The Fake Marriage, the Real Mistress, and the Baby He Wants Me to Abort Chapter 02
Half a decade. All of it an act. My fingers were shaking. I bit down against the pain in my stomach and kept reading.
Someone had just added me to a group chat – Julian’s inner circle.
[Same here – I lost fair and square!]
[Julian’s built different. None of us could’ve kept that act up for years!]
[Gotta say though – Claire really was head over heels for him!]
[Remember when we helped Julian set up that fake car accident? Got the hospital to tell Claire he needed donor surgery?]
[And she actually went through with it!]
[Lmaooo I remember that!]
[Julian made us draw lots to decide which piece of her she’d lose – I picked her eyes because damn, Claire’s got gorgeous eyes!]
[I went with kidneys!]
[I figured go big or go home – I wrote down heart!]
The messages kept pouring in, one after another. I couldn’t think. I couldn’t look away. My eyes moved down the screen like they belonged to someone else.
My thumb stopped scrolling. I couldn’t keep my hand steady.
[So what did they end up taking?]
[Julian picked it himself – said he hated the way she always tucked her hair behind that ear. He wrote down… her left ear!]
The left ear. My stomach seized, and my hand went to the side of my head – the spot I always kept hidden under my hair.
There was nothing there. There hadn’t been for half a decade.
I gave it up because I thought it would save him. I went under the knife willingly. And it had all been a game to them?
One joke. One ear. The tears came before I could stop them.
I remembered the way Julian held me after the surgery, his face crumpled with guilt.
“Claire, I’m so sorry. This is all on me.”
if I’d been more careful – if the accident never happened – you’d still be whole.”
“I swear, I’ll love you for the rest of my life.”
Every word. Every promise he made while holding me. All of it – a script.
A wave of cold rolled through me. I doubled over, arms wrapped around my stomach, and felt something warm running down my legs. Blood. Pooling on the concrete beneath me.
A woman I didn’t know pulled me to my feet and half-carried me toward the hospital entrance. The security guard stepped into our path.
“Mr. Vance’s orders – no hospital owned by Vance Enterprises is allowed to admit you.”
His face was stone. He shoved me back, and the jolt sent another spike of pain tearing through my stomach.
Even breathing felt like swallowing glass.
“What the hell is wrong with you people?”
“I don’t care if this is a private hospital – you can’t just turn away a bleeding woman!”
“She could die. Can’t you see she could die?!”
The woman screamed at him until her voice cracked. The guard didn’t flinch.
He stayed planted in the doorway and held out the same flyer Julian had given me.
“Mr. Vance said if you’re getting the abortion, that’s where you’re going.”
I stared at the flyer – cheap ink, already smearing between my fingers. I said nothing. I turned to leave.
That was when I heard her.
Julian, my stomach’s been cramping a little – I’m already at the hospital.”
“Wait, what? You’re sending the director down for me?”
Chloe Harper’s voice drifted from somewhere behind me, syrupy and sweet. My feet stopped moving.
The same guard who’d shoved me aside was suddenly all smiles, craning his neck toward the entrance A middle-aged man in a white coat rushed out of the hospital.
“Mrs. Vance? I’m the hospital director – please, tell me what’s wrong.”
“Mr. Vance called ahead. We’re going to take very good care of you.”
The director ushered Chloe inside like she was royalty. She walked right past me, and there wasn’t a single trace of the girl who’d once begged me to get her out of that dead-end town.
The girl who cried in my arms and begged me to help her get an education.
Julian’s words came back to me – how Chloe had drugged his drink the night she turned eighteen to crawl into his bed.
Something tore loose in my throat. I tasted iron, and then blood was on my lips, on my chin. The world tilted Right before everything went dark, I saw it – the black Maybach, parked just down the road. He’d been watching the whole time.