drove his first love, Nora Shaw, to the mountains. I stood in the doorway with one hand braced under my belly, the other gripping his wrist. "Adrian, I'm about to have this baby. Please don't go." He glanced at his watch, gently pried my fingers loose, and looked at me the way you'd look at someone being unreasonable. "Nora's waited six years for this snowfall, Grace. I can't let her down again. Anyone can be there when the baby comes." At two in the morning, my water broke. Blood ran down my legs and pooled on the floor. I crawled to the door and called him seventeen times. The last one finally went through. All I could hear was wind and Nora's bright, ringing laughter. I begged him to come home. All he said was: "Last week you used stomach pain to trick me into coming back." The ambulance came. He didn't. But Nora clipped our phone call into her snow-mountain video. She slapped ridiculous subtitles over my crying, and the comment section filled with laughing faces. Adrian's account was pinned right at the top. "Sorry for the entertainment, everyone. She's always like this." Two hours later, the child I had waited six years to hold was gone. He sent me a voice message saying he'd bring me a gift when he got back. The nurse asked if I still wanted my husband listed as emergency contact on my chart. I set my phone facedown on the table. "No." Leave the husband field blank too. When the nurse handed the chart back, Adrian Moretti's name had already been struck through with a black pen. I stared at that line for a few seconds before my phone buzzed. It was his deputy and legal counsel, Miles Reed. "Mrs. Moretti, the video on the trending page has caused a bit of a misunderstanding. The PR team would like you to use your verified account to leave a like and post something along the lines of 'Hope you two have fun.' That way the public will read it as a joke between husband and wife." I looked down at the edge of the bed. The medical tray had just been wheeled out by the nurse. There were still traces of blood they hadn't wiped clean. My child had been gone less than two hours, and they were already discussing how to wrap up a video. "The person crying in that video is me. Correct?" Miles paused. His voice dropped lower. "Mrs. Moretti, Miss Shaw didn't mean anything by it. She just thought your tone at the time was... a bit dramatic." "So you want me to confirm that my crying was, in fact, funny?" Dead silence on the other end. I didn't wait for his answer. I hung up. Almost immediately, Adrian's call came in. The wind was loud on his end. Every now and then, Nora's laughter drifted through. "Grace, why did you hang up on Miles?" His tone was as mild as ever, as though we were just bickering over a dinner menu. "I told him to get in touch with you. Just cooperate on the video thing. Don't let people get the wrong idea." "I called you seventeen times just now." "I know." He paused. "But last week you said your stomach hurt too. I drove back in the middle of the night, and all you wanted was for me to sit with you through dinner." I tightened my grip on the phone. "This time was different." "I know you're uncomfortable in the third trimester." He spoke as if he hadn't caught anything wrong in my voice. "The home nurse already switched out the maternity pillow, and the crib was air-shipped from Italy. The one you've had your eye on for a while. When I get back the day after tomorrow, I'll take you to the last checkup." The hospital room was warm, but his words sent a tremor through me. That crib was one I'd picked out six years ago, during my first pregnancy. After that baby didn't make it, I never dared mention it again. But Adrian remembered. He remembered I could only sleep on my left side. That I couldn't stand heavy perfume. That after the baby was born, we'd need to swap the bedroom curtains for blackout panels. He remembered every detail. And still didn't come home. "Adrian." I looked at the tray the nurse had carried out. My voice was very quiet. "When you come back, will you really take me to the checkup?" "Of course." He answered without hesitation, as if there had never been any doubt. "We've waited so long for this, Grace. You're about to be a mother. Don't throw a fit over something like this." I closed my eyes. On the other end, I heard Nora calling him. "Adrian, come quick, the cloud sea's out!" He called back to her, then said to me: "Take care of the video first. I'll bring you a gift when I'm back." "Okay." I didn't tell him the baby was already gone. Not to punish him. I just suddenly didn't know what capacity I had left to tell him in. His wife? But on the chart, the husband field was already blank. Nora's video still glowed on my screen. Snow. Laughter. Wind. And my voice, torn apart, begging for help. Adrian's comment, pinned at the top. "Sorry for the entertainment, everyone. She's always like this." I stared at it for a long time. Then I reached over and turned the phone facedown on the bedside table. This time, I didn't wait for him to come back the day after tomorrow.

