Chapter 1: The Art Of Being Replaced

Katrina's POV

The nerve of being summoned to your own teardown and not even getting a heads up about the dress code.

Emma's text said 'come tonight, it's important," and I'd spent the whole drive there mentally rehearsing arguments about the gala seating chart because it felt like the most Emma thing to call me for. There was a pregnancy test in my bag in a pink box. I'd been twelve days late, had two weeks of nausea introducing itself every morning like an unwanted roommate. I'd thought after dinner, I'd take the test. Maybe tonight I'd finally give them what they wanted. Three years of his family treating my womb like a malfunctioning piece of machine, and I was finally about to hand them what they wanted. I'd even practiced looking humble about it.

I walked into the dinning room smiling like an idiot.

Nicholas sat at the far end of the table. Konrad to his left, Emma to his right. And Calista, sitting between my in-laws with her hands folded. We hadn't spoken in eight weeks. Not since she'd showed up at my doorstep with some story about needing money for rent and I'd written the check and she'd left without saying thank you.

"Callie." I said cautiously. "Didn't realize we were doing family dinners now."

"Hello to you sister," She gave a fake smile. "Nice to see you too."

"Katrina," Emma gestured to the empty chair. "Sit down."

"I'm fine standing." I looked at Nicholas, he was looking at the table. "What's going on?"

"There are some things we need to discuss,"

"About?"

"This family," Konrad began, like he'd practiced a thousand times. "Has extended you reasonable patience since the beginning of this marriage."

"Patience about what exactly?" I asked, even though I already knew.

"You were not out first choice for Nicholas." Emma said. "Still we asked for very little. A home, a family. A wife who was actually present. Instead you chose your ambitions, your career, yourself. All at the expense of everything that is important."

"I gave up a cardiology surgery fellowship." I said, voice rising slightly. "A program I spent four years earning. I rearranged my entire career because this family decided a wife with a real job was inconvenient. So I'd really love to hear what patience looks like from your end, Emma, because from mine it looks like a four-year audition where nobody told me I was already cut."

"We made allowances," Konrad said flatly. "We expected returns on those allowances."

"You mean a baby."

"We mean a family." She paused, and set what seemed like divorce papers on the table between us."Three years and nothing. There's been no baby. This family cannot continue...."

"I'm twenty-seven," I cut her off. "Are you actually..." I stopped, shaking my head. "Okay. Fine. But I still don't understand what any of this has to do with Callie. Why is she here right now?"

"I'm pregnant," She said.

I turned to face her. "Oh," I paused. "Congratulations, I guess?" I looked between her and Emma, still completely lost. "That's... okay, good for you, but what does that have to with..." I laughed slightly. "Who's the father?"

Nobody moved, nobody said anything. My eyes went Nico's, and the look on his face made my stomach drop.

"No." The word came out quiet. "No, that's... this is not..." I looked at Callie, her expression was perfectly, horribly smug. "Tell me it's not what I think it is."

"Nicholas is the father." She said with a smirk.

"Run that back." My voice came out completely steady and I had no idea how. "Because I think you made a mistake with the name."

"Nothing's wrong about you heard," Konrad said.

I looked at Nicholas and he was still looking at the table.

"Nico." I said carefully. "Tell me right now that they're lying. Tell me she just cooked up some insane story and you have no idea why she's sitting here with her hands on her stomach like that."

He said nothing. The silence stretched, and I felt something inside me starting to break.

"Say something," My voice came out shaking. "Nicholas, I am standing right here and asking you to say something, so open your mouth and tell me this isn't what it looks like..."

"It's true." He said cutting me off.

"No..." My voice broke. "You've been screwing my sister."

"It wasn't supposed to go this far." He finally stood up. "But Kat, if you want to be honest, if we're actually being honest right now, you have not been in this marriage for s long time."

"Excuse me?" I said, shocked.

"When was the last time we've slept together?" His voice rose, eyes sharp. "When was the last time I wasn't just back noise in your life? I tried, I reached for you but you were always exhausted, busy, had seventeen more important things... you made me feel like I was begging for my own wife's attention, which was pathetic."

"I gave up everything for this family!" The words tore out of me. "I gave up my fellowship, my program, my entire career because your mother decided my ambitions was a personality flaw and you want to stand there and tell me I wasn't available enough? You want to make you fucking my sister my fault?"

"I'm saying you were already gone!" His voice cracked. "I'm saying I was alone in this marriage way before any of this happened, and you were too wrapped up in your own ambitions to notice or care!"

"So that's your reason?" My voice dropped. "That's the story you're telling yourself. Kat was too focused on surviving in your family's house so I found her sister. That's the version."

He said nothing.

"You are such a coward," I said, voice short. "You couldn't even look at me when I walked in."

"You were never what this family needed," Konrad said flatly. "We made that clear from the beginning."

"You made it clear from the beginning that I wasn't good enough because my father didn't marry my mother," I said. "That am a bastard. Say that part out loud while we're being honest."

The table went quiet in a different way.

"The prenuptial agreement covers the terms," Konrad said, sliding papers across the table. "Five thousand dollars."

I stared at the number. "Five thousand dollars," I said. "Three years of my life and Five thousand dollars is what I get. You tip more than that at restaurants, Konrad."

"It's what you agreed to."

"I was twenty-four and in love, I signed whatever you put in front of me because I was stupid enough to think love meant something in this family. I sighed and picked up the pen and looked at Nicholas. "I really hope it was worth it."

I signed every page and folded the check, put it in my bag next to the pregnancy test, and looked at Calista one last time.

"Because when it isn't, and it won't be, don't call me."