Everyone Mocks the Pregnant "Nobody," She's Secretly the Boss's Wife novel · Chapter 1 of 24
Chapter 1: Sweet Things
Avery, 25 weeks pregnant, sees her secret husband take another woman into a dessert cafe, is mocked in front of her coworkers, leaves her ring on his saucer and is summoned by the chairman.
I was twenty-five weeks pregnant when I saw my husband hold the door of a dessert café for another woman.
It was 12:41 on a Tuesday.
I was on the sidewalk across from my office tower with my lunch bag in my hand.
My husband was supposed to be on a plane to another city.
Through the café window I watched him lay his hand on the small of the woman's back.
I put my hand on the glass and felt the baby turn.
Then I pushed the door open and went in.
The café smelled of burnt sugar and coffee.
Half of floor nine was in there on their lunch hour, crowded around two pushed-together tables by the pastry case.
My husband, Nolan, had taken the corner booth with her.
Her name was Imogen Tarleton, and she ran people and culture for the whole company.
Two hours earlier she had come down to floor nine with a box of ginger chews, because she had heard I was sick in the mornings.
She had been kind to me every week since I started showing.
He had a plate of tiramisu in front of him and no suitcase anywhere.
I stood in the aisle with my bag against my stomach.
At 9:12 that morning he had texted me: "Landed in Boston. This city is miserable without you. Eat something sweet for me."
I had walked over for a slice of lemon cake.
"Boston," I said.
Nolan looked up.
For one second his face showed nothing at all, which is what it does when he is thinking fast.
Imogen was the first to move.
"Avery, sit down, you shouldn't be on your feet," she said, and she pulled a chair out for me with her own hands.
"Nolan got back early. We're doing the board dinner seating. It's so boring, I promise."
I did not sit.
Behind me, a chair scraped.
"Oh, it's payroll," a man at the long table said, loud enough for the café to hear.
"Pregnant Collins. Still no father on the form, huh? Someone's got to be proud."
A woman beside him laughed into her cup.
"My money's on the guy from the mailroom."
"Nobody's money is on anyone. She's a nobody, who'd even claim her?"
The whole table laughed.
I looked at Nolan.
He was the president of the company, and every person at that table worked for him.
He had once slept with his hand spread over my stomach so he could feel the baby move.
He looked at me, then at the tiramisu, and then at me again.
"Go back to your desk, Ms. Collins," he said.
His voice was perfectly even.
"Lunch is over at one."
The table laughed again, harder.
Imogen touched his sleeve and said, "Nolan, be kind."
I understood then that I was going to stand in that aisle and cry in front of forty people unless I did something with my hands.
So I did.
I pulled the chain out of the neck of my blouse.
On it hung the plain gold ring he had slid onto my finger at the county courthouse four months ago.
I had worn it under my clothes every day since, because he had asked me to.
"Until the board votes on Friday," he had said. "My father will use you if he knows. Give me until the vote."
I had never asked why a man who wasn't ashamed of me needed me to be invisible.
Nolan had never asked why a payroll clerk with a business degree chose a desk in his building, and I had never told him.
I unclasped the chain and laid the ring on the saucer next to his tiramisu.
It made a very small sound against the china.
Nobody at the long table noticed.
Imogen's eyes dropped to it, and her smile stayed exactly where it was.
Nolan did not touch it.
"Avery," he said, very low.
"You said Boston," I said, just as quietly.
"I'm done waiting for Friday."
I turned around and walked out of the Sugar Room with my back straight.
So I stepped out.
On the sidewalk the wind off the lake hit my face, and I let it.
I made it across the street and through the revolving door into the lobby before my hands started to shake.
The security guard at the front desk stood up as I passed.
He had said good morning to me every day for eight months and had never once stood up.
"Ms. Collins," he said. "Please stay where you are."
He held a phone to his ear and listened for a second.
"Mr. Lionel Tunstall wants to see you on forty," he said. "Right now."
Lionel Tunstall was the chairman.
He was also Nolan's father, and he had never learned my name.
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