He Hid His Secret Wife So I Stole His Sister's Boyfriend novel · Chapter 1 of 24
Chapter 1: Wrong Floor
Willa takes two buses for a second opinion, walks into the VIP maternity wing and finds her baby's father with his pregnant wife, then names Margo's boyfriend as her price.
The nurse at the free clinic told me my baby was two weeks smaller than it should be.
She said it gently, and then she said nobody there could tell me why.
I had two hundred and twelve dollars from typing up other people's recordings.
I folded it into my jacket pocket and rode two buses across the city to the hospital with the marble lobby, to pay for a second opinion.
My baby's father was supposed to be out of town until Friday.
He had texted me that morning, three kisses and a photo of a hotel coffee cup.
The man at the information desk sent me to the fourth floor.
I got out of the elevator and turned the wrong way.
The carpet was thick and the air smelled like lemons.
At the end of the hall, one door stood open a few inches.
A woman's voice said, "There she is. That's your daughter's heartbeat, Mrs. Winfield."
A man answered her, low and warm.
"Look at her, Lin. Look how strong she is."
I knew that voice.
I had fallen asleep to it for eleven months.
Through the gap I saw a blonde woman on the exam table, laughing, with her shirt rolled up over a round, full belly.
On the belly lay a man's hand, and on the wrist was the watch I had fixed the clasp on in March.
On the monitor, a baby turned her head.
She was bigger than mine.
My phone buzzed in my fist.
Tate: "Boring out here without you. Rest up, babe. Talk tonight."
In the room, Tate's other thumb was typing it.
He kept his hand on her stomach while he sent it.
I raised my phone and filmed twenty seconds through the gap.
Eight years of transcribing other people's lies had taught me one thing.
A tape is worth more than a scream.
I could have gone back to the elevator.
Nobody would ever have known I'd been there.
So I pushed the door open.
"Hi, Tate."
He looked up, and every bit of color left his face.
"Willa."
The woman on the table turned her head. "Tate? Who is this?"
"Lin, this is Willa," he said. "She's a friend of my sister's, and she's had a very hard week."
I walked to the table and laid the clinic printout on the blanket next to her hand.
"I'm eighteen weeks pregnant with his baby," I told her. "He told me he was single. I'm sorry. I didn't know about you."
The technician had stopped moving.
The woman looked at the paper, and then at Tate.
"Lin, she's unwell," Tate said. "She's been after Margo's money for weeks. Press the button."
"He sleeps on his right side," I said, "and he has a mole under his left ribs. He told me last Friday he'd never been married."
She didn't scream.
She went very still, and her eyes moved to the printout, to my stomach, and back to him.
"Eighteen weeks," she said quietly.
The technician pressed the call button.
I didn't wait for security.
I walked out with my head up and my phone in my hand.
At the end of the hall a man stood by the elevators, holding a paper cup of coffee he hadn't touched.
He was tall, in a gray coat, maybe thirty-five.
"The stairs on your left," he said. "Take them to the second floor. That exit lets out by the bus loop."
I stopped.
"Did you see her?" he asked. "The woman in there. Was she all right?"
"She looked happy until I walked in."
He shut his eyes for a second and nodded.
I noticed he'd asked about her before he asked about me.
I put it down to manners.
The elevator doors opened, and a woman in a camel coat stepped out with two security guards behind her.
"Stand down, I have her," she said, and the guards stopped.
She turned to me with her hands out.
"Willa? I'm Margo, Tate's sister. He called me from the room."
Her voice was kind, and her eyes were red.
"You're shaking. Come sit. Jerome, get her some water and something sweet."
The man with the coffee went.
She walked me down to the lobby café, and sat me in a corner away from the glass.
She ordered me tea and a muffin.
She told me the baby would be seen today by the best obstetrician in the city, a friend of hers, at two o'clock.
For the first time since the clinic, someone was taking care of me.
I was nearly crying when she set an envelope on the table.
"His wife, Linnea, is twenty-four weeks along, and the doctors want her calm," Margo said.
"Tate isn't the man you think he is. Our family name is on half the buildings in this city, and he has never learned what that costs." "My lawyers drafted this in the car. Two hundred thousand, an apartment, medical care. You sign, and your baby has everything."
I looked at the muffin.
"Everyone has a number, honey. I'd rather settle it before my father hears."
Jerome came back with a bottle of water and put it in front of me.
He stood close behind her chair, and she reached up without looking and squeezed his hand.
"Name yours," Margo said.
I looked at his hand in hers.
"Him," I said.
Margo laughed, a small surprised sound.
"Jerome? He's been mine for fourteen months. He doesn't leave. Take a week with him if you like, he'll be back by Friday."
I picked up my bag.
Jerome looked at his girlfriend, and then at me.
"Which bus do you take?" he said.
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