I forbade Rex Blackwood from bringing his assistant to our lake house. He agreed, but behind my back, he bought her a penthouse in the city's most exclusive district.

The whole world said I had married the prince of the tech industry, that getting pregnant with twins was a fairy tale come true.

But on the day of my emergency C-section, I suffered a placental abruption and began to hemorrhage. Rex was on vacation with that woman at some lavish ski resort, completely unreachable on his private jet.

My mom crumpled to the floor outside the operating room, her calls to him—over forty of them—all going straight to voicemail.

Only later did I learn that his assistant, Chloe, had been with him since she was an eighteen-year-old college intern.

I took my twin boys and moved back to the apartment I’d had before the wedding. When Rex finally came looking for me, I was in the middle of changing a diaper.

He stood at the door, dressed in a bespoke suit and holding a gift box from a luxury baby boutique.

"Savannah, come home with me."

He held out the gift box. "I messed up."

I glanced up at him and smiled. "Messed up what?"

He froze. The question clearly caught him off guard.

I took the gift box from his hand and, right in front of him, tossed it into the recycling bin in the hallway.

"Messed up..."

I clapped my hands together, my voice deceptively soft. "Rex, you should have just had her carry your children instead of lying to me."

————————

1

Rex bent to pick up the gift box.

The recycling bin tipped, its contents—scraps of paper and packaging—spilling out and clinging to his Italian leather shoes.

He didn't move.

"Savannah," he said, his voice low and strained, "I know you're upset—"

"I'm upset?"

I picked up James. The little guy had just finished his milk and let out a soft burp. "What, exactly, am I upset about?"

He straightened, his gaze sweeping across the cluttered living room.

A changing table, cans of formula, and baby toys littered the space.

His mom had come by last week, insisting the apartment was too small and that I should move back to the lake house.

"I handled the situation with Chloe badly."

"Chloe."

I repeated the name, the sound of it bitter on my tongue. "Is that the woman you bought a penthouse for on Fifth Avenue?"

Rex's expression tightened.

"Did you buy her a three-million-dollar apartment?"

I patted James's back gently. "In the city's most expensive high-rise, overlooking Central Park."

His voice was flat. "The deed's in her name."

My hand stilled.

James started to fuss. I shifted him to my other shoulder, resuming the steady, rhythmic patting.

"Her name," I repeated. "Rex, you bought her an apartment?"

He was silent for two seconds.

Two seconds was all it took.

From the crib, Lucas suddenly started wailing, his small voice cracking as his arms and legs thrashed.

I didn't have a free hand. Rex moved toward him instinctively, bending down as if to pick him up, but he hesitated, his hands hovering uselessly in the air.

He didn't know how to hold a baby.

At the lake house, we'd had a nanny. He'd never changed a single diaper.

"You should go," I said.

He stood motionless beside the crib.

Lucas's face was blotchy and red from crying. Rex just watched, helpless, the cuff of his bespoke suit brushing against a dried milk stain on the crib rail.

"Savannah, the doctor said your recovery isn't going well. The boys need a father."

I placed James in his rocker and strode over to scoop up Lucas.

The moment he was in my arms, Lucas quieted, nuzzling his little face against my chest.

"They never had one to begin with," I said.

Rex's head snapped up.

"How many of my prenatal appointments did you make it to?"

I soothed Lucas, my voice quiet but sharp. "The time I fainted from low blood sugar in the hospital corridor, the nurse called you, but you were in a 'board meeting.' The time the babies were kicking up a storm and I wanted you to feel it, Chloe answered your phone. And the day I had the placental abruption? The day I was bleeding out on a table?"

Lucas began to suck on his fingers, and I gently pulled his hand away.

"My mom knelt outside the OR and called you forty-three times."

A muscle jumped in Rex's jaw.

"You were in Aspen that day."

I said, "You were with her. Some 'corporate retreat.' A private jet, round trip, all to surprise the old flame who's been by your side for eight years."

He started to speak. "That was a critical company event, I couldn't get away—"

"Couldn't get away?"

I laughed, a sharp, humorless sound. "She's been with you for eight years, since she was an eighteen-year-old intern. You couldn't get away from a ski trip with her?"

The living room fell silent, the only sound the soft cooing from James in his rocker.

The rhythmic chopping from the kitchen suddenly stopped.

Rex looked straight into my eyes. "Savannah, I ended it with her."

I said nothing.

"I gave her the apartment. It was a severance package."

He took a step forward. "I promise, from now on—"

"You promise."

I smiled again, a brittle, sharp thing. "The last time you promised not to bring her to our lake house, you turned around and bought her a penthouse. The time before that, you promised to break it off completely before the babies were born, yet on the third day after my C-section, she sent me a picture of the two of you."

