Chapter 3

Clay had rarely been this worked up.

Even the hand gripping the pregnancy report was trembling.

“Reese, answer me. Are you pregnant?”

I turned to look at him, and it struck me as almost funny.

Two days ago, the moment I found out I was pregnant, I was too thrilled to sleep.

I decided then and there to take a car more than six hundred miles to his hometown, to find him.

I wanted Clay to be the first to hear the good news.

Instead it turned into a horror.

So it turned out that for six years, when he whispered in my ear that he wanted a daughter, a little girl to dote on, it had nothing to do with how much he loved the idea.

It was only because his ex-wife could no longer bear children, and he wanted to give her a matched pair, a son and a daughter.

Even divorcing Mary hadn't been because their feelings had died.

It was only because he had no choice but to marry me.

“If I really am pregnant, what will you do?”

I stared into Clay's eyes.

“Are you still going to move your ex-wife and her kid in here?”

You could see the excitement come over him.

He wrapped an arm around my waist and, ever so carefully, touched the slight swell of my belly.

“Of course not.”

Clay's voice left no room for doubt.

“Nothing matters more than you right now.”

“You stay home and take care of yourself. As for them, I'll go arrange somewhere else for them right now.”

Clay explained the situation to his ex-wife.

It took only a few minutes.

Mary had already dragged her suitcase upstairs.

Now she took the child and hauled the suitcase back down.

Her face was all apology.

“I'm so sorry, we've been such a bother. We didn't know you were expecting.”

“The two of us will go right away.”

Her son, hearing that they couldn't stay in the big house, suddenly kicked me hard in the shin.

“You bad woman.”

“You stole my daddy, you took over my home!”

“Grandma says you're just a shameless bad woman—”

His mother clapped a hand over his mouth at once.

“I'm sorry, he's little, he doesn't understand.”

Clay's brow tightened too, and he smacked the boy's bottom.

“How could you raise your hand to Auntie?”

“Auntie has your little sister in her belly. Come on, Daddy will find you two another place to stay.”

He scooped Oscar up, and the boy kicked his legs hard, bawling.

“No! I want to live in Daddy's new house!”

Mary said she wouldn't intrude.

Yet before long she was settled into the apartment Clay had arranged.

For half a month straight, Clay came home half an hour late every day after work.

“Miss Pruitt, you guessed right.”

The private investigator tossed the photos down in front of me.

“Your husband, Clay Henson, does go to Mary Fletcher and her son's apartment every day after work.”

“He doesn't leave until after dinner.”

In the photos, the two of them were all over each other.

Clay even let his ex-wife throw herself into his arms.

He didn't push her away.

I thought of before, how flatly he'd told me he had cut things off with his ex-wife long ago.

That I was the only one for him.

Six years of marriage, after all.

Seeing that Clay was willing to send them off elsewhere for the sake of my child, I had even tried hard to talk myself into it, into giving him one more chance.

But watching this, I found it absurd.

I lifted a hand to my belly.

“Baby, we can't have a liar for a father, can we?”

“So don't blame Mommy.”

I closed my eyes.

When I opened them again, I told the driver.

“Turn back.”