Not cruelly enough for other people to notice.
Just enough to make her feel small.
“Don’t start that again. You just had a baby. You’re emotional.”
Behind him, his younger sister called out, “Tell her we’re already at the beach house!”
Paige’s stomach dropped.
“You left town?”
“Mom needed a break after all the stress you caused,” Bryce said. “We’re in Hilton Head for the week. Stay with a friend or book a hotel.”
Paige looked down at the newborn sleeping against her chest.
“Our daughter is three days old.”
Bryce’s voice became flat.
“Then be a mother and figure it out.”
The line ended.
For a long moment, Paige did not move.
She stood on the porch of the house she had bought before marriage, holding the child he had barely looked at in the hospital, while the man who promised to protect them enjoyed a family vacation without them.
She wanted to cry.
She wanted to pound on the door.
She wanted someone to see what had just happened and say it was wrong.
Instead, Paige took one slow breath.
Then another.
Because Bryce had made a mistake.
He thought locking her out would break her.
He had forgotten what Paige did for a living.
Before she became his wife, before she became a mother, before his family decided quiet meant weak, Paige Larkin had been a real estate attorney.
And every paper connected to that house had only one name on it.
Hers.
The Woman He Thought Would Beg
Paige did not sleep much that night.
She checked into a quiet hotel suite twenty minutes away, ordered warm soup she barely touched, and placed her daughter in a bassinet beside the bed.
Her body was exhausted, but her mind was clear.
