Chapter 1 Prologue

• “I feel strangely on edge these days. Like some big problem is running my away and it will knock me out for good,” Nadia spoke softly.
• “Babe,” Sandra, her best friend, reached across the table and laid her hand on top of Nadia’s, squeezing her fingers. “You need to relax.”
• “I know I do. But it is just difficult…”
• Sighing, Nadia set her fork down and pulled her hand back. Her friend watched through sympathetic eyes that were too much for Nadia to bear. She gazed out of the café window, looking at people busily making their way through the day.
• “Nadia, I know things haven’t been great lately between the boss nagging you about your work—”
• “I don’t blame him… My writing has been downright nonsensical as of late,” Nadia chuckled ruefully. “I can’t complain about him giving my promotion to others.” Like her best friend, she thought.
• A wave of shame burned through her. Sandra was her best friend and had worked in the same company as her for four years.
• “You can complain about that! Who hasn’t had a writer’s block in our field? If not for you, would the magazine be as famous as it is? You brought it into prominence… they should be kinder to you.” Sandra stabbed her expensive steak as she spoke.
• Nadia smiled at her friend’s defensiveness. She remembered how the other asked her to be more assertive. But Nadia had always been scared of showing her true feelings. Like the world would fall apart if she did.
• “You shouldn’t speak about him like that. Fred already knows we are close… if words get to him, he might take away your work opportunities, too.”
• Sandra looked at the plate of food in front of Nadia and frowned. “You’re going to eat a sandwich and only that?”
• “That’s all I feel like eating.”
• “Since when?” Sandra raised a brow. “And why aren’t you drinking with me?” Her eyes grew wide. “Don’t tell me… you’re finally—”
• “No,” Nadia cut her off. “I’m not.”
• The look of sympathy returned. “Oh… I just thought. Are you sure that is all you want to eat?”
• “I’m sure,” Nadia lied.
• When Sandra suggested the expensive restaurant, Nadia’s ego hadn’t allowed her to protest. Pride kept her from asking her husband for money. More so because they had been having issues lately. She didn’t want to add more.
• Sandra was never one to worry about money. She was a trust fund baby who was also a hard worker. Her mother was an interior designer and her father a surgeon/ She only had one sibling to share her family’s wealth with. Funnily, back when she was the golden egg of the company, she had hired and mentored Sandra.
• It had been a while since she was top of the industry, with Sandra taking her place as the golden child.
• “Lunch is on me!” Sandra sang.
• “I can pay for my food, Sandra.”
• Sandra exhaled but didn’t push it. “I take it things at home haven’t improved?”
• Nadia swallowed and shook her head. “I get more disappointed every month that passes. Quinn is desperate for a child but I…” she stopped speaking, her throat too dry to continue.
• “You are putting way too much pressure on yourself. Or maybe he is putting pressure on you?”
• Nadia shook her head. “He’s not. He has been patient. We have been trying for two years. I thought it was just taking a little longer but after a year…We started seeing specialists and getting fertility treatment. We only have medical bills to show for them.”
• “And then the stress started affecting your work and social life,” Sandra chimed in.
• “It’s just difficult to have friendships when everyone you know has kids and keeps telling me to give birth quickly.”
• “Nadia, honey, if you keep bottling everything up, one of these days, you are going to explode. Why don’t you tell Quinn that you need a break from trying? If he loves you, he will understand.”
• “We are taking a break, Sandra,” Nadia whispered. “We haven’t had sex in over three months.”
• Sandra’s blue eyes grew wide and she leaned back. “Wow.”
• “He suggested we take a break. Our sex was determined by dates on the calendar and body temperature. So, he sat me down and told me he hated the strain it was putting on me.”
• “How sweet of him.”
• “Quinn is a good man and he loves me as much as I love him. And I feel sorry because I feel like… Like he is being cheated. We had big dreams when we got married. We would build our careers and buy a nice place in the city. Have a dozen babies. Instead, we are stuck in a rental apartment and we can’t afford the down payment to the property here.”
• “Because you made this place worth investing in. You wrote amazing articles about these localities and made the prices go through the roof,” Sandra commented. “I don’t think it is funny… Just ironic.”
• Nadia understood. Sandra owned a four-bedroom apartment in the neighborhood. It was floor to ceiling windows and overseeing the city skyline. Anyone could look into her apartment if they had a keen eye.
• “It is ironic. My writing made the neighborhood get investments and change but then the stress ruined my career and now my family lives on one salary and we have a ton of medical bills.”
• “Nadia, if you need a loan.”
• “I’m okay. We stopped seeing experts months ago and honestly, I don’t want to go back.”
• Sandra pondered on her words carefully. “Maybe… maybe you two aren’t meant to have a baby. Not everyone is meant to be a parent and that is fine,” she added quickly.
