Chapter 70: Changed
Dianna.
\[Present\]
“…What did you do?”
The question left my mouth before I could stop it.
The moment it echoed between us, I felt that quiet shift in the air. I could feel the way everything seemed to pause for just a second too long. I watched him, waiting, already bracing myself for something I couldn’t quite name.
Theodore didn’t answer.
He just looked at me and it unsettled me more than anger ever could have.
Then his gaze dropped to my stomach.
“When are you due?” he suddenly asked.
It took me a second to even process the question.
“…What?”
Instead of responding, he stepped closer like nothing had happened, like I hadn’t just asked something that should have changed everything.
His attention stayed on my stomach, his expression softening that made my chest tighten for a completely different reason.
“How far along are you?” he continued, quieter now.
“Theodore,” I said, more firmly this time, “I asked you something.”
“I know.”
He said it like it didn’t matter.
Or maybe like it mattered too much.
But he didn’t go back to it. Instead, he studied me like he was trying to figure it out himself.
“Seven months?” he guessed. “Or… a little more?”
I stared at him.
So this was what he was doing.
“…Seven months,” I said anyway.
“Seven…” he repeated under his breath.
Then his hand lifted.
His palm settled against my stomach, gentle but certain, like it belonged there.
“You carried this for that long,” he said.
I looked at him properly this time, not just at his face but at everything he was holding back behind it.
His expression was calm, almost too calm, like he had decided what to show me and what to keep buried.
But I had known him long enough to see the difference. It was in the stillness of his gaze, in the way his jaw stayed slightly tense even when his voice wasn’t.
There was something in him he wasn’t letting out, something I couldn’t reach.
I tried to read it anyway, but it only left me more uncertain. A part of me wanted to push, to ask again, to force him to stay in the question I had already placed between us earlier. But another part of me hesitated.
Because time had passed.
Because we were not who we used to be in the same way anymore.
And because standing in front of him now, I could feel it clearly. There had been changes in both of us that neither of us had fully spoken out loud yet.
Before I could answer him, he took a breath.
Then he stepped back.
The movement was sudden enough that I instinctively followed it with my eyes.
“Come in and pack my wife’s things,” he said.
My brows drew together slightly. “What are you talking about?”
But he didn’t answer me.
Instead, the front door opened.
It swung and in came men in black suits.
One after another.
No introduction. No hesitation. No acknowledgment of me standing there as they entered my home like it was already part of a decision I hadn’t agreed to.
I stepped back slightly, my hand instinctively going to my stomach, watching as they spread out without a word.
One moved toward the shelves. Another toward the small table. Another toward the corner where my clothes were folded neatly. Everything I owned in this place, everything I had built quietly in the distance I chose for myself, suddenly became something to be gathered, sorted, removed.
“Wait,” I said, my voice sharper now. “What is this?” I asked, but no one answered me.
Not them.
Not even Theodore.
He stood near the door, watching them like this was already settled.
My chest tightened as I looked back at him.
“Theodore,” I said again, trying to anchor him back to the conversation we were just having. “What are they doing?”
For a moment, he didn’t respond.
Then he looked at me.
“I’m taking you with me,” he said simply.
I let out a short, disbelieving laugh. “You don’t get to decide that. Answer my question first.”
My voice came sharper than I intended. It should have mattered. It should have at least made him pause.
Instead, I watched another man move past us and carefully gather my things. My clothes, my small stack of books, even the few personal items I had kept in a corner. Everything was being handled like inventory. Like my protest didn’t exist in the same reality as their actions.
My chest tightened.
Theodore didn’t look at them.
He didn’t need to.
His attention stayed on me, steady and unbroken.
“I already did,” he said quietly.
My throat tightened at that.
Because he hadn’t.
He had avoided it.
“This is not your decision alone,” I said, firmer now. I forced myself to hold his gaze, even as something uneasy kept building in my chest.
His eyes didn’t waver.
For a brief moment, they lowered to my stomach.
Then they returned to me.
“And this,” he said, “is not something I’m leaving behind again.”
“I didn’t agree to this yet,” I said again, slower this time, as if repetition might force him to hear me differently.
“I know,” he replied.
And then, before I could react, he caught my arm.
“Wait–Theodore!”
He was already turning me toward the door.
“Where are you taking me?” I asked nervously.
“Back home,” he simply said.
I pulled slightly against his hold and that was when he finally stopped.
Theodore paused at the doorway.
I stared at him. "You’ve changed,” I said.
The moment it left my mouth, I saw his shoulders tensed slightly.
He didn’t respond right away.
Instead, his hand loosened just a little on my arm, though he didn’t let go.
“I told you I’m not going with you unless you answer my questions,” I said. “And who are these people?”
I pointed at them.
He ran a hand through his hair, looking away for a second like he was collecting himself.
When he looked back at me, his expression had shifted.
“Dianna, please don’t make this harder,” he said.
My chest tightened at that.
“I need you to come with me peacefully,” he continued. “I got us a new place. We are going to get married again.”
My mind stalled for a second.
“What?” I said under my breath.
“Your company needs you,” he added, “Your grandmother...something happened to her."
That last sentence landed differently.
Instantly, my hand moved on its own, grabbing his sleeve.
“…Take me to her.”