Rex froze.

"Guess what she sent?"

I put Lucas down and turned to face him squarely. "She sent a shirtless photo of you. The tattoo on your ribs—the one that was supposed to be my zodiac sign? You changed it to her name."

The color drained completely from his face.

...

"Rex," I said, leaning against the crib, "when you were trying to win me over, you swore you were single. When you proposed, you told me I was your one and only soulmate. When I was pregnant with our sons, so sick I was throwing up bile, you would touch my belly and say our family of four would be your entire world."

James began to fuss in his rocker. I went over and picked him up.

His little mouth turned down, on the verge of tears, so I turned aside, lifted my shirt, and began to breastfeed him.

Across the room, the only sound was Lucas sucking his fingers in the crib.

Rex was still rooted to the spot. He hadn't even glanced down at the trash clinging to his expensive shoes.

"That tattoo photo..."

He finally spoke, his voice rough. "I didn't know... I thought she Photoshopped it..."

"Of course it wasn't Photoshopped."

I cradled the back of James's head. "You didn't know she was 'liking' photos of my baby bump on social media. You didn't know she was using your phone to send me cruel messages in the middle of the night. You didn't even know she took a picture of my ultrasound scan to show off to her best friend."

Rex took a hesitant step forward.

James, still nursing, let out a sudden hiccup, a dribble of white milk escaping the corner of his mouth.

I reached for a gauze cloth on the coffee table to wipe his chin. It was lying next to a manila folder.

It was the folder my mom had brought me yesterday. Divorce papers.

Rex saw it.

He snatched the folder and flipped through a few pages, his knuckles white.

"You want to divorce me?"

"The papers speak for themselves."

"You get the children?"

"Of course."

He gripped the edge of the paper, his thumb pressing down hard enough to leave a crease.

"Savannah, the boys are so young, you can't do this alone—"

"Alone?" I laughed bitterly. "The day I had the abruption, a nurse brought the babies to me. 'Look, Mom,' she said. 'Both healthy.' I was lying on the operating table, the anesthesia wearing off, my body shaking uncontrollably from the pain. The anesthesiologist asked where my family was. The nurse said they couldn't be reached."

James was full. I held him upright to burp him.

His small head rested limply on my shoulder, drool seeping into the collar of my shirt.

"My mom signed the surgical consent form that day."

I said, "Her hand was shaking so badly she could barely hold the pen. The doctor said if she didn't sign, mother and babies were at risk. She had to use her left hand to steady her right, taking an eternity to form each letter of her name."

Rex was silent.

Into that silence, my mom came out of the kitchen.

She had taken off her apron and was holding the fireplace poker, its tip still flecked with ash.

"Rex," my mom said, her voice dangerously calm. "Are you leaving, or not?"

He glanced at her.

My mom is five-foot-three and barely reaches his shoulder. She held the poker steady, her apron still dusted with flour.

"Aunt Maria—"

"Who are you calling Aunt?"

My mom slammed the poker against the side of the shoe cabinet. "In three years, you've set foot in this apartment maybe five times. When Savannah was pregnant, so sick she was dehydrated, she called for a ride, and you were in a 'board meeting.' When she had contractions and started bleeding in the middle of the night, she had to call an ambulance for herself. When it got here, she couldn't even get on the stretcher. An elderly neighbor had to carry her down."

Rex's lips moved, but no words came out.

My mom took a sharp breath. "If you dare try to take Savannah from this house today, I swear I'll break both your legs. And I don't care what happens to me after."

Lucas suddenly let out a rattling cough, his little face turning red with the effort.

I quickly put James in the rocker and rushed to pick up Lucas, patting his back.

He coughed up a bit of phlegm and then dissolved into fresh tears.

Rex walked over, reaching out to take him.

I flinched back.

"Don't touch him."

His hand froze in mid-air.

"You reek of her perfume."

I said, "That niche, woody scent she loves to post about on her social media."

Rex lowered his hand.

"You saw her before you came here?"

He didn't speak.

"What did you talk about?"

"She said," Rex's voice was a bare whisper, "that she's pregnant."

The only sound in the sudden, crushing silence was Lucas's sobbing.

My mom dropped the fireplace poker. It clanged loudly against the tile floor.

I continued to pat Lucas's back.

"How far along?"

"A little over two months."

"Two and a half months, then."

I managed a small, brittle smile. "You work fast, Rex."

His head shot up. "Savannah, I didn't mean to..."

"Then whose baby is she carrying?"

His lips trembled.

"She said it was that night in Aspen... in the cabin... the night of your surgery..."

