Chapter 4: How We Got Here
Four years earlier, Elena had believed Preston Pierce was the kindest man she had ever met.
He was already a rising star in obstetrics when they first crossed paths at a medical conference in Boston. She was a surgical nurse with sharp instincts and a dry sense of humor. He had approached her at the coffee station after her presentation on emergency C-section protocols and told her, without a trace of arrogance, that she had just made half the room look underqualified.
They were married eleven months later.
For the first two years, their life was almost unfairly perfect. Long shifts that ended in shared takeout and quiet laughter. Sunday mornings in bed. The decision to try for a baby felt natural, inevitable.
Then Khloe arrived.
She was twenty-four, pretty in a soft, calculated way, and always seemed to need Dr. Pierce’s personal guidance. At first Elena dismissed the unease. Interns were often starstruck. Preston was brilliant and patient with his students.
But the late nights increased. The phone calls that Preston took in another room. The way Khloe’s eyes lingered on him a second too long whenever Elena visited the hospital.
The real fracture began the night Elena overheard Khloe in the staff lounge.
“She’s so dramatic,” Khloe had said, laughing lightly. “Always checking up on him. Honestly, if I were Dr. Pierce, I’d feel smothered.”
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Elena never told Preston what she heard. She told herself she was being insecure.
She was wrong.
