His Secret Wife Walked Away Pregnant novel · Chapter 2 of 24

Chapter 2: Blood on Fifty-Eighth

She follows Gavin to a boutique and the Plaza, bleeds in her car, and wakes in a hospital where the baby's heartbeat is strong.

I followed them to Madison Avenue.

Gavin parked outside a shop so expensive it had no sign.

He opened her door, and she took his hand, and they walked in without a glance at the street.

I pulled up my hood and went in behind them.

Veronica went from rack to rack, holding up a silver gown, cashmere gloves, a fur wrap.

Gavin nodded at each one, and a saleswoman carried it away.

He never looked at a single price.

Then she sat on a velvet bench, and my husband got down on one knee and fitted a crystal heel onto her foot.

He had once told me he would never kneel for anyone.

She laughed, and he looked up at her with a face I had never seen.

It was soft and open, and it adored her.

I had spent three years trying to earn that face.

"Your fiancée has wonderful taste," the saleswoman said.

Gavin didn't correct her.

"As of tonight," he said, "she does."

I pushed my back against a mirrored wall and dug my nails into my palms.

In three years he had never bought me a dress, a scarf or a birthday present with any thought in it.

When I'd asked for a small diamond once, he'd laughed. "Diamonds are tacky, Joanna. You don't need things like that."

So I had stopped wanting things.

Now he handed over a black card for a gown that cost more than my car, because she smiled at it.

They left with six bags, and I followed them to the Plaza.

Through the lobby glass I watched him take a key card from the desk.

The elevator doors closed on her hand sliding into his back pocket.

I walked back to my car and sat down hard.

I had just shut the door when the cramp hit.

It was low and sharp, and it folded me over the steering wheel.

A second one came, worse than the first.

I looked down and there was blood on my jeans.

"No," I said out loud. "No, no, no."

My hands shook so hard I dropped my phone twice.

It rang six times before he answered.

"Hey." Easy and relaxed, with soft music behind him. "What's up?"

"Where are you?"

"At Grandmother's. The house is a zoo, we're setting up for tonight."

He was lying, and he did it so smoothly.

"Gavin, something's wrong." My voice cracked. "I'm bleeding. It hurts. I need you to come."

He said nothing.

I could hear him thinking.

If he came for me he would have to leave her, and that meant excuses and risk.

"Gavin, please. I have to tell you something. I'm pregnant, I'm..."

Then I heard her, sweet and close to the phone.

"Babe? The champagne's getting warm. Come back to bed."

The last word died in my throat.

I never got to say it.

"Joanna, listen." He was whispering now, fast. "I can't leave. Grandmother's about to give a speech and the whole family is here. Call 911, okay? They'll get to you faster than I would."

"Gavin..."

"I have to go."

The line clicked.

I stared at the dark screen while another cramp tore through me, and I screamed into my sleeve.

I called 911 with my thumb.

I don't remember what I told them.

I remember the sirens, and a paramedic saying, "Stay with me, sweetheart."

I remember thinking that my husband was upstairs in a hotel bed with another woman.

And that he would never know there had been a baby.

Then everything went white.

When I opened my eyes there was a monitor beeping and a line in my arm.

The doctor at the foot of the bed held a clipboard and did not smile.

"Miss Keene," she said. "We need to talk about your pregnancy."

I stopped breathing.

"There was a bleed," she said. "A tear at the edge of the placenta. It's frightening, and it's common."

She turned the screen toward me.

A tiny flicker moved in the middle of a gray cloud.

"That is your baby's heartbeat," she said. "It's strong."

I started to cry, finally, with my hand over my mouth.

"You'll stay off your feet for forty-eight hours," she said. "No stairs, no stress, no standing for long."

She paused. "Is there someone I can call for you? Your husband?"

"No," I said.

It came out steady.

"No one is coming for me."

She nodded slowly and wrote something down.

Teagan burst through the curtain a minute later, still in her scrubs, her red hair falling out of its knot.

She had seen my name on the board in the ER.

"Jo. Oh my God. Jo."

She sat on the edge of the bed and held on to me and didn't say anything for a long time.

Then I told her all of it, from the glovebox to the Plaza.

Her face went from white to red.

"I'll kill him. I'll drive over there and I'll..."

"There's a gala tonight," I said. "Eight o'clock. His whole family will be in one room."

She stared at me.

"He told me no one would ever believe me," I said. "He said I'd be dragged out."

I wiped my face with the back of my hand.

"So I'm going to walk in there and let them look at me."

"Jo, the doctor said forty-eight hours."

"I'll sit down the whole time."

Teagan stood and pulled her phone out of her coat.

"I have a dress," she said. "And a car."

My own phone buzzed on the tray.

Gavin.

"Your Toyota's not in the garage. Why is your location at a hospital?"

A second message followed before I could breathe.

"Joanna. Answer me."

I turned the phone off and put it face-down under the blanket.

He had been tracking me for three years, and I had never known.

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