The Wife He Left for a Baby That Wasn't His novel · Chapter 1 of 24
Chapter 1: The Cake
Willa delivers a gender-reveal cake to the Rutledge estate and finds her husband, who swore he was in Denver, with his hand on another woman's belly; she cuts the cake in front of forty guests and leaves, and the order sheet says the customer was S. Rutledge.
I wheeled a three-tier gender-reveal cake through the front doors of a mansion with my apron still on.
The order sheet said a family party, two o'clock, deliver in person.
My husband's family had never hired me for anything.
I thought somebody had finally noticed my cakes.
My husband's text from that morning was still open on my phone in the apron pocket.
Hotel wifi is awful, miss you, don't wait up.
He had been away on a work trip for three weeks.
The front hall was marble and full of people holding champagne.
A banner over the staircase said it was a baby party, in pink and blue.
A young woman in a pale pink dress came toward me with both hands out.
"You're the baker," she said. "Oh, it's beautiful. I cried when I saw your website."
She had a blonde braid and a round, happy face.
She laid one hand on the curve of her stomach while she talked.
"I'm Bree," she said. "Thank you for coming all this way."
"Where do you want it?" I asked.
"By the stairs. Everyone's about to gather."
I pushed the cart across the marble.
A man at the edge of the crowd took one look at me and set his glass down on a side table.
Preston Gage, Kyle's best friend.
He had carried my cake boxes at our last Christmas.
"Will," he said, and he didn't sound surprised.
I nodded at him and kept pushing.
The card on the cake board was already printed.
With love, Kyle & Bree.
I read it twice.
Then I looked up and saw Kyle, my husband, who was supposed to be in Denver.
Charcoal suit, no tie, the one I had pressed for him the night before his flight.
He stood in the middle of the hall beside Bree's empty spot, laughing at something his father said.
Bree reached him.
She took his arm.
His hand went to her stomach and settled there, easy and certain.
Nobody in that hall looked at it twice.
Not the old men in blazers.
Not the women in pearls.
It was a hand that had done this before, many times, in front of all of them.
"Kyle," Bree called. "The cake's here!"
He turned, smiling.
His eyes went to my apron first.
Then to my face.
The smile didn't fade.
It stopped, and there was nothing under it.
The glass in his other hand hit the marble and burst.
Forty people turned around.
Champagne ran across the floor toward my shoes.
I heard a quiet voice somewhere say, "Who is that?"
I could have walked out.
That was the easy choice, and I felt it pull at me.
But I had been married to him for five years, and I was done being the one nobody saw.
I took my hand off the cart.
"I'm Willa Garrick," I said, loud enough to carry. "I'm Kyle's wife."
The hall went still.
"Wife?" Bree whispered.
She took her hand off his arm.
Kyle crossed the floor fast, his shoes crunching on glass.
"Will, not here," he said, low. "Let me explain."
"You're in Denver," I said.
"It's not what it looks like."
"You told me hotel wifi was bad."
He put a hand on my elbow.
I stepped back out of it.
An older man with silver hair and a cane leaned on the stair rail and watched us.
That was Harlan Rutledge, Kyle's father, whose house it was.
He didn't look surprised either.
I picked up the cake knife from the tray.
"You're all here to find out what it is," I said. "I baked it. I might as well tell you."
"Willa," Kyle said.
I cut the bottom tier in one stroke.
Blue.
A thick wedge of blue sponge fell onto the plate, and a gasp ran around the room.
It's a boy, I thought, and I didn't feel anything, and then I did.
I set the plate in front of Kyle.
Then I worked my wedding ring off my finger.
It stuck at the knuckle and I pulled harder.
It came free.
I laid it on the blade of the knife and put the knife on the cake board, right beside the card.
"Congratulations," I said to Bree. "He's very good at saying he's somewhere else."
Bree had gone white.
She looked at Kyle, not at me.
"You told me she was your sister's friend," she said.
Kyle didn't answer her.
The three years came back to me all at once.
Kyle at the mailbox every Tuesday, pulling out the clinic's envelopes before I got home.
Kyle across the dinner table, reading the results to me with his hand over mine.
It's your side, Will. I'm so sorry.
I had believed him every time.
"Sit down, Mrs. Rutledge," Harlan said from the stairs. His voice was smooth and kind. "This is a family matter. We'll all be reasonable."
"I'm not sitting in your house," I said.
I left the cart where it stood.
I walked out between the guests, and nobody stopped me.
On the porch the cold hit my face and I stood there shaking.
A man in the driveway held the door of my van open for me.
He didn't speak.
I climbed in, and when I reached into my apron for my keys I found the order sheet folded in the pocket.
I had never looked at the bottom of it.
Customer: S. Rutledge.
Phone booking, paid in cash, deliver in person.
Kyle had an older brother named Sam, and I had met him once, at our wedding.
I looked up.
The man who had held my door was already walking away across the lawn.
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