I collapsed into a plastic chair in the waiting area, my hands shaking so violently I almost dropped my phone.
My thumb hovered over Lucy’s text. Open the envelope I left in your drawer. Right there, you’re going to understand exactly why Valerie chose David, of all people…
My mind was a chaotic storm. Lucy was pregnant. My Lucy. The woman I had publicly humiliated, the woman I had branded as “broken” and “barren” to justify my own disgusting betrayal, was carrying my child. The medical impossibility that had haunted our eight-year marriage had miraculously vanished, leaving behind a cruel, divine irony. But what did David have to do with the envelope? Why David?
David wasn’t just my business partner; he was my childhood friend. We had built Mendez & Partners Architecture from the dirt up in Guadalajara. He knew my finances. He knew my marriage. He knew my deepest, darkest insecurity—my desperate, consuming desire to leave a legacy.
I dialed Lucy’s number. Ring. Ring. Ring.
