Deal with my sexy brother inlaw

The bathroom floor is freezing. I can feel every single tile pressed against my skin through the thin hospital gown. Cold. Hard. Unforgiving. Just like the truth. Blood pools beneath me, warm and sticky, a stark contrast to the ice-cold porcelain I'm leaning against. The cramping comes in waves—sharp, twisting pain that makes me bite down on my lip until I taste copper. But physical pain? That's nothing compared to what's happening inside my chest. I lost the baby an hour ago. Our baby. My baby. The nurses knocked twenty minutes ago, their soft voices muffled through the door. "Rose? Sweetheart, we need to check on you. Please let us in." I sent them away. Told them I needed a minute. What I actually need is to fall apart where no one can see me, where no one can tell me it'll be okay when we both know it won't. The door handle jiggles. "Rose?" Jasper's voice. Not concerned. Annoyed. "Come on, babe. You've been in there forever." I press my palm flat against the tiles, trying to ground myself. Trying to remember how to breathe. "Just... just give me a second," I manage to croak out. Silence. Then footsteps moving away. Good. I can't look at him right now. Can't face the pity I'm sure I'll see in his eyes, the awkward pat on the shoulder, the "we'll try again" speech that means nothing when your body just expelled the only thing that mattered. I hear his voice again, but it's distant now. He must be in the hallway. His phone rings—that stupid ringtone he refuses to change—and he answers immediately. "Yeah, it's done." His voice carries through the door better than he probably realizes. The bathroom ventilation system is s**t, and sound travels. "Finally. Thank god it's over." My breath catches. Thank god? "That baby was ruining everything, man. I couldn't move forward with it hanging over my head. Now I can focus on what actually matters—getting back what Maxello stole from me." The cramping intensifies, but I barely feel it. Every nerve in my body is tuned to his voice, to words that can't possibly mean what I think they mean. "Rose?" he continues, and I hear him laugh. Actually laugh. "She'll be fine. She's tougher than she looks. And honestly? This works out better for both of us." My hands are shaking so badly I have to clasp them together. Blood smears across my fingers. Another voice on his phone—I can't make out the words, but I hear the tone. Male. Questioning. "She'll stay," Jasper says, and there's such certainty in his voice it makes me nauseous. "She has nowhere else to go. Broken girls always stay. They're grateful someone wants them at all." The words slam into me harder than any physical pain ever could. Broken girls always stay. Is that what I am to him? Broken? Something damaged that should be grateful he picked me up? I press my face against the wall, the cool surface doing nothing to stop the heat building behind my eyes. I won't scream. I won't give him the satisfaction. But inside, something is crumbling, piece by piece, like a building collapsing in slow motion. "Yeah, I'll meet you tonight," Jasper continues. "Rose will probably want to go home and rest anyway. Perfect timing, actually. I've got the new access codes for Maxello's accounts. Once we drain them, we're set." Maxello. The name twists something in my gut. That's Jasper's business rival, the man he's been obsessed with destroying for months. The man whose success apparently matters more than the child we just lost. The child I just lost. Because clearly, Jasper never considered it "ours" at all. "Babe?" His voice is closer now. Right outside the door. "You okay in there? We should probably get going soon." Get going. Like we're leaving a restaurant, not a hospital where our baby just died. I stare at the door handle. It's one of those cheap ones that doesn't lock properly. He could come in if he wanted. He could push through and see me here, bleeding and broken on the floor, exactly like he described. But he doesn't. The footsteps retreat again. More phone conversation, his voice fading as he walks further down the hall. Something inside me shifts. The tears stop. The shaking stops. Everything stops except this cold, clear feeling spreading through my chest like frost across a window. He's celebrating. I'm bleeding out our child, and he's celebrating. The bathroom suddenly feels different. Not like a place of grief anymore, but like a barrier. A line drawn between the before and the after. Before: I believed him when he said he loved me. When he said we'd build a life together. When he touched my stomach and smiled and told me he couldn't wait to be a father. After: I know every word was a lie. I grip the edge of the sink and pull myself up. Pain shoots through my abdomen, but I welcome it. It keeps me focused. Keeps me from shattering completely. My reflection stares back at me from the mirror—pale, hollow-eyed, blood-stained. I look exactly how I feel. Broken. But maybe broken isn't the same as defeated. The door handle turns. Jasper steps in without knocking, phone still pressed to his ear. His eyes barely glance at me before he's holding up one finger—the universal sign for "wait, this is important." More important than me. More important than what we lost. "Yeah, I'm still here," he says into the phone, his free hand already reaching for my elbow like he's going to help me up. Like he's playing the part of concerned boyfriend. "Listen, I gotta go deal with this. I'll call you back." This. Not Rose. Not his girlfriend who just miscarried. This. He pockets his phone and finally—finally—looks at me. Really looks. "Jesus, Rose. You look terrible. We need to get you cleaned up." Not "are you okay." Not "I'm sorry." Not "we'll get through this." Just observation. Clinical. Distant. I let him guide me to standing, let him wrap his arm around my waist, let him walk me out of that bathroom into the harsh fluorescent lights of the hospital corridor. The nurses rush over immediately. Concerned faces, gentle hands, voices full of actual sympathy. "Oh honey, you should have let us help you sooner." "Let's get you into a clean gown." "The doctor wants to see you before you're discharged." Jasper handles it all with practiced ease. Nodding. Agreeing. Playing the supportive partner so well I almost believe it myself. Almost. But I heard him. I heard every single word. Thank god it's over. Broken girls always stay. As they lead me to a recovery room, as Jasper holds my hand and strokes my hair and makes all the right concerned noises, I feel that cold clarity settling deeper into my bones. He thinks I'm broken. He thinks I have nowhere to go. He thinks I'll stay because damaged girls are always so grateful to be wanted. The bathroom door is behind me now. That barrier between two lives. And I know, with absolute certainty, which side I'm going to choose.