Chapter 2
Ryan’s face drained of all color.
He didn’t reach for the photo.
He didn’t say a word.
Vanessa’s hand started shaking.
“Ryan?”
I looked from one to the other.
The ultrasound photo fluttered in the air between us.
I grabbed it before it could fall.
The date was stamped in the corner.
Six weeks ago.
I counted backward in my head.
Ryan had been “working late” that entire week.
Told me there was a big project deadline.
Slept in the guest room because he didn’t want to disturb me.
I felt the baby kick hard against my ribs.
“Vanessa,” I said, my voice surprisingly steady. “How far along are you?”
She swallowed.
“Five months.”
The mall seemed to spin.
Five months.
That meant Ryan had gotten her pregnant three months into my own pregnancy.
I looked at my husband.
The man I’d married four years ago.
The man who’d held my hair back during morning sickness.
The man who’d rubbed my feet every single night for the last seven months.
All while he was building another family.
“Is it yours?” I asked him.
Ryan opened his mouth.
Closed it again.
Vanessa stepped forward.
“Of course it’s his. We’ve been together for seven months. He moved in with me three weeks ago.”
My vision blurred.
“Moved in?”
Ryan finally found his voice.
“Emily, let me explain—”
“Explain what?” I screamed. “That while I was picking out crib sheets and painting the nursery, you were signing a lease with her?”
Tears spilled down Vanessa’s face.
“He said you guys were done. That you’d been sleeping in separate rooms for months. That the baby was a mistake from a drunken night before you separated.”
I let out a sound that was half laugh, half sob.
“We’ve never slept in separate rooms. Not once. Until last week when you claimed you needed ‘space to think.’”
Ryan reached for me again.
I stumbled back.
My heel caught on something.
I would have fallen if a stranger hadn’t caught my elbow.
“Careful, honey,” an older woman said. “You don’t want to hurt that baby.”
That was when the reality crashed over me.
I was eight months pregnant.
Standing in the middle of a crowded mall.
Having my entire life destroyed in front of strangers.
And I couldn’t even breathe properly.
I pressed a hand to my stomach.
The baby was kicking frantically now.
Like it could feel my terror.
“Emily,” Ryan said softly. “Please. Let’s get you somewhere quiet.”
I looked at the baby-store bags at his feet.
“Did you buy the same things for both of us?”
He didn’t answer.
“Did you compare crib prices? Wonder which baby would get the better stroller?”
Vanessa gasped.
“Oh my God. You were doing the same thing for both of us.”
Ryan’s face was desperate now.
“Both of you need to stop. This isn’t the place.”
I handed the ultrasound photo back to Vanessa.
Then I reached into my own purse.
Pulled out my own ultrasound.
The one Ryan had framed on his desk at work.
The one he’d carried in his wallet.
I held it next to hers.
Two babies.
Conceived three months apart.
Same father.
“Your son or daughter is going to have a half-sibling three months older,” I said to Vanessa. “Congratulations.”
I turned and walked away.
Ryan called my name.
I didn’t stop.
I didn’t look back.
I walked past the food court.
Past the jewelry store where we’d bought our wedding bands.
Past the children’s clothing shop where I’d just been twenty minutes earlier, buying tiny onesies.
My car was in the parking garage.
I fumbled with my keys.
Hands shaking too badly to get them in the lock.
“Emily, wait.”
Ryan was behind me.
I spun around.
“Don’t come near me.”
He stopped ten feet away.
“I made a mistake. A terrible, unforgivable mistake. But I love you. This baby—our baby—is everything to me.”
“Then why?” I whispered. “Why her? Why now?”
He ran a hand through his hair.
The same gesture he made when he was caught in a lie.
I’d seen it a hundred times before.
About stupid things.
Forgotten bills.
Where he’d been after work.
I’d believed every excuse.
“Vanessa was a distraction,” he said. “Work was so stressful. And you were so tired all the time, and I didn’t want to burden you—”
“Burden me?” I shrieked. “You impregnated another woman because you didn’t want to burden me?”
A security guard was watching from a distance.
Probably wondering if he needed to intervene.
Ryan lowered his voice.
“I’m ending it with her. Today. Right now. It was never supposed to go this far. I never meant for her to get pregnant.”
“But she is pregnant,” I said. “Five months. That’s not a mistake you can erase with a phone call.”
“I’ll take care of it. Financially. Whatever she needs. But I’m coming home. To you. To our family.”
I stared at him.
Really stared.
For the first time in four years, I didn’t recognize the man in front of me.
“Did you love her?”
The question hung in the hot garage air.
Ryan hesitated.
Just a split second.
But I saw it.
“Emily—”
“Did you tell her you loved her?”
He looked at the ground.
“I told her what she needed to hear to keep things peaceful.”
“Like you told me what I needed to hear for seven months?”
The baby kicked again.
Harder this time.
A sharp pain low in my abdomen made me gasp.
I doubled over slightly.
Ryan was at my side instantly.
“Emily? What’s wrong?”
“Get away from me.”
“You’re having a contraction.”
“I’m fine.”
“You’re not fine. We need to get you to the hospital.”
Another pain hit.
Stronger.
Closer together than they should be at eight months.
Ryan didn’t ask again.
He opened my car door.
Helped me into the passenger seat.
I was too dizzy to fight him.
He got in the driver’s side.
Started the engine.
Pulled out of the garage.
We didn’t speak on the drive to the hospital.
I stared out the window.
Watched the world pass by.
Normal people living normal lives.
