Chapter 2 - The Secret My Mother-in-Law BuriedNathan released Brianna’s wrist as though she had burned him.
“My mother?”
Brianna looked around the ballroom.
Thirty people were pretending not to listen.
Rachel was no longer pretending.
She stood beside me with her phone in her hand, prepared to call security.
Brianna shook her head.
“I shouldn't have said anything.”
Nathan’s voice became dangerously calm.
“What does my mother know?”
“Nathan, please.”
“What does she know?”
Brianna’s eyes flicked toward me.
That was when I realized this wasn't merely about an embryo.
Whatever had happened, I was at the center of it.
I stepped forward.
“Start talking.”
Brianna’s shoulders stiffened.
“You have no idea what you're accusing me of.”
“I haven’t accused you of anything.”
Her lips parted.
Again, she had answered a question I hadn't asked.
Rachel murmured, “Emma, something is seriously wrong here.”
I knew.
My baby kicked hard enough to make me wince.
Nathan noticed.
His entire expression changed.
For one vulnerable second, he wasn't my ex-husband.
He was the man who used to put headphones against my stomach during our failed pregnancies and joke that one day our baby would come out loving jazz.
Then the wall returned.
“When were you implanted?” he asked.
Brianna whispered, “Nathan.”
I ignored her.
“November seventeenth.”
His breathing stopped.
Our divorce papers had been filed November twenty-eighth.
He stared at my stomach.
“You were pregnant when I filed.”
“I didn't know yet.”
“But you used the embryo.”
“Yes.”
“Without telling me?”
My anger finally surfaced.
“Don't rewrite history.”
His head snapped toward me.
“You signed the authorization.”
“I never signed authorization for a transfer.”
“Your signature was on it.”
“I told you that during mediation.”
“And my attorney produced the consent form.”
“Yes.”
Nathan stared at me.
I stared back.
Then something changed in his face.
Not anger.
Memory.
“I was in Seattle November seventeenth.”
“I know.”
“I flew out on the fifteenth.”
“Yes.”
“I never signed anything that month.”
My throat tightened.
“Then how did the clinic receive your authorization?”
Nathan looked at Brianna.
She had gone completely still.
“Ask my mother,” she whispered.
Then she turned and walked out.
This time, Nathan didn't stop her.
He stood in the middle of the ballroom watching the doors close.
Rachel touched my elbow.
“Emma, sit down.”
“I’m fine.”
“You're eight months pregnant and your ex just discovered his girlfriend knew confidential information about your fertility treatment. Sit.”
She guided me toward a chair.
Nathan followed.
I looked up.
“You should go.”
“No.”
“This isn't your event.”
“Neither is it hers anymore.”
I almost smiled.
Rachel did not.
“Sir, she asked you to leave.”
Nathan glanced toward the door.
Then knelt in front of me.
The gesture startled me.
“Emma.”
I hated the softness in his voice.
“Don't.”
“I need one answer.”
“What?”
“When did the clinic tell you the transfer was authorized?”
“November fourteenth.”
His face drained.
“That was the day before my mother came to my office.”
My skin prickled.
“What?”
“She brought documents.”
“What documents?”
“Insurance paperwork. Or at least that's what she told me.”
Nathan looked toward the exit again.
“My mother said Hawthorne needed updated authorization regarding embryo storage. She asked me to sign three pages.”
“You signed without reading them?”
“I was heading into court. She said the clinic had called her because you listed her as an emergency contact.”
“I never listed her.”
Nathan froze.
I continued.
“I removed your mother as my emergency contact after our second IVF cycle.”
“When?”
“Eight months before that.”
Neither of us spoke.
A terrible pattern was emerging.
Nathan's mother, Victoria Cole, had never wanted me in the family.
At first, she hid it beneath manners.
She criticized my career in public relations because she considered it “cute work.”
She complained that I wasn't domestic enough.
When Nathan and I struggled to conceive, the criticism became cruelty disguised as concern.
Perhaps stress was affecting my body.
Perhaps I had waited too long.
Perhaps Nathan deserved the chance to become a father with someone “more medically fortunate.”
Nathan always defended me.
At least, I thought he had.
Then during our final year of marriage, that defense faded.
He worked later.
Spoke less.
Slept in the guest room.
