In my life, I’ve been someone’s mistress twice. The first time, I was young and naive. I got involved with a ruthless mob boss. Back then I was soft and foolish. I thought if I was good enough, he’d give me his heart in return. When I realized he only saw me as a toy, I walked away without looking back. The second time, I wised up. I got with Julian Rhodes, a legendary figure in high finance. In the three years we’d been married, Julian spoiled me rotten. Wherever I went, he had bodyguards shadowing my every step. I told myself I’d finally earned real love on my own terms. Then came a vacation earlier this year. I went with Julian to visit his grandmother at her estate in Harbor City. Standing outside on the villa terrace, I heard his grandmother let out a long, heavy sigh. “Years ago, the eldest daughter of the Churchill family looked down on you for being illegitimate. She nearly got you killed. You swore then that you’d never love her again.” “And yet here we are. Isn’t your current wife just a copy of what Chelsea Churchill looked like before her surgery?”
Julian went quiet for a long moment. “Grandma,” he finally said, “don’t let Nora hear you say that.” I was standing on the other side of the terrace. My fingers gripped the railing so hard my knuckles went white. “Why are you out here alone in the wind? You’ll catch a cold.” Julian’s warm voice came from behind me. He draped a jacket over my shoulders and slipped his arms around my waist from behind. My whole body went rigid. His grandmother’s words kept echoing through my head. Julian took my hand. “Nora, why are your hands so cold?” He brought my fingers to his lips and breathed warm air against them. I turned around and pulled my hand back, keeping my face blank. “Julian,” I said, “who am I to you?” Looking into his tender eyes, I couldn’t stop the memories of the past three years flooding back. Every single night, without fail, he’d bring me a warm glass of milk before bed. When my cramps were bad, he’d cancel billion-dollar deals just to stay home and rub my stomach all night. And all of it had been for another woman? He reached up and touched my hair. “Silly girl. Do you really have to ask? You’re my wife. The love of my life.” I opened my mouth to speak, but his phone buzzed. He glanced at the screen. His expression didn’t change. “Nora, something’s come up in Europe. I need to take a video call in the study.” He leaned down and pressed a soft kiss to my forehead. “Be good. Go to sleep without me.” I stood there, numb, watching him disappear. I went back to the bedroom alone. On the nightstand, the tablet Julian used to read financial news suddenly lit up. A chat window popped open. No name saved for the contact. A photo came through. The background was a high-end hotel somewhere in Harbor City. In the photo, a woman was wearing a black lace slip dress, her eyes soft and liquid. Her features were sharp and carefully sculpted. But even so, I could see it. The shape of her face carried an echo of mine. Chelsea Churchill. The eldest daughter of the Churchill family. Before I could even react, the chat log vanished. Julian had wiped the messages from his end. Less than a minute later, I heard footsteps in the hallway, deliberately quiet. Then the sound of an engine fading into the distance. I pressed both hands flat against the bedsheets. After a moment, I took a slow, deep breath. I used the hotel logo barely visible in the background of the photo to track down the location, and called a cab.
