(Cassandra's POV)

The clinic footage played on a loop in my head the entire drive.

I didn't turn back toward the Thornwood estate. I swung onto the highway without thinking, and the rain came down - light at first, then steadier, tapping against the windshield in a fine, relentless rhythm. I kept one hand on the wheel. The other drifted to my stomach without my permission, resting there.

Not even two months yet.

Six weeks. I kept turning that number over. Six weeks ago, I was still collecting small reasons to hope. Six weeks ago, I packed his antacids into the inside pocket of his suitcase and told him to eat properly. And the whole time, this other thing was already in motion, already six weeks ahead of anything I thought I knew.

I wanted to go home. Not the Thornwood estate with its high ceilings and carefully maintained distance. Home. The real one.

I turned off the highway.

By the time I pulled into the Langford estate's private drive, the rain had thickened. The gatehouse attendant saw my car and had the iron gates open before I'd even slowed down. The butler was already on the front steps with an umbrella. He took one look at my face when I stepped out of the car and said nothing at all - just moved to shield me from the rain and walked me inside.

I went down the portrait gallery without stopping. My heels struck the marble floor and the sound came back hollow. I used to run down this corridor when I was fourteen, fifteen, not caring about the noise. I hadn't known then what it felt like to have something break inside you cleanly, like a clean fracture in bone.

My father was in the study.

Richard Langford, Chairman of Langford Corporation, was sitting at his desk with a pen in his hand. He set it down the moment I pushed the door open.

My mother came from upstairs almost at the same instant - I heard her heels on the staircase before I saw her. She crossed the room quickly, took my arm, and pulled me onto the sofa beside her.

I didn't cry. I had decided on the drive over that I wouldn't.

I told them everything. The video from the night before - the necklace, his hands in her blonde hair. The drive this morning, following his car to that quiet street. The brass plaque by the clinic door. Watching her press her hand against her stomach. And then the second file, the shaky footage through the gap in the door, the doctor's voice saying it plainly.

Six weeks.

When I said that number, my mother's eyes went red. She reached out and gripped my hand hard. My father hadn't made a sound through any of it. His face had gone very still, very cold. His knuckles were white against the armrest.

The study was quiet for a long time after I finished.

Then I raised my head and looked at my father directly.

"Dad. Mom." I kept my voice even. "I want a divorce."

My father looked at me for a long moment. He didn't get angry. He didn't say think it over or are you sure or any of the things I had been quietly bracing for on the drive here. He just nodded, slowly, and his voice came out low and steady.

"Whatever you decide, we'll back you."

My mother reached up and smoothed my damp hair back from my face. Her voice had an edge I hadn't heard from her in years - not soft, not careful, just direct.

"A Langford woman doesn't suffer for any man. Not for one day."

I looked at the two of them. For three years I had kept myself together in front of them, come back for dinners with the right smile, said we're fine until I almost believed it. That shell I'd been maintaining - I felt something crack through it now, just slightly, just enough to let air in.

I took a breath.

"There's something else I need to tell you."

I reached into the innermost compartment of my handbag and took out the report. It had been folded and refolded enough that the creases had gone soft. I held it out to my mother.

She took it. Read it. And the tears came down before she'd finished the first line.

My father leaned over to look. His face moved through something complicated - grief and fury and something that looked almost like protectiveness, the kind you feel for something that arrived too late and too hard.

He knew how long we had tried. How many appointments, how many careful months of hoping. This news was everything we had waited for. It had just arrived at the worst possible moment.

"This child will carry the Langford name," I said. My voice was steady. I had made the decision somewhere on the highway and I wasn't going back on it. "I'm not telling Damon. The Thornwood name doesn't go anywhere near this child. Not now, not later."

My father picked up the report carefully, then set it back in my hands.

"Good," he said. No hesitation. "This child is a Langford. This family will raise him together. Whatever he needs, I'll make sure he has it."

My mother wiped her eyes and stood up.

She called for the housekeeper and started giving instructions - the guest room beside my old bedroom was to be cleared and converted into a suite by the end of the week. The kitchen was to prepare meals suitable for early pregnancy starting tonight. She wanted the family doctor called first thing tomorrow to schedule a prenatal appointment.

She moved through the list with complete efficiency, not pausing once.

My father was already on the phone, asking his lawyer to come in the morning.

I sat on the sofa and watched them both and felt, for the first time since yesterday evening, that I could breathe.

After a while I got up and walked to the study window. The rain was still falling. The estate's lawn had gone a deep, saturated green in the gray light.

I had one thing left to do before I moved back here. I had to speak to Damon. Not about the divorce - not yet, not on the phone. That conversation needed to happen face to face. But I needed to put some space between us first. Tonight.

I took out my phone and called his cell.

He declined it.

I called the Thornwood Technologies main line, gave my name, and asked for Damon Thornwood. The receptionist's voice went immediately careful and professional. A few seconds passed. Then he picked up.

His voice was the same as always. Even. Controlled.

My chest tightened for just a second. I didn't let it stop me.

"I know Freya is back in the States," I said.

Silence. One full second of it.

That one second told me everything I needed to know.

I didn't wait for him to speak. "Come home tonight. I want to talk."

"Understood," he said. "I'll be there."

I was about to hang up when I heard it - another voice in the background. A woman's voice, soft and carefully pitched, with just the right amount of guilt in it.

Freya.

"Is this because of me?" She let the words carry, made sure they were loud enough. "Did I ruin things for you? Damon, please go talk to her. I'm so sorry."

I stood at the window and listened to the whole performance. Every pause was in exactly the right place. Every word landed where it was meant to land. This wasn't a woman who had stumbled back into someone's life by accident. This was a woman who knew exactly where she was standing and what she was doing there.

Damon said nothing to stop her. Not one word.

I almost smiled.

I lifted the phone back to my mouth. My voice dropped flat and cold.

"Tonight, then."

I ended the call.

I stood there for a moment with the phone in my hand, looking out at the rain.

From today, I told myself, I am not Mrs. Thornwood anymore.