Too Late For Regret, Mr. Booth

Elise Preston lowered herself onto the butter-soft leather sofa with the careful precision of a woman carrying eight months of pregnancy in her belly. Her breath hitched as the weight shifted, her lower back screaming from the pressure. She ran her palm over the swell of her stomach, feeling the distinct press of a tiny foot against her ribs.

"Easy, little one," she whispered. "Almost there."

She pulled the grainy ultrasound photo from her coat pocket-she'd looked at it maybe two hundred times since this morning's appointment. Three perfect heartbeats had filled that darkened room with sound. Three. The technician had laughed, said it was the most active set of triplets she'd seen all year. Elise had cried in the parking garage afterward, alone, because Callum hadn't answered his phone. Again.

But he would come. He had to come. She'd left three messages. She'd said it was urgent. She'd said she needed him.

The mahogany double doors swung open without warning.

Elise's head snapped up, her heart leaping into her throat. "Callum?"

The name died on her lips.

Jaida Powers stepped through the doorway like she owned the air itself. Ten inches of red-soled Louboutin clicked against the marble floor, each step a calculated assault. Her platinum Birkin swung from one manicured hand, and when she reached the center of the room, she let it drop.

The bag hit the glass coffee table with a crack that made Elise flinch.

"You're not supposed to be here." Elise's hand moved instinctively to shield her stomach. "This is a private floor."

Jaida laughed. It was a sound Elise had heard before-at gallery openings, at charity functions, always from across crowded rooms where Callum stood too close to this woman and explained it away as old friendship. Family connection. Obligation.

"Private?" Jaida reached into her bag and withdrew a thick envelope, cream-colored, heavy stock, the kind that carried legal weight. "Nothing's private when it comes to Booth family business, Elise. You should know that by now."

She tossed the envelope. It skidded across the glass surface and stopped inches from Elise's knee.

Elise didn't touch it. She didn't need to. The words were already visible, embossed in black, screaming up at her: DISSOLUTION OF MARRIAGE.

Her lungs seized. The room tilted. She heard her own breathing, too loud, too fast, rasping in her ears like she was drowning in open air.

"Pick it up." Jaida moved closer, her perfume-something sharp and expensive-filling the space between them. "Sign it. Or don't. It doesn't matter. Callum's already signed. His lawyer filed it this morning."

"You're lying." The words scraped out of Elise's throat. She pressed her hand harder against her belly, feeling the frantic flutter of three heartbeats against her palm. "He wouldn't. Not now. Not when-"

"When what?" Jaida leaned down, her face level with Elise's, her smile showing too many teeth. "When you're about to pop? Oh, sweetie. That's exactly why. Callum doesn't need you anymore. He needs the babies. And once they're born, he'll have them. Trust funds, custody, the whole Booth legacy. You?" She straightened, flicking invisible dust from her sleeve. "You're just the incubator he used."

Elise's fingers curled into the leather sofa. "He loves me. He-"

"Love?" Jaida's hand went to her throat, her fingers toying with a delicate chain that disappeared beneath the collar of her silk blouse. She pulled it free.

The pendant caught the overhead light. A single diamond, cushion-cut, set in platinum. Elise had seen it once before, in a photograph from Callum's childhood-his mother's necklace. The Booth matriarch's seal. The piece that passed to the woman who would bear the next generation of heirs.

Her vision narrowed. The edges of the room went gray.

"Recognize it?" Jaida let it settle against her collarbone, her thumb brushing the stone with possessive familiarity. "He gave it to me last night. After." She leaned close enough that Elise could see the perfect line of her lip gloss, could smell the wine on her breath. "You want to know why he really married you, Elise? Why he stayed those two miserable years?"

Elise couldn't move. Her body had turned to stone, her blood to ice.

"Five years ago," Jaida whispered, her breath hot against Elise's ear, "someone gave Callum a kidney. Saved his life. Anonymous donor, they said. No name, no face, just a gift from a stranger who loved him enough to cut herself open."

Elise's heart stopped. Literally stopped, one missed beat, then another, her chest hollow and aching.

"That was you, wasn't it?" Jaida pulled back, her eyes bright with vicious delight. "You pathetic little thing. You thought he'd figure it out? That he'd wake up from anesthesia and just know?"

The room spun. Elise gripped the sofa's arm, her nails digging through leather to find the wooden frame beneath.

"I told him it was me." Jaida's voice dropped to a purr. "I showed him scars. I cried at his bedside. And when he asked how he could ever repay me-" She gestured to the necklace, to the room, to the life she'd stolen. "I told him I wanted to be family. Real family. Not some desperate girl who'd give up an organ and expect gratitude in return."

"You didn't-" Elise's voice broke. "You couldn't-"

"I did." Jaida straightened, smoothing her hair. "And you know what the best part is? You lost a kidney for him. You gave him life. And all you got in return-" She tapped the divorce papers with one sharp nail. "-was this."

Something cracked inside Elise's chest. Not metaphorically. A physical sensation, like ribs separating, like muscle tearing, like her body finally understanding what her mind refused to accept.

She lunged.

Her palm cut through the air, aimed for Jaida's perfect cheek, for the smile that had destroyed everything. But Jaida was faster. Her hand shot out, fingers wrapping Elise's wrist like a vice, and twisted.

Elise's arm wrenched backward. Her center of gravity shifted, eight months of pregnancy pulling her off-balance, and she felt herself falling.

The coffee table edge caught her lower back.

The pain was white. Screaming. Infinite. It radiated through her spine and exploded in her pelvis, and she heard herself make a sound she'd never heard before-animal, broken, torn from somewhere deeper than throat.

She hit the carpet. Her hands flew to her stomach, cradling, protecting, but the wetness was already spreading, warm and wrong against her thighs. She looked down and saw red. Dark red. Too much red, pooling beneath her, soaking into the cream-colored rug.

"Oh, look at that." Jaida's voice came from somewhere above, distant and bored. "Messy."

Elise tried to speak. Tried to scream. But her body was shutting down, her vision tunneling to a single point of light, and through that light she saw Jaida step carefully around the spreading stain, saw her pull a phone from her pocket, saw her dial a number with deliberate precision.

"Dr. Vance? It's Jaida. The asset is compromised. Placental abruption," she said, her voice sharp and clinical. "Get your team to the OR on my private floor, now. No records." A pause. "And prepare for a high-risk neonatal transfer. The objective is to secure the heirs, whatever the cost to the incubator."

Elise's hand twitched. Her fingers found the ultrasound photo still crumpled in her pocket, and she held it against her belly as the darkness swallowed her, as the last thing she saw was Jaida Powers walking away, her heels clicking against marble, the sound fading like a heartbeat into silence.