Eventually, he told me he couldn't survive “another decade of disappointment.”
Eleven years together ended in six minutes.
I had believed grief destroyed us.
Now I wondered whether someone had helped.
Nathan stood.
“I’m calling her.”
“No.”
He looked at me.
“Why?”
“Because if your mother did something illegal, I don't want you warning her.”
“My mother isn't going to destroy evidence.”
“You didn't think your girlfriend knew about our embryo fifteen minutes ago.”
That silenced him.
I reached for my purse.
Rachel frowned.
“Where are you going?”
“Home.”
“You're not driving.”
“I came by Uber.”
“You're coming with me.”
Nathan stepped closer.
“I'll take her.”
Both Rachel and I said, “No.”
For the first time that afternoon, he almost looked amused.
It disappeared quickly.
“Emma, we need to talk.”
“Not today.”
“If this baby—”
“Don't.”
His voice lowered.
“If this baby came from our embryo, biologically I'm his father.”
My hand tightened around my purse strap.
“Her.”
Nathan stared at me.
“What?”
“She’s a girl.”
The words seemed to hit him harder than anything else had.
A daughter.
The daughter we had imagined for years.
The daughter whose hypothetical nursery Nathan once painted yellow because we refused to assign blue or pink before she existed.
He sank into the chair beside mine.
“A girl.”
I stood.
His hand moved as though he wanted to touch my stomach.
He stopped himself.
For that, at least, I was grateful.
“I wanted to tell you,” I said quietly.
Nathan looked up.
“When?”
“When the pregnancy was confirmed. Then your attorney sent me a letter accusing me of using shared genetic material without authorization.”
His face tightened.
“I never approved that letter.”
“Your name was on it.”
“My attorney said you had threatened to sue for full custody of any child created from the embryo.”
“I never said that.”
Our eyes met.
Another lie.
Another document.
Another message we had each accepted because we were too angry and wounded to verify it personally.
Nathan stood slowly.
“Who was your attorney?”
“Melissa Grant.”
He looked stunned.
“What?”
“My mother recommended Melissa to you.”
I remembered.
Victoria had called me after Nathan moved out.
She cried.
Told me she loved me like a daughter despite everything.
Said I deserved an attorney who would protect me.
She recommended Melissa Grant, a family-law specialist from an expensive downtown firm.
At the time, I had considered it the kindest thing Victoria had ever done.
Nathan said, “My attorney was Raymond Pike.”
“I know.”
“My mother recommended him too.”
I felt sick.
Rachel whispered, “You've got to be kidding me.”
Nathan took out his phone.
“I’m contacting another attorney.”
“So am I.”
“And Emma?”
I looked at him.
“Don't contact Hawthorne yet.”
“Why?”
“Because if records were altered, we need copies before anyone knows we're checking.”
That was the first sensible thing he had said all afternoon.
I nodded.
Then Rachel escorted me outside.
The October sun felt too bright.
Too ordinary.
I had almost reached her car when someone called my name.
Not Nathan.
Brianna.
She stood near a silver SUV.
Mascara streaked beneath one eye.
“I need to tell you something.”
Rachel moved between us.
“You can tell her from there.”
Brianna nodded.
“I wasn't sleeping with Nathan before your divorce.”
“I never said you were.”
“But someone wanted you to believe it.”
My heart started pounding.
She opened her purse and removed an envelope.
“I've had this for months.”
“What is it?”
“Emails.”
“From whom?”
She looked toward the country club doors.
Then handed me the envelope.
“Victoria.”
My fingers closed around it.
“Why would Victoria email you before Nathan and I divorced?”
Brianna gave me a look I would remember for years.
“Because she hired me.”
I stared at her.
“For what?”
“To meet Nathan.”
Rachel whispered a curse.
Brianna wiped her cheek.
“She paid me to become his friend. She wanted him to think he could have a different life.”
Nathan appeared in the doorway behind us.
He had heard everything.
Brianna saw him.
Her voice cracked.
“But that wasn't the worst thing she asked me to do.”
Nathan walked closer.
“What was?”
Brianna looked at my belly.
“She wanted me to make sure Emma never had your baby.”
May you like
And suddenly, the afternoon wasn't about a broken marriage anymore.
It was about what someone had done to create one.
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