He Toasted His Mistress at My Shower, So I Killed His App novel · Chapter 1 of 24
Chapter 1: Congratulations
At her baby shower Cora's husband introduces his pregnant mistress, his mother hugs the mistress, and Cora walks out and opens the license that says the app is hers to switch off.
Sixty guests were holding plates of lemon cake when my husband tapped a spoon against his glass.
Bradley stood under the banner I had glued gold glitter onto at two that morning.
WELCOME BABY ALDEN.
I was seven months pregnant with the daughter we had spent four years and three rounds of IVF to get.
I thought he was about to thank everyone for coming.
He smiled at me across the garden, the warm smile from our first years together.
Then he held out his hand to Lacey, and she took it.
Lacey Dunning, my best friend since college.
She had planned every minute of this party.
"I can't keep hiding this," Bradley said. "Lacey is pregnant, and the baby is mine. It's a boy."
A toddler by the gift table kept laughing.
Nobody else made a sound.
Bradley pulled out his phone and held up a gray ultrasound picture for the tent to see.
His thumb covered the line at the top where the name and date print.
"I'm done living a lie," he said. "Cora, you deserve the truth. And our families deserve to celebrate both babies."
Both babies.
Lacey's eyes filled. "I'm so sorry, Cora," she whispered. "We never meant to fall in love."
She laid a hand on her flat stomach.
"He's been kicking all day," she told the tent.
This was the woman who had held my hair back after my second failed transfer.
She had helped me choose the nursery wallpaper.
Last week she had hugged me in the driveway and said I was the sister she never got to have.
Bradley slid his arm around her waist, comfortable, practiced.
I waited for his mother to slap him.
Marilyn Alden stood up from her chair in the front row, and I held my breath.
She walked straight past her son and hugged Lacey.
"A grandson," Marilyn said, laying her palm on Lacey's flat stomach. "At last, an Alden boy to carry the name."
She turned and looked at my belly, then at my face.
"Well, Cora. At least one of you can give him a son."
Two women by the bar turned their backs and studied the champagne.
At the back of the tent, a guest raised her phone and began to film.
My daughter kicked hard against my ribs.
Bradley stepped toward me and lowered his voice, still smiling for the room. "Don't make a scene, Cora. Think of the baby."
He meant his baby.
He meant the one in Lacey.
"Here's what I'm thinking," Bradley said, in the calm voice he used on investors. "Lacey moves into the guest suite tonight. The kids will be close in age. They'll grow up like twins. We're modern adults, Cora. We can make this work."
He smiled.
He actually believed I would say yes.
For nine years, I always had.
He took the award for Littlebird, the parenting app that made him a millionaire, and I wrote every line of it.
"Cora?" Bradley said. "Say something."
I looked at the diamond tennis bracelet on Lacey's wrist.
I had seen it on his card statement last month and thought it was my anniversary present.
I looked at Marilyn, glowing.
I looked at my husband.
And I smiled.
"Congratulations," I said.
Bradley blinked.
He had come ready for tears.
He had probably practiced how to calm me down in front of everyone, so I would look unstable and he would look patient.
"That's very mature of you," he said slowly.
"Enjoy the cake," I said. "Lacey picked the flavor. I understand why now."
I picked up my purse.
I walked out through the garden gate, past the diaper cake and the table stacked with tiny pink clothes.
Nobody followed me.
Not one person, not even the guests who had eaten my cake and signed my card.
Behind me, I heard Marilyn laugh and ask someone to cut the rest of it.
In my car I locked the doors, and only then did my hands start to shake.
I gripped the wheel and cried until the song on the radio ended, because my daughter could feel everything I felt, and she deserved a mother who could breathe.
Then I wiped my face and opened my laptop on the passenger seat.
There was a file on my desktop I had not opened in nine years.
My grandmother raised me after my parents died, and before my wedding she had paid a lawyer to write me one document.
Bradley signed it on the morning we married, laughing, barely reading, because he trusted his sweet, quiet bride.
SOFTWARE LICENSE AGREEMENT.
Licensor: Cora Lindell.
Licensee: Alden Technologies.
Bradley believed he owned Littlebird.
Every investor believed it.
Every magazine that had ever put his face on a cover believed it.
I read the line again, slowly, to be sure.
Revocable at any time. By me.
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