I didn’t storm in and cause a scene. Instead, I did something almost like self-punishment. I checked into the room right next door. The walls were thin. Or maybe they just didn’t bother to keep quiet. The sounds coming through the wall were unlike anything I’d ever heard from him. That kind of intensity, that abandon. With me, he was always gentle. Always restrained. Chelsea’s voice came through, thick with tears. “Julian, three years ago you were furious at me for what I did. For leaving you out there in the water…” “Tonight, I’m giving myself to you. Does that make it even?” Whatever she said next was swallowed up by the sounds that followed. I bit down on my lower lip until I tasted blood. I pushed down every instinct screaming at me to act. I pulled out my voice recorder and saved everything. Nausea clawed its way up my throat. I pocketed the recorder and stumbled out of there. I walked alone through the streets. Cold wind mixed with a light drizzle hit me full in the face. My phone screen lit up. A message from Julian. “Nora, this case is getting complicated. I’ll be late. Get some rest. Don’t wait up.” I tilted my head back. I tried to hold the tears in, but my vision blurred anyway. I had believed I was the luckiest woman alive. The evidence in front of me had just slapped that belief clean off my face. I don’t remember how I made it home. I picked up the wooden carving by the entryway and walked to the display shelf in the living room. The whole shelf was lined with small female figures, carved in wood. For three years, I’d seen them as proof of his love. I used to be obsessed with wood carving. So Julian had cleared his entire schedule to take classes with me. He’d wrap his arms around me from behind, guide my hands, and carve stroke by stroke. He said he wanted to capture every moment of me. I walked to the centerpiece, the figure I loved most, a half-length portrait. Something in my chest told me to move it. I did. There was a hidden compartment underneath. I opened it, and my hands started shaking before I even fully understood what I was seeing. Inside was an old photograph, yellowed at the edges. A girl with a wild, defiant smile. Something melancholy in her eyes. It was Chelsea Churchill. Before the surgery. I held the photo up next to the carving. The eyes. The expression. The shape of the face. It wasn’t me. I was never the subject. I was just a reference point. A stand-in for what Chelsea used to look like. That’s when I heard the front door unlock. Julian was home. “Still awake? Were you scared being here alone without me?” He came toward me, reached up out of habit to touch my hair. I couldn’t hold it together anymore. I stepped back from his hand and threw the photograph at his face. “So everything you did for me these past three years was a lie?” “You were just looking at her through me?” Julian glanced down at the photo. A flicker of annoyance crossed his eyes. He bent down, picked it up, and brushed the dust off it carefully. Not a trace of panic. No guilt. No shame. “Nora, your place as my wife is permanent. That will never change.” “Chelsea is just something I need to work through. A fixation from when I was young. I need a little time to put it to rest.” I let out a cold laugh. “Put it to rest? In her bed?” Julian looked up at me, eyes narrowing. “You followed me?” He crossed one leg over the other. “She has severe depression. I’m not going to stand by and watch someone fall apart. You of all people would understand that. You care about every stray cat and dog you come across. This is a human life.” Then his phone lit up on the table. A voice message from Chelsea. Julian didn’t even flinch. He hit play on speaker.
Chelsea’s voice came through lazy and satisfied. “Thanks for remembering I love pink diamonds. Oh, and I prefer strawberry flavored. Don’t mix it up next time.” The pink diamond bracelet. The one he’d bid an outrageous price for at an auction last year. He’d said he bought it for me. It had been for her all along. He extended his hand toward me. “That bracelet was low quality anyway. I’ll have my assistant find a better one tomorrow. Consider it an apology.” I stood up. “Julian. I want a divorce.” The moment the words left my mouth, his hand shot out and grabbed my wrist. He didn’t squeeze hard, but the warmth in his eyes was completely gone. “Stop making a scene. I don’t like you like this.” “Where exactly do you think you’d go without me? Back to that mob boss?” “Let go of me. Where I go is none of your business.” I stared coldly at his hand wrapped around my wrist. Julian’s expression darkened. Slowly, he loosened his grip. He exhaled, and his face shifted into something patient and tired, like he was indulging a child throwing a tantrum. “Nora, you’re being emotional. I promise I’ll see her less from now on.” Then the private cell phone in his pocket rang. The special number. The one he’d set up just for me, so I could always reach him in an emergency. Julian’s brow creased slightly. He answered. Chelsea’s voice, on the verge of tears. “Julian, I’m scared.” Julian’s whole body tensed. “What? You cut yourself?” He turned around without a second’s hesitation. “I have to go. Get some rest.” “Julian.” A sharp pain hit me low in my stomach. I pressed my hand over it on instinct and reached out to grab the edge of his sleeve. He looked back at me with barely concealed impatience. “Nora, don’t play games right now. This isn’t the time for jealousy.” “She’s in a dangerous state. I have to go.” One by one, he pried my fingers off his sleeve. He didn’t look back at me again. He was out the door in three strides. I sank down onto the floor, cold sweat soaking through my shirt. I got myself to the hospital alone. I lay in a narrow bed under the fluorescent lights. I held the thin slip of paper from the test and ran my fingers over my still-flat stomach. Baby, I’m sorry. Your timing couldn’t be worse. I curled my hand into a fist. But you’re here. And I’m going to take you with me. I’m going to raise you. I called my lawyer. After sending over the evidence, I got up to leave. That’s when I saw them. Julian was carefully guiding Chelsea out of the private ultrasound suite, one hand steadying her elbow. Chelsea had a cartoon bandage on her finger. Julian was leaning close, saying something soft to her. His face was gentle in a way I recognized. Chelsea looked up and her eyes found mine. She stopped walking. She reached over and tugged on Julian’s sleeve. Julian followed her gaze. Something shifted in his expression. Chelsea pulled free of his hand and walked straight toward me. She studied my face. “Strange, isn’t it. Even I almost forgot what I used to look like. And here you are.” That light, breezy sentence hit me like a slap across the face. She raised her hand and reached toward my cheek. I turned my head away. “Don’t touch me. I’m not you.” When I pulled back, she swung her palm across my face. The sting blazed across my cheek. I raised my hand and hit her back. Julian crossed the space between us in seconds and stepped in front of Chelsea. “Nora, she’s unwell. Let it go.” I turned and hit him across the face instead. He didn’t react with anger. His eyes dropped to the test results still in my hand. He reached over and took the paper. He scanned it.