"That night?"

I cut him off. "The night I was bleeding to death on an operating table, you two were in a cabin, making a baby?"

He didn't deny it.

...

Lucas started crying again, and I began to pace, rocking him in my arms.

I walked to the window. Down on the street, a young couple was pushing a stroller. The man knelt to tie the woman's shoelace.

"You should go," I said, my back to him.

"Savannah—"

"Go take care of Chloe."

I didn't turn around. "She's pregnant. Can't have her going hungry."

There was no sound from behind me.

After a long moment, I heard the scuff of his leather shoes turning, followed by a faint squish as he stepped on a stray diaper.

He was gone.

My mom bent to pick up the poker. There was a new chip in the iron from where it had fallen.

"Savannah," she said, her voice soft, "I made you some soup."

I turned, still holding Lucas.

James was asleep in the rocker, his tiny mouth working in his sleep.

I laid Lucas down beside him, their two identical little heads side-by-side.

"Mom," I said, "I want all the divorce papers ready for tomorrow."

My mom, her back to me, started chopping an onion, the knife rising and falling with a steady, furious rhythm.

"Okay."

I walked to the coffee table and picked up the manila folder from the floor.

He must have dropped it on his way out.

James shifted in his sleep, his tiny fist connecting with Lucas's cheek.

Lucas grunted but didn't wake, just turned his head to the side.

I sat on the arm of the sofa, just watching them.

My phone buzzed. A message from Chloe. A twenty-second voice note.

I pressed play.

Her voice was sickly sweet. "Savannah, is Rex with you? I mixed him a non-alcoholic cocktail. I'm waiting for him to come home."

I placed my phone face down on the coffee table.

The screen was still lit. She had changed her social media profile picture to a photo of her and Rex on a ski lift.

On the windowsill, the ivy my mom was growing cascaded down, a single drop of water clinging to the tip of a leaf.

I played the voice message again.

"Savannah, is Rex with you? I mixed him a non-alcoholic cocktail. I'm waiting for him to come home."

My mom poked her head out of the kitchen. "Who was that?"

"No one," I said, turning my phone off.

The next morning, I was at the top law firm in the city. Ms. Davenport had been handling divorce cases for twenty years, and her office walls were lined with framed thank-you letters. She reviewed my file three times, tapping a manicured nail on the "Asset Division" clause.

"You won't get the lake house he owned before the marriage."

"I know."

"But the downtown apartment you bought together after the wedding, and his company shares, will be split fifty-fifty. As for the apartment he bought for his assistant, we can sue for its return."

I nodded.

Davenport pushed her glasses up her nose. "Has he agreed to this?"

"We haven't discussed it."

"Then we'll send a legal notice first."

At two in the afternoon, the notice was delivered to Rex's office. At three, his call came; I silenced it. At four, he called my mom's phone; she answered, said, "Savannah's feeding the babies," and hung up. At five-thirty, his black SUV appeared downstairs. The passenger window was down, and Chloe was sitting in the seat, wearing a loose-fitting maternity dress, her hand resting possessively on her stomach.

I was on the balcony bringing in laundry when Rex's mother, Eleanor Blackwood, arrived. She stood at the building's entrance, clutching two boxes of imported nutritional supplements, and looked up at me.

"Savannah," Eleanor called, her voice sharp. "Come down. I need to talk to you."

I went downstairs with James in my arms. Eleanor stood by the flowerbed in her heels, her eyes raking over me.

"The twins have lost weight."

"No, they haven't."

"Rex told me. He was foolish about that girl, but he's already handled it."

I shifted James to my other shoulder. "How did he handle it?"

"He gave her a severance payment, made her sign a non-disclosure agreement, and told her to 'take care of' the baby."

I just stared at her.

She smoothed a non-existent wrinkle from her dress. "Savannah, you've made your point. You've vented your anger. It's time to stop this and come home. Two children can't be without a father. And a young doctor like you, shacked up with her mother and two infants… it's not a good look for your career."

"My career?"

I laughed. "Eleanor, your son kept an affair going for eight years. How's that look for the company's stock price?"

Her face hardened. "Savannah, what is that tone you're using with your mother-in-law?"

Startled by her raised voice, James began to cry. I patted his back and started walking away. Eleanor shouted after me, "You'd better think this through! What will you do if you get divorced? You know what kind of life this tiny apartment can offer!"

I let the heavy building door slam shut behind me.

Rex didn't come back that night. The next morning, his younger brother, Nathan Blackwood, showed up. He was a VP at one of the family's subsidiary companies. He leaned against my doorframe, puffing on an e-cigarette, white vapor drifting over the gleaming hallway floor my mom had just polished.