My Husband Brought Home His Pregnant Mistress

The coq au vin had turned into a congealed, purple bruise in the center of the mahogany dining table. I sat by the floor-to-ceiling window, the city lights of Manhattan blurring through the rain-streaked glass, checking my watch for the fiftieth time. Two years. Seven hundred and thirty days since I traded the sensation in my legs for a gold band on my finger.

My reflection in the glass was a ghost—pale skin, dark eyes that had forgotten how to spark, and the chrome gleam of the wheelchair that had become my lower half.

The private elevator chimed, a cheerful sound that sliced through the silence of the penthouse. I didn't turn immediately. I adjusted the hem of my silk dress over my knees, a reflex to hide the atrophy that no amount of therapy could reverse.

Colson walked in. The air shifted, heavy with the scent of rain, aged scotch, and a cloying, floral perfume that certainly wasn't mine. Gardenias.

He loosened his tie with a sharp jerk, his eyes sliding over me as if I were a piece of furniture—necessary, perhaps, but aesthetically displeasing. He didn't look at the dinner. He didn't look at the candles that had burned down to wax puddles.

"You're late," I said, my voice steady despite the tremor in my hands.

Colson walked to the liquor cabinet, pouring a drink he didn't need. "I had business."

"It's the second of November, Colson." I turned my chair to face him, the rubber tires squeaking softly on the marble. "Happy Anniversary."

He froze, the crystal tumbler halfway to his lips. Slowly, he turned, his handsome face twisted into a mask of cold amusement. The same face I had pushed out of the way of a speeding sedan. The face I had ruined my life to save.

"Anniversary?" He took a sip, the amber liquid coating his throat. "Claire, prison sentences aren't worth celebrating."

He downed the rest of the drink and walked past me toward the master suite, the door clicking shut like a lock snapping into place.

The next morning, the penthouse was filled with the gray light of a storm that refused to break. I found Colson’s jacket draped over the back of a sofa. As I reached up to hang it properly—old habits of a dutiful wife dying hard—a slip of paper fluttered to the floor.

I maneuvered my chair to retrieve it. A receipt from Van Cleef & Arpels. A diamond tennis bracelet. Forty-five thousand dollars. Dated yesterday.

My wrist was bare.

I found him in the breakfast nook, scrolling through emails on his tablet, an espresso untouched beside him. I placed the receipt on the glass table. It made a soft *shhh* sound as it slid toward him.

"Is this the business you had last night?" I asked.

Colson didn't flinch. He glanced at the paper, then back at his screen. "It’s a gift."

"For whom? Because I certainly didn't receive it."

He finally looked at me then, his gaze