No idea that mine had just ended.
Ryan reached over to hold my hand during a contraction.
I pulled away.
He didn’t try again.
When we pulled into the emergency room driveway, he was out of the car and around to my side before I could undo my seatbelt.
“I can do it myself,” I said.
“I know you can. But let me help you anyway.”
He helped me out.
Kept one hand hovering near my elbow without touching me.
Like he was afraid I’d shatter.
Or that I’d slap him again.
Probably both.
The ER nurses moved fast when they saw how pregnant I was.
They got me into a wheelchair.
Asked a million questions.
Ryan answered every single one.
My medical history.
My due date.
How often the contractions were coming.
He knew all the answers.
Because he’d been to every doctor’s appointment.
Every ultrasound.
Every birthing class.
While also going to Vanessa’s appointments.
I closed my eyes.
Wondering how many nights he’d left my side to go to hers.
How many times he’d kissed my forehead then driven across town to kiss hers.
The nurse hooked me up to monitors.
The baby’s heartbeat filled the room.
Strong.
Steady.
Alive.
“Baby looks good,” the nurse said. “But you’re having regular contractions. We’re going to keep you here for observation. Try to relax.”
Relax.
Right.
Ryan pulled a chair next to the bed.
“Emily—”
“Did you go to her ultrasounds too?”
He flinched.
“Once.”
“Did you hold her hand?”
Silence.
“Did you cry when you saw your baby on the screen? Like you did with ours?”
A tear slid down his cheek.
“Yes.”
I turned my face away from him.
Stared at the wall.
The heart monitor beeped rhythmically.
Each beep a reminder of the life inside me.
A life that would never know a normal family.
Because its father had built two families at once.
“I need you to leave,” I said quietly.
“Emily, please. I’m not going anywhere.”
“I don’t want you here when my baby is born. Not after what you’ve done.”
He stood up.
Leaned over the bed.
I could smell his cologne.
The same one I’d bought him for our anniversary.
The same one Vanessa probably smelled on him every night.
“I’m your husband,” he said. “I have every right to be here.”
“Not anymore.”
I pressed the call button for the nurse.
She appeared in the doorway.
“Everything okay?”
“My husband is leaving,” I said. “Could you show him out?”
Ryan looked like I’d stabbed him.
Good.
Maybe now he knew a fraction of what I was feeling.
“I’m not leaving,” he said.
The nurse looked between us.
“Sir, if the patient is asking you to leave—”
“I’m her husband. She’s upset. She doesn’t mean it.”
I sat up as much as I could with the monitors attached.
“I mean every word. Get out, Ryan. Or I’ll tell the police you assaulted me in the parking garage.”
His eyes widened.
“You wouldn’t.”
“Try me.”
We stared at each other.
The nurse shifted uncomfortably.
Ryan finally grabbed his jacket.
“I’ll be in the waiting room,” he said. “If you need anything—anything at all—I’m there.”
He walked out.
The door clicked shut behind him.
I collapsed back against the pillows.
The tears I’d been holding back finally came.
Great, heaving sobs that shook the entire bed.
The nurse came over and put a hand on my shoulder.
“Would you like me to call someone? Your mom? A sister?”
I shook my head.
My parents lived three states away.
My sister was studying abroad.
Ryan was my emergency contact.
My only family in this city.
And now he was the last person I wanted to see.
“I’m okay,” I lied.
She patted my hand.
“Just try to rest. The doctor will be in soon.”
She left.
I was alone in the room.
Alone with the beeping monitors.
Alone with my baby.
Alone with the knowledge that my husband had another woman five months pregnant with his child.
I reached for my phone.
I needed to call someone.
Anyone.
But who?
I opened my contacts.
Scrolled past Ryan’s name.
Past his mother’s.
Past our mutual friends.
All of them knew us as the perfect couple.
The high school sweethearts who’d made it.
Who’d bought the house with the white picket fence.
Who were expecting their first child.
Nobody knew about the other woman.
Nobody knew about the other baby.
I closed my contacts.
Opened the browser instead.
Typed in a name.
Vanessa Marie Carter.
I hit search.
Her Facebook profile came up first.
Public.
I clicked on it.
Her profile picture was of her and Ryan.
Taken two months ago at the beach.
He had his arm around her.
They were both smiling.
The caption read: “My everything. Can’t wait to start our family.”
I scrolled.
More pictures.
Ryan at her family’s Thanksgiving.
Ryan holding her hand at a doctor’s office.
Ryan assembling a crib in what must have been her apartment.
Every picture was timestamped.
Every single one taken while I was home, pregnant and alone, believing he was working.
The most recent picture was from that morning.
Three hours ago.
Vanessa holding a tiny pink dress.
“Shopping for our little princess with my love,” the caption said.
I felt the blood drain from my face.
A girl.
Vanessa was having a girl.
And Ryan knew.
He’d been buying pink clothes.
While with me, he’d insisted we keep the gender a surprise.
Another contraction hit.
Stronger than before.
The monitor started beeping faster.
The nurse rushed in.
“Okay, let’s check that cervix. Looks like things are moving a little faster than we’d like.”
I barely heard her.
I was still staring at the picture of Ryan and Vanessa.
At the life he’d built in the shadows.
At the daughter he already knew about.
While my baby—our baby—was coming three weeks early.
Because of him.
Because of his lies.
“I’m ready to have this baby,” I said to the nurse.
May you like
And for the first time all day, I meant it.
I was ready to meet the only person in this whole mess who hadn’t lied to me.
