Chapter 3 - The Question Violet Never Forgot
Eight months earlier, Violet had believed she was going to dinner to choose wedding invitations.
She had no idea she was about to discover that the future she imagined with Beckett had never existed.
The restaurant overlooked Central Park.
Beckett had reserved the private corner table because privacy followed him everywhere. Wealth had given him the ability to remove inconveniences from life—lines, crowds, delays, uncertainty.
Violet had once found that impressive.
Eventually, she found it lonely.
That evening, she spread six invitation samples between their wineglasses.
“I like this one.”
Beckett glanced at it while typing a message.
“Which one?”
“The one I've been holding for thirty seconds.”
He looked up.
“Sorry.”
“You're not.”
“I am.”
“No, you're sorry that I noticed.”
He placed the phone facedown.
“Better?”
“Temporary.”
He smiled.
That smile had ruined her judgment from the beginning.
Beckett could be impossible, but when he looked directly at her, the entire world seemed to narrow.
They ordered dinner.
For twenty minutes, he genuinely tried.
They discussed flowers.
Guest lists.
The house Violet wanted someday outside Manhattan.
Then a family entered the restaurant.
Mother.
Father.
Two children.
The younger boy climbed into his father's lap while the mother laughed.
Violet watched them.
Beckett noticed.
“You're doing it again.”
“What?”
“That face.”
“What face?”
“The one where you're imagining something and pretending you're not.”
She smiled.
“Maybe I am.”
“What?”
She hesitated.
They had discussed children in general ways before.
Someday.
Maybe.
Later.
But the wedding was four months away.
Someday needed a shape.
“How many do you want?”
Beckett frowned.
“How many what?”
“Children.”
The expression on his face should have warned her.
Instead, she laughed.
“Don't look terrified.”
“I’m not terrified.”
“You look like someone just placed a snake on the table.”
“I just wasn't expecting that question.”
“We're getting married.”
“I’m aware.”
“Married people sometimes discuss these things.”
Beckett leaned back.
His phone buzzed again.
He ignored it.
That should have reassured her.
It didn't.
“I've never planned on children.”
Violet stared at him.
“Never?”
“Not seriously.”
She tried to keep her voice light.
“Okay. Then seriously think about it now.”
He exhaled.
“Violet.”
“What?”
“I’m running a company operating in twenty-three countries.”
“I know what you do.”
“I’m barely home already.”
“That isn't permanent.”
He didn't answer quickly enough.
Her stomach tightened.
“It isn't permanent, right?”
“My schedule will improve eventually.”
“When?”
“After the merger.”
“You said that before Singapore.”
“That expansion was different.”
“You said it before the Boston acquisition too.”
He rubbed his forehead.
“Can we not do this tonight?”
“Do what?”
“Turn a hypothetical child into an argument.”
“It isn't hypothetical to me.”
That changed everything.
Beckett looked at her.
Violet's heart pounded.
“I want to be a mother.”
He stared at her as though she had revealed a secret identity.
“I've always wanted that.”
“You never said it like this.”
“I thought you knew.”
“How would I know something you never clearly told me?”
“Because we've been together three years.”
“That's not an answer.”
She fought tears.
“What did you think our future looked like?”
“You and me.”
“And?”
“And our life.”
“What does that mean?”
He grew frustrated.
“Why does there have to be more?”
“Because I want more.”
“More than us?”
She stared at him.
“That isn't fair.”
He leaned forward.
“Children change everything.”
“Yes.”
“They destroy schedules. They create constant uncertainty.”
She almost laughed at how much that sounded like Beckett.
“That is generally how humans work.”
“I’m serious.”
“So am I.”
“My company needs complete focus right now.”
“Your company has needed complete focus every day I've known you.”
“Because thousands of people depend on me.”
“And you like it.”
He blinked.
“What?”
“You like being needed by something that never asks you to be emotionally vulnerable.”
His face hardened.
“That sounds like something your therapist would say.”
“I don't have a therapist.”
“Maybe we both need one.”
She almost smiled.
Then he said it.
The sentence that ended everything.
“If becoming a mother matters that much to you, maybe you've chosen the wrong man.”
The restaurant noise vanished.
Violet felt as though someone had struck her.
Beckett immediately realized what he had said.
“Violet—”
She stood.
“Don't.”
“I didn't mean—”
“You did.”
“I’m frustrated.”
“And honest.”
She walked out.
He followed.
They argued quietly beside the curb.
He believed the argument would continue at home.
Violet knew it wouldn't.
That night, lying beside him in his penthouse, she stared at the ceiling until 4:13 a.m.
Beckett finally slept.
Violet got up.
She packed one suitcase.
She removed her engagement ring.
For several minutes she stood beside the bed holding it.
She wanted him to wake.
Wanted him to stop her.
Wanted him to become the version of himself she had spent years believing was underneath all the ambition.
He didn't move.
She placed the ring on the nightstand.
Then she left.
Eleven days later, alone in the bathroom of a small Brooklyn apartment she had rented under her middle name, Violet stared at two pink lines.
Her knees gave out.
She sat on the floor.
For twenty minutes she cried.
Not because she didn't want the baby.
Because she did.
Immediately.
Completely.
Terrifyingly.
Her first instinct was to call Beckett.
She picked up the phone.
His name was still pinned to the top of her favorites.
Her thumb hovered over it.
Then she remembered his voice.
Children change everything.
My company needs complete focus.
Maybe you've chosen the wrong man.
Violet lowered the phone.
She told herself she would call tomorrow.
Then the next day.
Then after the first appointment.
Then after twelve weeks.
Then after she was certain everything was healthy.
Fear became delay.
Delay became silence.
Silence became something too large to cross.
What Violet never knew was that twenty-two minutes after she left the penthouse, Beckett woke.
He reached across the bed.
Found emptiness.
Saw the ring.
And for the first time since his mother's funeral, Beckett Vale panicked.
By 8:00 a.m., three investigators were searching for her.
By the end of the week, he had barely slept.
By the end of the month, anger had become the only emotion he knew how to carry.
Back in the neonatal room eight months later, Violet watched Beckett sitting beside Celeste's bassinet.
His expensive jacket was folded across a plastic chair.
His sleeves were rolled up.
His phone remained off.
He had been there for six hours.
She didn't know what frightened her more.
That he might leave again.
Or that he seemed determined not to.
Then Beckett looked through the glass at her.
“I want to hold her.”
Violet's heart stopped.
Because this was the moment she had imagined during every lonely night of her pregnancy.
And she still didn't know whether giving him what he wanted would heal them—
May you like
or destroy the fragile world she had built without him.
---
