He Chose His First Love. I Own His Empire. novel · Chapter 1 of 24
Chapter 1: Three Feet Away
At the anniversary dinner Dalton puts his grandmother's emerald on Camille's finger. Hallie tells the room she is pregnant and walks out. In the driveway Dalton says the baby stays an Aldrich, and Benton opens his car door: Odile sent him ten minutes ago.
On our third wedding anniversary, my husband put his grandmother's emerald ring on another woman's finger.
I was standing at the end of the dining table, holding the cake I had baked for him.
Twenty people sat between us.
His mother, his board members, their wives, and his grandmother in her wheelchair at the far end.
Every one of them watched Dalton take Camille's hand.
I had been looking forward to this night for a week.
I was six weeks pregnant, and I had planned to tell the family over dessert.
Dalton had begged me for this baby for a year.
When I told him, eleven days ago, he had put his forehead against mine and said, "Finally."
This morning he had texted: Big night. Wear the blue dress. Trust me.
I wore the blue dress.
He met me on the front steps and took the cake box out of my arms.
"Heavy," he said, grinning. "What's in it, a brick?"
"Lemon and cardamom. Your favorite."
"Then I'll guard it with my life," he said, and he kissed my forehead.
He handed it back to me at the dining room door, and told me to wait for his signal.
At four o'clock Camille had texted too.
Crackers before you get out of bed, and ginger tea. You'll feel human by Thursday.
She was the only other person who knew about the baby, and she had never once been unkind to me.
Now she stood beside my husband in a green silk dress, and she was crying.
"Everyone," Dalton said, and tapped his glass.
The room went quiet.
"I've waited a long time to do the right thing."
He turned the ring so the stone caught the chandelier.
It was a square emerald the size of a thumbnail, and I had only ever seen it in Odile's safe.
Dalton had told me once that it was too precious to wear.
"Camille was my first love," he said. "She is my only love. This was my grandmother's ring, and it belongs on her hand."
His mother, Adaline, started the applause.
Two of the board members joined in.
Someone's wife held up a phone and filmed it.
I looked down the table at his grandmother, Odile.
She was not clapping.
She had her cane across her knees and her eyes on the ring, and her face did not move at all.
Then she looked at me.
She said nothing.
I thought of my coat, hanging in the front hall.
Last Christmas Odile had pressed a small velvet pouch into my hand and closed my fingers over it.
"Don't open it until you need it," she had said.
It had been in my coat pocket ever since, and I had never opened it.
"Hallie," Dalton said.
He said it gently and slowly, in his boardroom voice.
"I know this is a shock. Put the cake down. We'll talk afterward, privately."
"Please sit, honey," Camille said, wiping her cheek. "You shouldn't be on your feet."
She meant it kindly.
That was the worst part.
I set the cake on the sideboard.
It was lemon and cardamom, his favorite, and I had piped the border at four that morning before my shift.
I took off my wedding band.
It was thin and plain, and it had never once been loose until that moment.
I pressed it into the center of the frosting.
"Happy anniversary," I said.
Nobody applauded now.
"I'm six weeks pregnant," I told the room. "Dalton asked me for this baby. You can congratulate him."
The phone was still up.
Adaline's smile went flat.
"Hallie," Dalton said, and this time his voice was not gentle. "Sit down."
"No."
It was the first time in three years I had said it to him in front of anyone.
I walked past the long table and past the staff in the doorway.
I took my coat from the hall closet and felt the little pouch in the pocket, small and heavy.
So I walked out.
The October air was cold on my face, and the gravel drive was full of black cars.
I had my keys in my hand when his footsteps came crunching behind me.
"Don't make this ugly," Dalton said.
I turned around.
He stood with his hands in his pockets, in the light from the open front door, calm as he always was.
"You can go if you want," he said. "I won't stop you. There's a settlement, and it's generous."
"And the baby?"
"The baby is an Aldrich."
He said it quietly.
"It stays with us. You can leave, Hallie. The child can't."
I had no answer ready.
My hands had started to shake, and I closed them around my keys.
Behind him, a man stepped out of the shadow between two cars.
He was tall and broad in a black overcoat, with a scar through his left eyebrow, and I knew him from Odile's Sunday table.
Odile's grandson Benton, who drove her everywhere and never spoke at dinner.
He opened the passenger door of a dark sedan.
"Get in," Benton said. "Odile sent me out here ten minutes ago. She knew."
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