Divorce Before Valentine's

Chapter 3

(Caroline’s POV)

"Samuel—" Hailey's voice catches, but not with sympathy. With pleasure. And satisfaction at hearing him tear me down.

"You know what the worst part is?" Samuel's voice drops lower, more intimate. "I used to love her. I really did. But now when I touch her, all I can think about is how she gave me a defective child. How she ruined everything."

Samuel shifts again, and through the gap in the door I see Hailey's face clearly now. Her eyes are closed, her mouth curved in a smile that looks nothing like the friend who cried in my kitchen two hours ago.

"You know what I realized?" Samuel's breathing is getting heavier. "Wendy is much cuter. So much better than Charlie."

My stomach churns. I cover my mouth, bile rising up my throat. This…this can’t be what I think…

"Of course she is." Hailey's laugh is breathless, triumphant. "She's your daughter, after all. She looks just like you."

The world stops.

Everything—the sound of them, the ticking clock downstairs, my own heartbeat—all of it stops.

Wendy is Samuel's daughter.

Not some random guy who abandoned Hailey. Not a mistake with a stranger. Samuel. My husband. The man I've been married to for six years.

The timeline crashes into my brain like a train wreck. Hailey told me she was pregnant five years ago, when I was three months pregnant with Charlie. She showed up crying, saying some guy had gotten her pregnant and run off. I held her while she sobbed. I brought her into my home. I took care of her through her pregnancy because she had no one else.

And the whole time—the entire time—it was Samuel's baby.

It hits me then what that strange emotion I’ve been seeing in her eyes all these years is. Mockery. Not self-mockery at herself for being fooled by a man as I believed.

No. Mockery at me. At my foolishness. All this time while I’ve been consoling her for being deceived, then abandoned pregnant, Hailey… Hailey was laughing at me for raising my husband’s bastard child and his mistress in my home?

The baby I helped deliver. The little girl I rocked to sleep when Hailey was too exhausted. The child I've loved like my own niece, bought presents for, celebrated birthdays with, welcomed into my home over and over again.

She's been Samuel's daughter all along.

They've been lying to me for five years.

Five. Years.

While I smiled and cooked dinner and made sure Wendy had everything she needed. While I worried about Hailey being a single mother and offered her a job as Samuel's secretary so she could support herself. While I trusted them both completely, never questioning, never doubting…

She’s been laughing at me.

These people…I gave them every ounce of my trust, every piece of my heart…and they did this to me?

The rage that floods through me is unlike anything I've ever felt. It's hot and cold at the same time, burning and freezing, filling every cell in my body until I think I might explode from it. More than the anger, is the all-consuming knowledge of them carrying an affair right under my nose.

I don't remember whether I slam or kick open the door. One second, I’m heaving outside, engulfed by the pain of their betrayal. The next, I’m standing in the study, and they're scrambling apart like teenagers caught in the act by their parents.

"Caroline—" Samuel starts, but he doesn't get to finish.

My hand connects with his face before I even register that I've raised it. The slap echoes in the study, sharp and satisfying, and I watch a red mark bloom across his cheek.

"Don't." My voice doesn't sound like mine. It sounds like something feral, something barely human. "Don't you dare say my name with your filthy tongue."

"This isn’t…”

"Isn't what?" I laugh, and the sound is broken glass. "Isn't what I think it is? As in, this isn’t you screwing my best friend in our house while our son sleeps down the hall?"

“You need to calm down—"

"I need to calm down?" I round on him, and he actually flinches, covering his cheek, taking a step back. That slap must’ve landed hard. "You just called our son boring and broken and defective and an embarrassment. Our child, Samuel."

"Yes, well…he’s not normal, Caroline," Samuel says, like that explains everything. "It's not normal. He's not normal."

I slap him again. Harder this time.

"He’s autistic! Not defective! He's five years old! He's a baby, and you're talking about him like he's—like he's a carrier for a contagious disease!"

Hailey's been silent this whole time, pressed against the desk, watching us. I turn to her now, and whatever she sees in my face makes her flinch.

"You." My voice breaks on the word. "You were my best friend. My sister. I took care of you when Wendy was born. I stayed up all night with her when she was sick so you could sleep. I loved that little girl like she was my own."

"Caroline, I—"

"And this whole time, you’ve been lying to me? You are my husband’s mistress, and yet, acted like my soul sister for years? How did you do it? Didn’t your conscience hurt sleeping with your best friend’s husband, having her raise your bastard daughter with her husband, all while laughing and eating with her on the same table?" I'm shaking so hard I can barely get the words out. “You've been lying to me for five years. Five years. Since long before she was even born, and never once said anything to me. Your level of shamelessness is nothing like I’ve ever seen before."