After I Stopped Loving Him (Isabella and Ethan) novel Chapter 238

“I’ll go home for dinner with Mom when I’m done with work. If she misses me, she can always come by my studio.”

Natalie’s voice sharpened. “What’s got you so busy you can’t even come home? Sometimes I wonder if you think you’re too good for us now.”

Isabella replied, “Nobody would even know how long it’s been since I visited if you didn’t go around telling people.”

Natalie was quiet for a second, then snapped, “Isabella, I’m talking to you nicely and you’re accusing me of spreading rumors? Do you have any proof? If I get upset over this and end up sick, it’s on you.”

She hung up right after.

Natalie set her phone down and picked up the report from her last checkup, still sitting on the coffee table.

Last week she’d gone to the hospital and found out she was pregnant. She’d been over the moon, finally. But a week later, she started spotting. She went back in, worried, and got an ultrasound. There was still no sign of a heartbeat or fetal pole. According to the doctor, she should have been seven weeks along. By now, there should have been something.

They ran blood tests for hCG and progesterone. The numbers weren’t great.

The doctor told her straight up, the embryo wasn’t developing right. She’d probably lose the baby, maybe soon.

That news hit her so hard she could barely breathe.

She and Jordan had been hoping for a baby for so long. They never used birth control, not once since getting married. She knew how much it meant to Jordan, being an only child. They just hoped it would happen naturally. When nothing did, Jordan told people they wanted a couple years to themselves before having kids.

Was someone working against her?

Cursing her baby?

The first person she thought of was Cynthia. But then she remembered, she was the one in charge now. The house staff all listened to her. Cynthia never had the chance to do anything. Besides, Cynthia was so timid. For twenty years she’d been here, always walking on eggshells, trying to please everyone.

It couldn’t be Cynthia. It couldn’t be Isabella either. Isabella barely ever came home.

Natalie just couldn’t bring herself to believe it might be her own body’s fault, that her genes were the reason her first pregnancy was ending like this.