• Nadia’s heart clenched painfully at the words. She was twenty-eight and suddenly felt alone and old.
• - - - - - -
• Nadia had spent the majority of her afternoon staring out of her office window. Finally, frustrated by the lack of ideas, she decided to walk out of the building and right into the rooftop park that was connected to it. Nadia slowly wandered around the park, watching the families around her.
• There was a teenage boy, snapping pictures with his phone. When he pointed his camera at one of the apartment buildings—Sandra’s apartment building, Nadia watched his eyes widen with shock. It took a moment before he started taking pictures rapidly. It was then Nadia realized that the boy was taking pictures of Sandra’s open kitchen.
• What was the boy looking at?
• “Where are his…?”
• She reached the boy and noticed Sandra’s blinds wide open. Through them, she saw the immaculate and luxurious kitchen. Apparently, Sandra had gone home early and was naked and using her countertop to sit on while a man stood in front of her, also naked, thrusting into her.
• “Oh shit,” Nadia swore, momentarily frozen just like the teenager in front of her.
• Sandra’s face was dripping with lust, totally oblivious to her surrounding apart from the man in front of her. Her head was thrown back as her lover sucked on one of her breasts. With one hand, she held his blond hair. With the other, she gripped the counter, using it to move her hips against his.
• “I love this city!” the young voyeur breathed.
• “Stop taking pictures,” Nadia hissed at the boy, pushing his phone down.
• “Hey!” the boy complained.
• “What’s the problem here?” A man and a woman swiftly approached Nadia, the boy’s parents, she assumed.
• “Your son is taking pictures he shouldn’t be taking,” Nadia informed. “Erase those pictures right now.”
• “Oh my god,” Nadia heard the mom exclaim at she looked at the window. “How indecent.”
• Nadia was indignant on her friend’s behalf. “She is in her own house. She can do as she pleases.”
• “She should close the blinds then!” the mother snapped. Then she looked at her husband. “Right, honey? Honey!”
• The teenager had learned his behavior from his father, it seemed.
• Instinctively, Sandra looked at the window again. The windows were soundproof but it was obvious Sandra was screaming her lungs off, eyes squeezed shut. She forced her eyes back to the young boy.
• “Give me the phone,” she repeated through clenched teeth.
• “Fuck no,” the boy spat.
• “Why you—” Nadia snatched the phone out of his hand, her eyes flashing back to Sandra’s window.
• There was two things in the world that keeps someone from going insane. Good friends and love. In that moment, Nadia lost both of them. Her heart dropped. It squeezed, making her unable to breath. Her thoughts were mangled and bitter until her heart broke. Everything inside her broke.
• Sandra’s eyes opened and she stared in horror through her window, realizing she had forgotten to close her blinds again. Her lover followed her gaze, looking over his shoulder and through the window, his eyes growing wide.
• “Mother… fuckers…” Nadia gasped.
• “Miss, watch your language around my son and give him back his phone.”
• “Motherfuckers,” Nadia said forcefully while she watched Sandra and her husband Quinn scramble to get their clothes back on.
• “It’s bad enough that my poor son just saw that indecent behavior. Now give him back his phone and watch your language.”
• “Those dirty fucking bastards. Cheating assholes…”
• “For God’s sake, your language!” the boy’s mother yelled.
• Nadia had finally snapped. Her chest heaving, she whipped around to face the woman. “You want the fucking phone, woman? For what? So your filthy little son can jerk off to it tonight?”
• The woman gasped.
• “Or would you rather your husband confiscated the phone and wank off to another woman tonight?”
• “How dare you accuse me?” the husband howled.
• “Give the phone back, right now!” the mother demanded.
• Nadia looked at the window. Sandra and Quinn were half-dressed as they scurried out of the kitchen. She turned her attention back to the family of tourists before her. “You want the phone?” Nadia held the phone high up and flung it over the railing. “Go get the fucking phone yourself, then.”
• She sprinted to the stairs that would lead her to the office. She heard the boy’s mother screaming behind her.
• “Someone call the cops!”
• Her vision was black as she took the steps down three at a time despite her tall heels. Conveniently enough. Sandra’s building was a few steps from the staircase. Another thing she bitched about… the people flocking near her apartment building and ruining her piece. Now, Nadia rejoiced at the proximity.
• “Fucking bitch.” She sped up as she neared the entry to her building. She forgot her manners as she shoved a wall aside in her haste to go through the door. A man’s deep voice called out, somewhat stunned and concerned.
• “Pardon me, ma’am. You should be careful…”
• Nadia ignored him and his suggestion as Sandra and Quinn, hastily dressed, stepped out of the elevator. Nadia stopped short.
• “YOU FUCKING ASSHOLES!”