The next morning, I went to Star & Grace Children's Trust. The foundation had been established in the fifth year of our marriage. The startup capital came from my premarital trust. "Star" was the name Adrian chose. "Grace" was mine. Back then he'd had his arm around my shoulders and said that once the baby was born, we'd build the first children's reading room in whatever city the baby came into the world. Star & Grace was not a commercial asset of the Moretti Family. It wasn't a charitable front the family used to dress up its business. It was meant to be the first letter we wrote to our child together. But when I walked through the doors, the lobby screen was looping that snow-mountain video. The subtitles had been redone, made to look even more like a maliciously edited farce than the version circulating online. The conference room door opened. Nora Shaw stepped out wearing a pale dress, faint dark circles beneath her eyes from lack of sleep. When I saw her, I stopped. "Aren't you still on the mountain?" "The video hit the trending page. Adrian asked me to come back and handle it." She held out a cup of warm water to me, her tone perfectly natural. "I took a foundation car down at dawn. He still has his original itinerary. He won't be back until this afternoon." So he hadn't been unaware of the video blowing up. He simply decided that having Nora manage the PR mattered more than coming back to check on me himself. "Grace." Nora looked at my ashen face. I didn't take the water. "Who authorized the foundation to use that footage?" The smile on her face didn't disappear, but her fingers slowly tightened around the cup. "Adrian asked me to handle it. He said you've been emotionally unstable lately and it wouldn't be appropriate for you to make certain decisions yourself." "He transferred my authority to you?" "Just temporarily." Nora's voice was gentle. "Everyone knows your priority right now is rest. The foundation can't be affected by your personal emotions." I looked at the screen. In the footage, my cries of pain had been cut into comic sound effects. Nora stood in the snow, doubled over laughing. Adrian reached over from beside her to shield her from the wind. He had once said that all public-facing content from the foundation had to be approved by me first. Because a charity project should never exploit anyone's privacy for attention. That rule had lasted less than a year. "Take the video down." "Grace, the story's already out there. If we pull it now, it'll look like we have something to hide." "I said take it down." A few people in the conference room lowered their heads. No one moved. I took out my phone, called my lawyer, then handed a document to the foundation's director. "Notify accounting. Freeze all future disbursements from my personal trust. Complete the withdrawal and asset liquidation by this afternoon." The director's head shot up. "Mrs. Moretti, the foundation's programs are already underway. Pulling funding will affect a great number of children's aid plans." "Then handle it by the charter. Pause what can't be sustained. Transfer what can be transferred." Nora's expression finally changed. "You can't use children's lives as leverage just because of one video." I looked at her. A dull ache pulled through my abdomen, and I raised my hand instinctively to press against it. The postpartum swell was still there, not yet recovered. But there was no kick to answer me anymore. "You can use my name to drive traffic, but I'm not allowed to take back my own money?" She had nothing to say. After the lawyer arrived, I signed the withdrawal declaration on the spot and filed to remove Grace Miller's name as managing principal of the foundation. The name Star & Grace could stay for now. But the part that belonged to me had to be erased. My hand shook badly as I signed. Six years ago, when I lost my first child, Adrian sat with me on the hospital corridor floor all night. He told me we'd have another child. That we'd have a real home, one that truly belonged to us. Later, he used my trust to build this foundation. I thought he was anchoring his promise in the real world. Now I was deleting my own name from it with my own hand. This was the last gravestone I could leave for that future. The ink on the documents was barely dry when Adrian's call came through. Miles put it on speaker. "Grace, what are you doing at the foundation?" "Taking back my funding and my name." "You're emotionally unstable right now. You can't make decisions on your own like this." His voice dropped, and the weight of Don Moretti's authority pressed through the phone into the conference room. "I've already notified the bank. Your supplementary black card is temporarily frozen. We'll talk once you've calmed down." I raised my eyes to the glass door. The foundation's logo still read Star & Grace. "Did you freeze my card, or my last shred of choice in this family?" A few seconds of silence on the other end. "I'm trying to protect you." "Then protect yourself." I turned off the speaker and handed the signed documents to my lawyer.

