2

JENNA

My heart beat thundered against my ears. It was all I could hear. Either that, or the sound of distant voices in the background. I could barely make out the words in them. I just heard them.

I tried to look around, to get my eyes to open but they didn't heed me. They stayed close on their own Accord, binding me to darkness for a long period of hours with my heart pounding heavily against my ears.

My mind pulsed with a thousand questions. The one with the biggest weight was easy. Where was I?

I tried to see if I could navigate. I tried to feel.

I didn't feel a thing for the next few hours.

And when I did feel, it was the sharp prickling pain that braced my veins. My breath caught in my throat and for the first time, my lips moved. I coughed.

My eyes opened next.

I saw lights. Bright ones.

They bit right in, making me squirm on the spot I laid.

Then I heard sounds.

Repeated ones.

“I see you've woken up.”

I heard a voice cutting through the air. Soft. Light.

Comforting.

I turned my eyes to the direction it came and I was stunned to find a lady in a nurse uniform. She walked over to the side of my hospital bed.

Good. A nurse.

A person I could ask questions to.

“W-where am I?”

I muttered slowly under my breath but I knew she heard me clearly. 

She didn't hesitate to speak.

“You’re at the city hospital, Ms. You were rushed into the ER after a heart complication. They thought you just fainted but we later got to find out that you had pre-existing heart conditions. It took weeks but we later did it.”

“W-weeks? How long have I been here.”

The nurse’s features flashed all shades of red for a second. I could see the fear in her eyes as she opened her lips to speak. 

“A month ma'am. You went into a coma ever since, it’s a miracle you even survived.”

Her words hit me like a slap. A month.

I've been here for a month.

In a coma.

“Where is my b-baby?”

I asked, my voice heavy with tension. 

A thousand new batches of questions rolled into my mind as my heart drummed heavily in my chest. I tried to calm the heavy beatings of my heart in my chest but failed. Woefully.

“As for your daughter, she's been in your husband's custody.”

I opened my lips to ask about David but my eyes watered instead. “A-and my husband?”

My lips quivered.

I tried my very best to guard my heart for whatever response she was going to give me but when she finally opened her lips to speak, I dug my nails deeper into the flesh of my palm.

“He's actually in here. With a family member I suppose.”

I gasped, quirking my brows. 

David couldn't have come with a family member. I was an orphan and he'd fought with every single family member of his that I'd ever got to know.

That brought me to the bottom of the list, her.

The other lady.

The one I saw with him at the cake store I visited to grab a cake for Chloe's birthday. 

I still couldn't get over his last words. He referred to me as his dumb wife. 

I'd never felt so foolish in my entire life than I did in that moment.

“Oh look, he's here.”

Fear caught a tight grip if my heart. It jumped iny chest, my breath cracking as I raised my head slowly to meet the sight of David strutting into the room with his arm interlocked with her.

I caught a clearer view of her now.

Tall frame. High heels. Red dress.

Standing atop geeks so high, I could've sworn hey had to be over six I chest, she clung to him. His arms didn't slide away from hers the moment I traced his arm.

He didn't move an inch.

The look on his face told me all I needed to know.

The same blur pair of eyes that once used to stare at me in admiration were now filled with scorn. Resentment. Disgust.

“H-how could you do this to me, Dave?”

Silence.

He didn't say a thing.

His cold, emotionless eyes dug right into mine.

Tears gathered in my eyes as I was left hanging, waiting patiently for a response. I didn't get any. He only turned to stare at the lady, his arm sliding to her waist as he pulled her close, teasing the side of her waist while his breath fanned her neck.

“You know how much I put into us as a family. I toiled for years in your mansion, raising our child all alone while you tour the world under the guise of business trips.”

I began to lose all control of the tears gathering in my eyes as they streaked down my face. 

The nurse standing beside my bed, passed me a box of tissues before she turned to leave.

“I'll be out if you need me.”

The moment the door shut open, I snapped out of thoughts. 

I turned to face him again, muttering the same words I did before.

