The Fake Marriage, the Real Mistress, and the Baby He Wants Me to Abort Chapter 01
Julian Vance handed me a flyer the second we stepped out of the hospital.
It was for an abortion clinic.
“Claire, I showed up for the appointment with you – I’ve done my part. Go handle the rest yourself.”
I hadn’t even processed the words before he smiled and pulled out a marriage certificate.
“Chloe wouldn’t stop pushing, so I went ahead and married her.”
“The one I gave you? Fake. I paid someone to make it.”
“You don’t want this baby born a bastard – like you were. Do you?”
“So be a good girl. Get rid of it. It’s better for everyone.”
The world turned to static. My ears rang so loud I could barely hear my own voice.
“What the hell does Chloe have to do with this?”
“Chloe? The girl you brought home from that volunteer trip?” ”
“Yeah. She drugged my drink the night she turned eighteen and crawled into my bed.”
“What can I say? She was right there. I gave in.”
Julian shrugged, that same careless smile still on his face, and twisted the knife.
“Your mother was a homewrecker anyway, so this should all feel pretty familiar, right?”
“Like mother, like daughter. It runs in the family.”
***
I stood outside that hospital, and every last bit of warmth drained out of me. I searched his face – the face
I’d spent half a decade memorizing – desperate for some sign that he didn’t mean it.
Instead, his smirk widened.
“Claire, I’ll Venmo you fifty bucks for the cab ride.”
“That’s how women like your mother handle it, right? Find some sketchy clinic, pop a few pills, and be done with it.”
“Spend whatever’s left on those strawberries you like.”
“Just don’t bring them back to the apartment. Chloe hates the smell, and I don’t want my wife uncomfortable.”
He leaned into that word-wife-like he wanted to grind it into my skin. My mind went white
Last night, I told him about the baby, and he held me, grinning, scrolling through his phone to pick out names
That was last night. This was now.
None of it made sense. My mind kept trying to stitch those two realities together. It couldn’t. I forced a smile – it felt like cracking plaster – and grabbed his hand.
“Julian, you’re joking. Tell me you’re joking.”
“Please there’s been some kind of misunderstanding -”
He threw his head back and laughed. Actually laughed – hand over his mouth, shoulders shaking, like I’d just said the funniest thing he’d ever heard.
“Claire, drop the innocent act.”
“Your mother destroyed my family. She was my father’s mistress, and she’s the reason my mother has been in a coma for years.”
“You really thought I’d marry you?”
“There’s nothing I hate more than a homewrecker.”
The disgust in his voice landed like a slap. Then – gently, almost tenderly
gently, almost tenderly – he reached over and straightened my collar.
“Get it done early. I’ll be waiting at the apartment.”
“Chloe’s coming over tonight, so make sure you’re back in time to make that baked salmon she likes.”
He smiled through every word. Then he reached into his wallet and pulled out a few twenty-dollar bills for the groceries.
“Oh and I took the condoms from the apartment to Chloe’s place last night. Used every one.”
“Pick up a few more boxes. We’ll need them tonight.”
Every word sliced through me. I stood there shaking, and whatever warmth was left in my body bled out.
Half a decade. We’d loved each other for half a decade. He cut off his own father to be with me. He’d grown up with everything handed to him, and he gave it all up so I wouldn’t have to go without.
He had classes at Kingsbridge during the day and worked graveyard shifts at a warehouse at night, just to afford a place near my office downtown.
He was highly allergic to alcohol, but once risked anaphylaxis by downing an entire bottle of wine just to impress my boss at dinner, and ended up in the ER. Even sedated, he kept mumbling my name. He kept pulling the blanket over me in his sleep.
Was all of it a lie?
My stomach heaved. I clamped a hand over my mouth and ran after him, bile burning the back of my throat.
He was already inside the Maybach, door shut. I scrambled toward the car, and the engine roared to life.
The car clipped my arm as it tore past, and the impact threw me to the ground. Pain ripped through my stomach like a blade.
Before I could even breathe, my phone started blowing up in my bag.
[Holy shit Julian actually kept up the devoted-boyfriend act with Claire for half a decade!]
[I concede. That ten million is yours.]