That evening, the foundation's website posted an announcement. Star & Grace Children's Trust would, effective immediately, be represented by Ms. Nora Shaw as interim brand ambassador. Ms. Grace Miller was stepping back from all related duties due to health reasons. I sat in the back of a taxi and read that line. For the first time, I didn't bother explaining that it wasn't because of "health reasons." I simply moved the divorce consultation my lawyer had sent me to the following morning. I rented a small apartment near the hospital. It wasn't much. One bedroom, one living area. When I moved, I took only my documents, my bank cards, and a few changes of clothes. I didn't even take the music box Adrian had bought for the baby. That afternoon, Adrian finally came back from the mountains. He didn't go to the hospital. He went straight to the villa. Half an hour later, Miles called to say the Boss had already tracked down my address. "Mrs. Moretti, the Boss would like to see you. He says you're welcome to bring your lawyer and come back to the villa to talk." I sat on the floor beside boxes I hadn't yet unpacked, a loose-knit cardigan draped over my shoulders. The wound on my abdomen ached faintly. I pressed my hand against it without thinking. "Tell him I'm not going back." "Mrs. Moretti, the Boss just got home and he's not in a good mood. This will only make things harder to resolve." "The things that are hard to resolve aren't my doing." Less than ten minutes after I hung up, the doorbell rang. Adrian stood outside, Miles and a stylist behind him, a few beautifully wrapped boxes in his hands. He wore the black overcoat he'd changed into after returning to the city, the cold of the mountains still clinging to his shoulders. When he stepped inside, though, the first thing he looked at was my feet. "The floor's cold. Why aren't you wearing socks?" He frowned and began to take off his coat to drape over me. I stepped back. The coat landed on the arm of the sofa. His hands hung suspended in the air, as if it were the first time he realized I was no longer standing where I used to be. His gaze traveled from my pale face to the oversized cardigan, and the crease between his brows didn't smooth out. "Have you been to the hospital?" "Yes." "What did they say?" "The doctor told me to rest." I wasn't lying. I just didn't tell him that the rest the doctor meant was recovery after losing a child. "Why didn't you have the doctor send the report to Miles?" "It's my medical file." "Grace, I'm just worried about you and the baby." I looked up at him. "When I called you seventeen times, you weren't this worried." His face stiffened slightly. "I told you, I didn't know it was serious. Last week you also—" "So this time, you chose not to believe me." He lowered his voice. "I didn't not believe you. I just thought there were people at home. The driver and the nurse were both there. You'd be fine." But the driver had been reassigned to pick up Nora's filming equipment, and the nurse had taken the day off yesterday. I looked at him and said nothing more. Even now, he was still searching for an acceptable reason for that night. But that night no longer needed a reason. Miles held out a photograph. In it, a misty-blue crib sat in the room next to the master bedroom, the mobile I'd picked out six years ago hanging from its frame. "The crib's been delivered," Adrian said. "The color and dimensions are exactly what you chose. If you don't like the rest, we can swap everything out." I didn't take the photo. "Take it back." "Why?" "I don't need it." He took that as something said in anger. "If you don't want it right now, just leave it. Once the baby's born, you'll need it." My fingers curled tighter and tighter inside my sleeve. He still believed the baby was going to be born. Still believed that as long as the room, the crib, and the gifts were ready, those seventeen unanswered phone calls could be reduced to an ordinary argument. I didn't correct him. Not to punish him. Not to wait for him to humiliate himself in front of everyone. I simply realized, all at once, that I was no longer obligated to fill in the truth he had missed with his own hands.