My Husband Called Me Barren, Now a Billionaire Begs for Me novel · Chapter 2 of 32
Chapter 2: The Hand
A doctor warns Margaux that ending the pregnancy could end motherhood for good; a stranger catches her outside, the housekeeper is sent away, and Margaux tells Marceau Pharma she is coming back.
Margaux went back to the hospital, because she had one more thing to decide.
The doctor was a calm woman in her fifties, and she did not look up from the file.
"Madame Villard, are you sure you want to end this pregnancy?"
Margaux put her hand on her stomach, then nodded.
If the father had lied to her for five years, she did not want his child.
"Then we run the tests first," the doctor said. "Then we plan the procedure."
Margaux paid at the counter and did the blood work, and she waited in the corridor for the results.
Her phone lit up with a video call.
*Thibault.*
She meant to refuse it, but her thumb slipped and the call connected.
His face filled the screen, kind and worried, the same face he had worn for six years.
"Margaux, you're in a hospital? What's wrong?"
She looked at him and wanted to hit him.
If he heard the word pregnant, he would come and stop her, or he would take the baby for his own wife.
"I'm with Lise," she said. "She has stomach pain. I came with her."
His whole body let go of its worry.
"Thank God. Don't wear yourself out for her. I'll finish early and be home Saturday."
"All right. I'll wait for you."
"I love you, Margaux."
She hung up before her face moved.
The doctor called her in and read the results with a frown.
"Your uterine lining is very thin. You already had trouble conceiving, and the injections made it worse."
"What does that mean?"
"If we terminate, the damage could be permanent. You might never carry a child again."
Margaux sat very still.
"Do you want time to think? You could talk to your family."
She had no family left except Lise, and a flat she had bought with her grandfather's money.
She could give up Thibault tonight.
She could not give up being a mother for good.
"I'll think about it," she said.
She walked out of the hospital under a flat grey sky, and she laughed once, quietly.
A black car came around the corner too fast.
Her shoe slid on the wet kerb, and the street tipped.
A hand closed around her waist and held her up.
She looked up into a pair of dark, steady eyes.
The man wore a grey suit cut for him, and his hand did not let go until she was steady.
"Thank you," she said, and pulled back too quickly.
"No harm done," he said.
His voice was low, and he spoke slowly, with a careful way of shaping each word.
For a second she felt that she had heard it somewhere, and then the feeling was gone.
A man in a dark coat hurried over. "Monsieur Aubrac, the car is here. We'll miss the flight."
Julien Aubrac nodded to her once and walked to a long black limousine.
His assistant opened the door.
The car had been moving a minute before the assistant spoke again.
"Monsieur, we have turned over Lyon. We still haven't found Dr. Villard's heir."
Julien pressed two fingers against his temple.
"Keep looking. Nobody else's needles steady my grandmother's heart."
"Yes, Monsieur."
Margaux took a taxi home.
The housekeeper, a stout woman with a tidy grey bun, took her coat at the door.
"Madame, where have you been? Monsieur called twice to ask if you were home."
"I'm going away for a few days," Margaux said. "Take the week off."
"But Monsieur is back on Saturday. Shouldn't you wait for him?"
Margaux looked at her.
In five years this was the eighth housekeeper, and all eight had taken Thibault's orders before hers.
"I wasn't asking," she said.
The housekeeper's mouth tightened.
She said, "Yes, Madame," and went to pack her things, already sure she would phone Monsieur the minute she was out of the gate.
Margaux let her.
She climbed the stairs to the bedroom and pulled the suitcase from the top of the wardrobe.
She threw away the photo albums.
She threw away the clay bowls they had made together on a holiday.
Everything he had bought her went into boxes to be photographed and sold.
Everything she had owned before him, she packed for herself.
She called a removal firm and had her grandfather's medical books carried out to her own flat.
Her phone showed eighteen missed calls from Thibault and a message.
*The housekeeper says you're travelling? Why? Wait for me, I'll come with you.*
Margaux answered with a lie she had built in the car: Lise's boyfriend had cheated, Lise had drunk herself into the hospital, and she needed to get her out of the city.
*You're so kind,* he wrote. *If you need money, don't hold back.*
Her phone buzzed.
He had sent two hundred thousand euros.
She had seen this before.
Every time he left for more than three days, he sent her something big.
Now she understood what it paid for.
She did not send the money back.
She sat on the edge of the bed with her hand on her stomach and thought, *I'll keep it. It's the first honest thing he has ever given me.*
Then she opened a different message thread and typed to the deputy director of research at Marceau Pharma.
*I'm coming back to work.*
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