• Nadia vaguely recalled that there were a few people in the lobby.
• Sandra froze, but Nadia’s husband took two steps toward her, palms up. “Nadia, calm down.”
• “Quinn, you fucking bastard!”
• “Calm down!” he yelled.
• “Nadia,” Sandra said shakily.
• Nadia turned her fury on her. “And you,” she hissed. “You whore!”
• People gasped around her.
• “Excuse me, ma’am,” someone said from behind her. “What’s goin—”
• She was too far gone to answer to anyone else. She had a grudge against the cheaters standing in front of her.
• “You were supposed to be my best friend. And you are fucking my husband?”
• More gasps.
• “Nadia, stop. This is my apartment building and you are embarrassing me,” Sandra hissed.
• Nadia jerked back. “Are you kidding me? I am embarrassing you?”
• “Nadia—” Quinn said.
• “Ma’am, maybe we should—” the faceless character behind her said.
• “You were sitting naked on top of your kitchen counter, fucking my husband with your window open and I AM EMBARRASSING YOU?”
• Sandra’s nostrils flared. “You dam…” She shook her head. “We couldn’t talk about it like adults, could we?”
• Nadia threw her head back in laughter. “Doing it like adults went out of the window when you did my husband with open windows. You were basically asking for a confrontation!”
• “This is your own fault, Nadia!” Sandra snapped back. “You were nagging his head off and he got tired of you.”
• The last unshattered piece of her heart broke. Silently, Nadia looked at Quinn.
• “Nadia, we have been having issues for a while. You knew that.”
• “We had problems, but I didn’t get the memo that we were supposed to have lovers on the side!”
• Quinn sighed and spoke with an exceedingly calm voice. “When was the last time you and I talked?”
• “This morning when we left for work.”
• Quinn rolled his eyes. “Actually talked, Nadia. When did we last go on a date or laugh together?”
• “We share a life, Quinn.”
• Quinn shook his head. “We live in the same apartment. Nothing apart from that.”
• Nadia chuckled nitterly when he trailed off. “Don’t worry about what the little tramp things. I confessed to her when I thought she was my friend that we haven’t had sex in months.”
• “And why do you think that is?” Sandra interrupted. “Because he loves me. Not you. And he can’t bear to have sex with someone he doesn’t love.”
• Nadia swallowed the tightness in her throat, pushing back the sting in her eyes. She refused to cry in front of the cheating couple.
• “Is that true, Quinn?” she asked, fighting to keep her voice steady. “Do you love her?”
• Quinn held her gaze.
• “Answer me. Tell me if it is true.” She was willing to give him an out. “Was this all a mistake because of the stress we have been under? We can work through it if that is the case.”
• “He doesn’t want to work through it!” Sandra hissed from behind him. “He doesn’t want you anymore. He wants me. He loves me.”
• “Sandra, what the hell have you done?”
• It was the same faceless character again, the one who kept asking questions. Nadia had the vaguest notion it was the man she had shoved aside in her haste to get into the building.
• “Be quiet, Theo, and mind your own business,” Sandra said, her eyes fixed on Nadia.
• “This is my business, Sandra,” the man replied smoothly.
• “Quinn, talk to me,” Nadia said softly, ignoring the others. “Tell me it was a mistake.”
• “It wasn’t a mistake, Nadia!” Sandra yelled. “Why do you think he suggested you two stop having sex? He doesn’t want you. What’s more, the Boss doesn’t want you on the paper, either. He decided to give me your office. Nobody wants you because you have lost your tough.” She chuckled.
• “You’ve lost more than that. Did you think Quinn would want to have children with you when you are such a useless piece of shit? Two years of trying and you can’t even give him a child like he wants. I have been with him for four months and I am two months along—”
• Nadia could have dealt with anything else. But she was right in predicting that her life would fall apart. She truly broke. She didn’t allow Sandra to finish. She lunged.
• Quinn had to stand in between the two women while Nadia reached around him for Sandra’s perfectly styled hair. For her blouse and her lipstick-stained mouth.
• Later, she was told that she that she removed her heel and threw it at Sandra. When Quinn blocked it, Nadia grew so furious that she flung the other heel at the buildings glass entrance. It carried the weight of the world and Nadia’s emotions. One small heel broke the glass window, making it come back like glass rain.
• When she couldn’t reach Sandra, she pounded on Quinn’s chest. It took the unknown man behind her to pick her up by the waist and pull her off her husband for her to grow limp. The man calmed Nadia down, but she didn’t recall what he said for her to listen. Nadia couldn’t recall the cops arriving or taking her away.
• She made threats she didn’t remember. But she could guess what they could be. And just like that, Nadia’s life came crumbling down, leaving her a broken woman with nothing left.