“How could you do this to me? Answer me, Dave?!”

“I've heard rumours from moms at Chloe's school about how you had flings outside our marriage. I ignored them. You told me to. And guess who you bring to me on my sick bed? Your side chick.”

“She is no side chick, Jenna. She is your replacement. And whether you like it or not, I'm going to make her mine. Publicly.”

“But what about us? Our daughter?”

The disgust in his eyes darkened the moment I mentioned our daughter. And my smile faded.

“I never wanted you to have her anyways. You insisted on keeping the pregnancy. I was more disinterested when the scans said she was a girl. You know all I want is an heir. I have that now. A male.”

My breath caught. “W-what do you m—”

His gaze dropped to her tummy. “It all happened over a drunk late night at the office. We were supposed to pull an all-nighter at work but she did just that in my bed. She gave me the best sex of my life, Jenna. Who knew my own secretary could be all I ever want in a woman?’

My heart sank. “Your secretary?”

“Oh, you didn't know that part? I got a hard on the moment I saw her apply for the role in those short skirts. I got to take her to the office late at night. We made out and now, she has my heir. A male. She's thirteen weeks gone, by the way. And now that I think about it, I realize I really never needed you in the first place.”

His fingers travelled under her skirt and I watched how he started working them beneath her skirt.

She began to moan.

While I stayed there, weak on the hospital bed, forced to watch him finger her. 

When I got tired of the site, I called for the nurse. “Nurse!”

He stopped almost immediately.

And the both of them went back to strict as if he hadn't just stuck his finger up her clit.

“Do you need anything, Ms. Jenna?”

I turned to him, tears still streaking down my face. He shook his head. “No. We were just about leaving.”

“Stuart.”

David called. His assistant stepped into the room with a file in his hands. 

“W- what is that?”

I asked, fear cloaking my tone.

He answered me almost instantly.

“Divorce papers. Sign them. You get to keep your kid. And thanks to the prenup you signed, I get to keep everything with my new lover.”

My breath caught in my throat and I coughed. 

“Thirsty?”

The lady beside him popped her head out, her eyes scanning mine. 

I didn't respond. I already knew what was coming.

I'd already predict it.

When another cough gripped my chest,tears brimmed in my eyes.

“Thirsty?”

The lady asked again as she strode towards the water dispenser in the room. Her fingers caught tight grip of the cup before she tapped on button, filling the cup to the brim before she released her finger from the button.

“David has told me a lot about you, Jenna.” She dragged her words as she eased towards me. I eyed her for a long second before opening my lips to speak.

“I bet he did. What else did he tell you?”

She laughed, her eyes gleaming with scorn.

“He told me how you bound him to that shackle you call marriage with that daughter of yours.” The tears gathering in my eyes threatened to spill but I sniffed, fighting them. “He told me how he hates you a little more every day. He told me how I fuck him way better than you do.”

I raised my hand, signalling my disgust and disinterest to hear more.

But she proceeded, her eyes darkening as she turned the cup, draining it bit by bit.

“Want to know the last thing he said?”

I shook my head but she didn't seem to care.

Her eyes travelled to my stomach. “He told me how he's going to give his entire fortune to our unborn heir.”

“Y-you’re pregnant?”

My eyes burned with even more tears and this time, I didn't hold them back. 

I let them run.

“Yes.”

David answered my question, his hands gripping her stomach. “She's pregnant with a male, Jenna. She gave me something you couldn't. First trial and I already have an heir. Who knows how many heirs I'll get on the second trial.”

Bile burned at the back of my throat.

I wiped my tears, opening my lips to say words I never thought I'd say.

“If that's what you want then, David O’Connor, be my guest. Pass me a pen?”

I noticed the shock on his face. I could tell he didn't expect me to agree so easily. 

“I thought you'd want to fight for compensation or grovel and beg.”

He laughed. She did too.

They both laughed as Stuart passed me a pen and I signed, finally letting go of the marriage I'd clung to for more than five years.