His brow furrowed. “Nora, we can’t keep this baby. Not right now.” “Chelsea is pregnant too. Her depression is severe. Any kind of stress could push her over the edge.” I stared at the man in front of me like I was seeing him clearly for the first time. She was pregnant too? So they’d been together long before any of this. A wave of nausea hit me and I couldn’t hold it back. He rubbed my back. I shoved him off. “This is my child. This has nothing to do with you.” Julian reached up and wiped the involuntary tears from the corners of my eyes. “Be reasonable. We’ll end this one.” He sighed, the way you do when you’re trying to calm down someone who doesn’t understand the situation. “We can have more later. I’ll spend the rest of my life making this up to you.” I stepped back out of his reach. “I told you. I want a divorce. And this baby is mine.” Behind me, Chelsea pressed a hand to her chest right on cue and let out a soft, pained gasp. Julian’s expression went cold. He turned and signaled to the bodyguards behind him. “Take my wife to the surgical suite. Get the best doctor on staff.” Several bodyguards stepped forward immediately and seized my arms. I fought with everything I had. It made no difference. In the end, I was locked inside a private room to wait for the procedure. Tears ran down the sides of my face. Fear and helplessness swallowed me whole. The door opened. Chelsea. I glared at her with everything in me. She smiled at me, slow and cold. “Did you really think a woman like you, a mistress who got thrown away by a crime lord, was going to carry on the Rhodes family line? Keep dreaming.” “If you hadn’t been born with a face like mine, you never would have gotten near Julian in the first place.” Before the last word left her mouth, she swung at me again. This time I sank my teeth into her hand and didn’t let go until I tasted blood. She screamed for a doctor. “No anesthesia.” The procedure began. I screamed. I felt my child being taken from me. The pain was beyond anything I’d known, body and soul torn apart at once. I choked up blood and went dark. When I came to, cramps were tearing through my lower stomach in waves. I stared up at the ceiling as tears ran silently into my hair. My baby was gone. Through the wall, I could hear Julian and Chelsea laughing together, talking about the new life they were expecting. I wiped my face dry. I made a phone call. “I’m ready to work with you. Meet me at the beach.” I went home feeling hollowed out and walked straight to Julian’s study. I pulled a small USB drive from my pocket and plugged it into his private computer. I thought for a moment, then typed in a number. Correct password. It was the date Chelsea had nearly gotten him killed in the water. But there was a second password. I tried several combinations. None of them worked. Then, on a strange impulse, I typed in our wedding anniversary. The screen unlocked. I laughed despite myself. What a pathetic kind of devotion. The progress bar ticked through the Rhodes Group’s most sensitive files. I drove out to the beach on the edge of the city alone. That’s where I always went when things got to be too much. Then I heard footsteps nearby. “Knew it was you, Nora. My contact wasn’t lying.” A man’s voice, oily and too familiar. I turned around, and my blood ran cold. Rex Fowler. The crime lord. The man I’d left. The one who’d treated me like I was nothing. My body moved before my mind caught up. “How are you here? Why are you here?” Rex looked me over slowly, a predatory smile spreading across his face. “Nora. It’s been a while. Leaving me clearly agreed with you.” “Word is Julian tossed you out. Why not come back to me? I’ll make sure every single day is worth your while.”
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