He Got Engaged During My Labor, So I Chose His Rival novel · Chapter 3 of 24

Chapter 3: Nobody Will Believe You

Chase and his agent bring an NDA to her hospital bed. Janie quotes Clause 31 and its twelve million dollar penalty and demands a public apology on the jumbotron. Chase calls her a clause and walks out, and the team's van is on its way to dump her belongings by midnight.

Chase came to my room at nine the next morning, and he brought his agent and a paper bag from a bakery.

The bag was for him.

He ate a cinnamon roll at the foot of my bed while I sat there in a hospital gown with my son asleep on my arm.

He did not look at Gus once.

The agent stood by the door in a quarter-zip vest, holding a folder.

He was the man who had texted me the divorce papers.

"Janie," Chase said, with his mouth full. "You look tired."

"I had a baby in a gas station."

"I know. It's a mess. Let's make it clean."

He wiped his fingers on a napkin and nodded to the agent.

The agent set the folder on my tray table and opened it to a page with a yellow tab.

"This is the agreement and the nondisclosure," he said. "You sign here and here. You get Schedule C, fifty thousand dollars, and a two-bedroom apartment for six months."

"And what do I say?"

"Nothing," he said. "That's the point of the nondisclosure."

I picked up the pen and turned the page over.

Then I turned to the page with the red tab I had put there myself three years ago.

"Clause 31," I said. "Neither spouse may announce another partner while still married. The penalty is the full signing bonus for the contract year."

"Twelve million dollars," Lyle said from his corner.

He had a coffee on his knee and the shower curtain on the chair beside him.

Nobody had asked him to be there, and nobody had asked him to leave.

Chase stopped chewing.

"That clause is for if you cheat," he said.

"It says either spouse."

"It was a formality."

"It's on page twenty-two," I said. "It has a number."

The agent shifted his folder.

"Janie, let's be reasonable. Chase's engagement was announced by the team. He didn't announce anything."

"It was his face on the screen," I said.

"It was a clip," the agent said.

"He was smiling."

"He was waving," Chase said.

That was the first thing he had said all morning that made me want to throw something.

"So here are my terms," I said. "You say on that jumbotron, in front of the same crowd, that you announced it before the divorce was final. You say my name. You say it into a microphone."

"No."

"Then I take the twelve million."

He laughed.

It was the laugh he used on the sideline when a reporter asked a hard question.

"You won't take it. You can't even afford your own deposit."

"She can afford it," Lyle said. "I've got her IOU in my wallet."

Chase turned his head.

"Who is this guy?"

"I'm the driver," Lyle said.

Chase looked at me, and then at the shower curtain.

"Do you know how many people would kill for what you had?" he said. "A house. A card. A seat in the owner's box on national television."

"I know exactly what I had. I read it forty times."

"Then you know it was a job."

"I know you told every sponsor I was steady," I said. "I know I sat in that box for three years with a smile on, so they'd write a check for the word. I know I was the clause that made you look like someone who comes home."

Chase didn't answer.

He picked up a second cinnamon roll.

"That's the deal, Janie," he said. "The word was steady. It wasn't happy."

The room was quiet enough for me to hear Gus breathe.

"I'll sign," I said. "When you say it on the jumbotron."

"I'm not saying anything on a jumbotron."

"Then you'll be saying it in court, under oath, to a judge who'll want to know why a husband had his wife's insurance cancelled while she was in labor."

The agent cleared his throat.

"We should take this offline," he said, and he picked up the folder and turned for the door.

Lacey's gift basket was on the floor between us now.

Chase had shoved it off the foot of my bed to make room for his cinnamon roll.

It was still the size of a toddler.

The agent tried to carry the folder around it and could not.

He tried to push it with his foot, and the silver rattle inside shook so loudly that Gus opened one eye.

A nurse pushed open the door from the other side, and the basket jammed in the doorway with the agent on one side and her on the other.

"Sir," the nurse said. "This is a maternity ward."

"I'm leaving," the agent said.

"Then leave," she said, and she pulled the basket out of his way.

Chase stood.

He wiped the sugar from his hands onto his pants and looked down at me.

"Nobody is going to believe you," he said. "You're a clause."

He walked out without looking at my son.

I sat very still until the door closed behind him.

Then Lyle held up his phone so I could see the little red light in the corner.

"Ma'am," he said, "I got the whole thing on video. The sound's good."

"You were recording?"

"I record everything," he said. "It's a dash cam habit."

He tapped the screen.

"There's a second thing. A woman from the team just called the hospital looking for you. She's coming up with a van. She says you've got until midnight to collect your things from the house, and your things are going to be in the lobby either way."

← Chapter 2 · All chapters · Chapter 4 →

Want to keep talking to characters like these? Chat with AI romance characters: AI Boyfriend · AI Girlfriend · Dark Romance · Fantasy Romance · BL (Boys’ Love) · Billionaire Boyfriend · Mafia Boyfriend · Possessive Boyfriend · Hockey Boyfriend · Older Boyfriend · K-Drama Boyfriend · Anime Boyfriend · Vampire Boyfriend · Werewolf Boyfriend · Demon Boyfriend · Fae Romance · GL (Girls’ Love) · Anime Girlfriend · Goth & Alt Girlfriend · Gamer Girlfriend · Tsundere Girlfriend · Fantasy Girlfriend