Chapter 2

Seeing me go quiet, Camile assumed I'd agreed to her proposal.

In the car, I spoke up out of nowhere. "We can pretend this never happened. We can go back to how things were."

Camile's face lit up with delight, and she threw her arms around me before I could react.

"But I have one condition. You can't keep this baby."

I wasn't generous enough to raise another man's child. Without this baby, we could still start over. I hadn't expected her to dig in so hard. She was determined to have this child no matter what.

"Absolutely not! I fought tooth and nail to get this baby, and I'm keeping it. Anything else, I'll give you."

Camile was pushing this too far. I'd already given up more ground than I ever thought I would, and she still wouldn't budge an inch.

Furious, I had the driver pull over.

Camile rolled down her window and ordered me, "Sean, stop right there!"

I kept walking without looking back. Behind me, she shouted, "If you don't come back now, don't ever come back!"

I slept at the office for several nights after that. Just in case, I had payroll deposit that month's salary onto my own card.

The accountant was confused. My salary and bonuses had always gone straight into Camile's account. She wasn't hurting for money, but I had my own sense of what a husband owed his family.

"I'll... I'll need to run this by Ms. McCallum first," the accountant said, clearly uncomfortable.

I stopped her before she could reach for the phone. "I don't even get a say over my own salary?"

The accountant nodded. "Mr. Grey, Ms. McCallum told us two days ago that your pay has to go to her."

Camile was cornering me, and she knew exactly how little cash I had on hand. This was her way of forcing my hand.

Right around then, the care facility called, asking why that month's bill for my mother's care still hadn't been paid. Camile had always handled that before. I had no choice but to rush to the hospital myself to sort it out.

When I went to pay, the card declined for insufficient funds. The sharp beep drew stares from everyone nearby. I ran every card in my wallet through the machine, and it still wasn't enough.

"Run this one." Camile appeared at the counter like some kind of savior, sweeping in to save me from my own humiliation.

My phone buzzed with a transfer notification. A hundred thousand dollars had landed in my account. It was from Camile.

A second later, she doused whatever gratitude had just sparked in me.

"If you're short on money, you could just tell me. Why humiliate yourself in front of the accountant like that? You're a general manager, for God's sake. Why haven't you shaken off those poor habits after all these years?"

Every word out of her mouth dripped with contempt. I'd come from nothing, sure, but that didn't mean I had no dignity left.

Camile touched her stomach. "I have a prenatal checkup this afternoon. I already had my secretary clear your schedule. As the baby's father, you're coming with me."

The baby. Always the baby.

Love me, love my dog, as they say, but just how deep did her feelings for this child's father run, that she'd throw away our marriage over him?

Everything I'd been holding back came pouring out at once, and I couldn't stop it. "Who is this child's father? Tell me!"

"Does it matter?" Camile dodged the question. "Just treat him as your own from now on. As long as neither of us says anything, no one will ever know."

She wouldn't breathe a word about who the father was, wouldn't even let the subject come up. She wanted me to accept the child in her belly and play the blind, mute fool about it, never asking, never looking.

When I stayed silent, Camile's expression turned cold. "Don't even think about looking into who the father is. Or I can't promise your mother's medical bills will keep coming through next month."

She had no idea that every bit of protection she gave that man drove the knife into me a little deeper.