Chapter 3

I did not cry.

Nor did I tell Daniel that an eight-week pregnancy report was hidden in my purse.

He followed me into the master bedroom and closed the door, as though one patient explanation would make me accept all of this.

"Rachel, just listen to me first."

"Is the baby yours?"

He hesitated.

"Yes."

"How long have you been sleeping with her?"

"This isn't something you can explain with a timeline."

I stared at him.

"Then explain it with facts."

Daniel avoided my gaze. Over the past few years, he said, our marriage had been consumed by treatment, tests, and failure. He no longer felt like a husband. He felt like a necessary part of a fertility plan.

Every month, he came home and studied my face, trying to guess whether it had worked this time.

"Sophie made me feel needed again."

"So you slept with your student?"

"It wasn't planned."

"But you planned to move her into my house."

His expression darkened.

"She's pregnant. She has no income and nowhere else to go. Am I supposed to leave her on the street?"

"The baby has a father."

Daniel said nothing.

I almost laughed.

Even now, he could not bring himself to say that he was the father.

"What do you want to do?" I asked.

"Let her stay until the baby is born."

"And then?"

"Sophie will raise the baby. I'll take responsibility, too."

"I was asking about me."

Daniel stepped closer, his voice suddenly gentle.

"You're still my wife. No one is replacing you."

That was even more humiliating than hearing him ask for a divorce.

He wanted to keep his wife and his mistress. He wanted my home, my money, and my ability to maintain the respectable life I had built for him.

"Haven't you always wanted to be a mother?" he continued. "The baby is innocent. After he's born, maybe we can raise him together."

For the first time, the man I had shared my life with for nine years looked like a stranger.

He had not only betrayed me. He planned to exploit my longing for a child so I would accept his mistress, then use my house and my money to support them.

"You want me to raise the child you had with your student?"

"Don't make it sound so ugly."

"Is there a prettier way to say it?"

Daniel finally lost patience.

"This is your biggest problem. You think the house belongs to you, the money belongs to you, and everyone owes you something."

"The house does belong to me."

"We've been married for nine years!"

"Does that give you the right to bring your mistress into it?"

"I've contributed to this family, too."

His voice grew louder, yet not one word was an apology for cheating on me.

I opened the closet and pulled out a suitcase.

My passport. The deed to the house. The trust documents my father had left me. And the prenatal vitamins my doctor had prescribed that morning.

I took no jewelry and nothing Daniel had ever given me.

Finally, I removed the pregnancy report from my purse.

My name was printed above the words "eight weeks pregnant."

When I received it that morning, I had checked it again and again, afraid that the miracle I had waited seven years for could not be real.

Now I slipped it into a folder I would keep close to my body. Then I took the baby socks from their velvet box.

Two gold stars were embroidered at the cuffs.

They had been my anniversary gift for Daniel.

He did not deserve them now.

I placed the socks beside the report and locked them in the inner compartment of my suitcase.

Daniel stood in the doorway, watching me the whole time.

"Where are you going?"

"Away from here."

"Maybe it's best if you take a couple of days to calm down."

He did not try to stop me. He even stepped aside.

His composure hurt.

He was certain I would come back. In every argument we had ever had, I had been the first to compromise. Every time a treatment failed, I had even apologized for disappointing him.

I dragged my suitcase downstairs.

Sophie stood in the guest-room doorway. There was anxiety in her eyes, but also a trace of relief she had failed to hide.

"She's only leaving for a while," Daniel explained for me. "Rachel won't throw away a nine-year marriage."

As I reached the foyer, Sophie suddenly asked, "What about the document?"

Daniel's expression changed at once.

"Go back to your room."

"But you said that once she signed it, half the house would be yours." Sophie cradled her belly. "If she divorces you, where will we live?"

My hand froze on the doorknob.

A few weeks earlier, Daniel had brought home a document. He said it merely reorganized our family taxes and asked me to sign the final page.

I had been waiting for my pregnancy results at the time and had not read it carefully.

"What document?"

"She misunderstood," Daniel said immediately.

"Show it to me."

I turned toward the study. Daniel blocked my path.

"You're too upset right now. We'll talk tomorrow."

"Move."

"Rachel, you're destroying our marriage because you're angry."

"I'm not the one who destroyed it."

I tried to step around him, but he caught my wrist.

His grip was not painful, but it was strong enough to stop me.

My first instinct was not fear. It was to protect my belly.

Daniel noticed the movement, and suspicion flickered in his eyes.

I dropped my hand at once.

"Let me go."

"Promise me you won't turn this into a scandal."

"By that, you mean you want me to pretend nothing happened."

"I'm saying we still have options."

"Your option is for me to hand my house and my life over to her."

Daniel did not release me.

I took out my phone and called Maya.

When she answered, I said only one thing.

"I want a divorce."

There was silence on the other end for two seconds.

"Are you sure?"

Daniel finally let go of my wrist.

"Maya, she's emotionally unstable," he said toward the phone. "You can't encourage her to destroy her marriage."

"Let her leave first," Maya said coldly.

At last, he moved his hand from the doorknob, but he still refused to accept what was happening.

"Rachel, if you walk out tonight, don't expect everything to be the same when you come back tomorrow."

"I have no intention of letting anything stay the same."

Maya emailed me the authorization form.

I opened it and signed my name.

When Daniel saw the screen, real panic finally broke through.

"Rachel, we can talk. Don't send it yet."

"I've already given you nine years."

"You'll regret this."

"Maybe."

I tapped Confirm.

The screen read: Sent.

This time, Daniel did not step aside.

I dragged my suitcase past him anyway.

He thought I was leaving because of Sophie.

He did not know I was taking more than a few clothes, a pregnancy report, and a pair of baby socks.

I was also taking his child.