“Room three, now! I need age, gestational weeks, medical history—everything!”
She reached out to take the patient. Then the man answered—
“She’s thirty-two. I don’t know how many weeks… we were at dinner and she started cramping, then bleeding. Please… save her.”
That voice.
The pen slipped from Renata’s hand and hit the floor.
The world stopped.
Slowly—too slowly—she looked up.
First, the Italian shoes she had bought him for his birthday.
Then the dark blue shirt, stained with blood.
And finally, the face of the man she had shared ten years with.
Julian Carter. Her husband.
And the woman in his arms was not a stranger.
She was the other woman.
Beautiful. Red-haired. Lips still painted despite the deadly pallor. And her swollen belly carried the secret that had been quietly destroying Renata’s life.
For one second—just one—Renata couldn’t breathe.
Then she became a doctor again.
“Get her to surgical evaluation,” she ordered, her voice turning to ice. “Call OB on call. I want ultrasound, blood bank, and NICU on standby.”
Julian stepped toward her.
“Renata, I—”
“Not now,” she cut him off without looking at him. “If you want her to live, you stay quiet and let me work.”