My Husband Asked His Mistress to Steal Our Baby

The address Atticus gave me was on Park Avenue. Upper East Side. My old neighborhood.

I stood on the sidewalk clutching the manila envelope, staring up at the limestone facade of a building I'd walked past a thousand times as a child. The doorman wore white gloves. Through the glass doors, I could see marble floors that caught the afternoon light like water.

"Miss?" The doorman held the door open, his expression professionally blank.

I walked inside. The elevator was all mirrors and brass, and I watched my reflection multiply into infinity as we rose. Forty-two floors. The penthouse.

The doors opened directly into a private foyer. Before I could knock, the door swung open.

Clara stood there in a silk robe the color of champagne, holding an actual glass of champagne. Her hair was loose around her shoulders, and her lips curved into something that wasn't quite a smile.

"Delilah." She said my name like she'd been expecting me. Like we were old friends. "Come in."

I stepped past her into the living room and stopped breathing.

Floor-to-ceiling windows overlooked Central Park. The furniture was velvet and leather, arranged on Persian rugs that probably cost more than our entire Brooklyn apartment. Crystal decanters caught the light on a bar cart. Everything gleamed.

And there, sprawled on a navy velvet sofa like he owned the world, was Atticus.

He wore a suit I'd never seen before—charcoal gray, perfectly tailored, the kind that whispered money instead of shouting it. His hair was styled. His shoes were Italian leather. He looked like he'd stepped out of a magazine spread titled "Manhattan's Most Eligible Bachelors."

He looked nothing like the man who'd sat at our kitchen table three days ago with his head in his hands.

"Delilah." He stood, smoothing his jacket. "Right on time."

The envelope slipped from my fingers. Papers scattered across the hardwood.

Atticus crossed the room in three strides and gathered them up, his movements unhurried. He flipped through the pages, and his smile widened. "Perfect. All signed. You really are the perfect incubator."

The word hit me like a slap. "What?"

"Incubator," Clara repeated from behind me. She'd closed the door. Locked it. The click echoed. "Breeding stock. Cow. Take your pick."

My hand found my locket. The metal was cold.

Atticus set the papers on a glass coffee table and turned to face me fully. "Did you really think we needed three million dollars? Look around, Delilah. We live here."

The room tilted. I grabbed the back of a chair to steady myself. "I don't understand."

"The wealthy couple," Clara said, moving to Atticus's side. Her hand slid up his chest, possessive. Intimate. "That's us, sweetheart. It was always us."

"Five years." Atticus's voice had changed. The warmth was gone, replaced by something sharp and cold. "Five years of your poverty cosplay. Do you know how exhausting it was? That cramped apartment, that rattling radiator, your thrift store clothes." He shuddered theatrically. "I wanted to scrub myself raw every time I touched you."

My knees buckled. I sank into the chair.

"The Vegas wedding?" Clara laughed, high and bright. "Never filed. Legally, you're nothing to him. You never were."

"But I loved you." The words came out broken.

Atticus's expression didn't change. "I know. That's what made it so easy."

Clara pressed herself against him, her lips finding his jaw. He turned into the kiss, his hand tangling in her hair, and I watched them move together with the ease of long practice. Of real intimacy.

I ran.

The foyer, the door—my hands scrabbled at the lock, but it wouldn't turn. Behind me, Atticus sighed.

"Really, Delilah. Where would you go?"

Hands grabbed my arms. Two men in black suits materialized from somewhere, their grips iron. I kicked, screamed, but they lifted me like I weighed nothing.

They dragged me down a hallway lined with abstract art. Through a door. Into a bedroom that looked like a luxury hotel suite, except the windows had bars hidden behind sheer curtains.

They dropped me on the bed. I scrambled backward, but there was nowhere to go.

A woman in a white coat entered, carrying a medical bag. She was Asian, middle-aged, with kind eyes that didn't match what she was doing.

"I'm Dr. Chen," she said softly. "This won't hurt."

"Please." I pressed myself against the headboard. "Please, I'm pregnant—"

"I know." She pulled out a syringe, tapped it. "That's why we need to keep you calm. Stress is bad for Atticus's baby."

Atticus's baby. Not ours. His.

The guards held me down. I felt the needle pierce my arm, felt the cold rush of whatever she'd given me spreading through my veins.

The room blurred. Dr. Chen's face multiplied, then faded.

"Rest now," someone said from very far away. "You're going to be here a while."

Darkness pulled me under, and my last conscious thought was of my mother's locket, still warm against my throat, and how she'd tried to warn me that not everyone who says they love you means it.