Chapter 3

[Alice’s POV]

I didn’t open the door.

Instead, through the surveillance screen, I stared fixedly at the woman standing in the rain. She was holding the bouquet of white tulips in her arms, and her beautiful face looked so familiar and unfamiliar under the light of the villa’s porch. Her features, her charm, and even the slightly upturned corners of her mouth bore an uncanny resemblance to my dead sister Sylvia.

But as I stared at her, I saw a hint of cunning and confidence that Sylvia never had.

Pressing the intercom button, I asked with a nervous tremble in my voice:“Who are you?”

The woman chuckled at the camera, her eyes carrying a hint of triumphant pride.

“Didn’t Mr. David tell you? I’m Emry.” Her voice was soft and sweet, but with a sharp edge.

“Emry?” I turned the name over in my mouth. “No, David hasn’t mentioned you,” I said.

She chuckled again.

 “Well, this is awkward,” she said, although her tone didn’t sound awkward at all. With a wry smile, she looked dead into the camera.  “I’m pregnant with David’s child. He opened the Sylvia Flower Shop for me.”

My breath froze in my throat.

Pregnant? Flower shop? Emry?

My mind spun.

“What are you talking about?” I almost shouted, the folder with my diagnosis crumpled by my grip.

When Emry heard the panic sharpness in my voice, the smile on her face deepened. She raised the white tulips in her arms and leaned close to the camera.

“Alice,” she said. “Don’t sound so shocked. You and I both know you’re only deceiving yourself.  The person David loved was always your dead sister Sylvia.” Her voice carried a kind of morbid tenderness. With my mouth agape, I stared into her eyes through the screen.“He still carries a picture of Sylvia in his wallet. I saw it with my own two eyes.  Did you think that just because you look like her, you could replace her place in David’s heart? You’re just a fake.”

Bristling with anger at her sharp words, I gripped the folder even more tightly.

Emry slowly transferred the bouquet into one hand, straightened her slender waist, and turned back to the camera. When she spoke again, her tone was provocative.  

“Take a good, hard look at me,” she said. “My appearance and age align much better with David’s memory of Syliva than yours. Surely you can see that. I’m younger than you. Purer. More like the person David has always loved. It only makes sense that he’s fallen in love with me.”

It was impossible to argue with that. She did look a lot more like Sylvia than I did because she was roughly the same age Sylvia was when she died.  ”

“Most importantly, though,” Emry continued.  “I’m pregnant. I’m giving him the baby you couldn’t. David said this child will be his only heir.”

Each of her words was like a poisonous needle, accurately stabbing into my most vulnerable wounds. My body trembled with pain and anger, and the sharp pain in my head struck again, causing my vision to blur.

“I don’t believe you!” I stared at her intently. “David ‘s on a business trip today. He isn’t even in the city.”

Emry laughed even harder, the sound particularly harsh in the rain.

“A business trip? Is that what you really believe? Don’t be so daft, Alice. Do you really think he would miss this important day for some boring international conference?” She flashed me a sardonic smile before reaching into her purse. She pulled out a phone and waved it at the screen on the camera. “There he is, right there,” she said. I glared at the screen shot on her phone that showed David’s location. She was right. He right here, in the city.  “See?” She put one hand on her hip. “He’s on his way here right now. To see me.”

“Impossible!” I shouted, my voice out of control. My hands shook and I felt violently ill. The pain in my head pounded against my skull.

She was lying. She had to be. This couldn’t be happening. David would never betray me like this.

And yet, her phone held the proof I was too reluctant to see.

Just then, Emry’s phone suddenly rang. The name “David” appeared on the screen. She raised her eyebrows at me smugly, then pressed the speaker button.

David’s deep and magnetic voice instantly echoed in the villa’s cold foyer. 

“Emry, I’m almost at the store. Are you ready? ”

With her eyes locked on mine, Emry responded sweetly, her voice so charming that it was annoying:

“Yes, of course,” she said. “Everything’s ready. Come quickly, David. I’m waiting for you.”

“Okay,” David said.  “I’ve arranged for a checkup with the best doctor in the city. It was hard to get an appointment, but he squeezed us in. We can’t be late. We have to take good care of this baby.” David’s voice had a tenderness I’d never heard before. It knocked the wind right of me. He’d never spoken to me with such adoration and tenderness.

My world collapsed at that moment.

So it was true? This woman was pregnant with David’s baby?

David wasn’t on a business trip at all. He lied to me.

Emry turned off the speakerphone, with a sick satisfaction on her face, and added word by word to the surveillance camera: “Did you hear that? He wants me to give him a child, a child as beautiful as Syliva. It’s selfish, I know. But I don’t care because I love him.  It’s time for you to stand down, Alice.  You were never the one David loved..”

I felt dizzy, and a sharp pain came from my stomach, as if the small life that had just sprouted was withering little by little under Emry’s mockery.

Outside, the rain was picking up. A gust of wind blew across the villa porch, causing a lock of Emry’s hair to blow across her face. With a delicate finger, she swept the hair from her cheek and tucked it behind her ear. The rain dripped off her umbrella, pooling at her feet.

Emry hung up the phone and pressed the intercom button. “Mrs. Neighley, since you refuse to open the door for me, I’ll just the flowers here.””

Her smile was still sweet, and the bouquet in her hand looked particularly glaring in the rain curtain, as if mocking me for being a foolish wife. She set the bouquet down on the ground.

Then she turned and walked away. I watched the tail-lights of her car leave the gate, my fists clenched, my hands shaking.

The maid came over quietly, with a worried and hesitant expression on her face:

“Miss Alice, the flowers…Shall I go fetch them? And find a vase? Or…”

My gaze swept over the exquisitely wrapped bouquet on the ground. Extreme beauty, extreme luxury, and also extreme... falsehood.

“Throw them away ,” I said, my voice devoid of any emotion.

“What?” The maid asked, drawing her hand to her lips clearly stunned.

“I said, throw them away,” I repeated, turning away, no longer able to look at the tulips that mocked me.”

“Together with the mat outside the door.  Take it out and throw it away.”