Chapter 3

Fergus had bet he could win me over.

Nadia had bet he'd be done playing with me inside three months.

And that "lesson" Fergus kept talking about?

It was nothing more than dragging Nadia off to a hotel and tangling in the sheets.

The absurd part was that I'd been kept in the dark the whole time.

Now Nadia was telling me herself.

"Paige, from start to finish, him being with you was just a game."

"You were only a pawn to him."

"If his parents hadn't forced him to marry and have a kid, he never would have picked you."

"He picked you because you were easy to control."

"Your parents skipped town. You had no one."

"You didn't dare fight back."

She stood and brushed the bits of grass off her skirt.

"Now the kid's gone, and you don't even have your last bargaining chip."

"How much longer do you think you can stay in that house?"

Fergus only glanced at me, then reached out and took Nadia's hand.

"Come on, everyone's waiting for us."

"The game goes on."

And I was left on the ground again.

Even the doctor in the white coat from a moment ago had walked off.

Everyone was there to watch me make a fool of myself.

The boy who'd called the ambulance for me quietly took a step back.

He knew he couldn't afford to cross Fergus.

In the next round of the game.

Nadia drew truth.

Someone asked her, "You and Fergus have been childhood sweethearts all these years. Have you ever slept together?"

Nadia's face went a little pink.

"Do you even have to ask?"

"We slept together before we'd even finished college."

"His first time was with me. I taught him."

The crowd broke into whoops.

"Damn, so that means his wife got the used goods?"

"So what if it's used goods? Anything Nadia's had, other people would beg for and still not get."

Fergus had his arm around Nadia's waist.

Smiling, completely at ease.

"Don't tease her, guys."

"She embarrasses easily."

The way he said it, it sounded like he was defending her.

But everyone knew it was his roundabout way of admitting it.

He and she really had.

I'd long since been forgotten.

Lying on the ground in despair, numb, as if I'd lost all feeling.

Maybe the painkiller injection had kicked in.

My belly didn't hurt anymore.

And the baby had gone still.

I knew. The baby was gone.

The daughter I'd carried six months.

Gone, just like that.

When I opened my eyes again, everything in front of me was white.

My belly had already gone flat.

The young nurse said my husband had told the driver to bring me in.

Tall and handsome, my husband. She envied my luck, marrying a man like that and becoming his wife.

I stared blankly at the ceiling.

I didn't even notice when she left.

"Paige, stop grieving over it."

Fergus came over and held out a report.

"Nadia was helping you too."

"When the prenatal report came in, she saw the baby in your belly was deformed."

"You couldn't have kept it even if you'd tried."

I didn't look at him. One cold word came out. "Get out."

But Fergus flew into a rage right there.

"You're telling me to get out?"

"Paige, how do you have the nerve to tell me to get out?"

Fergus grabbed me by the collar.

"Get one thing straight."

"You got pregnant with some other man's bastard, and I didn't hold it against you. That was me being generous."

"Don't act so innocent, sitting there with that dead face."

I stared into his eyes, hollow, and suddenly I laughed.

No wonder he'd gone along so coldly with Nadia's scheme against me.

He blamed me because the baby wasn't his.

But that was pure slander.

That night, Nadia had grabbed me as a prank and tied me up in the basement all night.

Then she took a spliced-together video to Fergus and said.

"Your wife got drunk and cheated on you."

She'd bet the guys around her.

If Fergus believed it, she'd win a million.

But I had explained it, so many times.

Fergus never once wanted to believe me.

Every time he saw me in a lace nightgown.

His face would go cold, and he'd say in disgust,

"Don't touch me. You make my skin crawl."

Then he'd slam the door and leave.

Spending the whole night with Nadia.

And when he came back the next morning, dead drunk, the collar of his white shirt was covered in lipstick.

I used to think that once this baby was born.

It would win our marriage back.

That everything would get better.

After all, once the child was born, a paternity test would shut those rumors up.

But Fergus never let me reach that day.

I tried to call up the warm memories from these years of marriage.

There were pitifully few.

The only one I could think of was a single thing.

Valentine's Day, the year we were happiest.

For once, Fergus had shown up with a bouquet of roses for me.

I counted them over and over, happy, and found there were only ninety-eight.

"Did the florist miscount?"

I asked Fergus. "There are only ninety-eight. Where's the missing one?"

Back then, even if Fergus had just lied and said the clerk miscounted, or that one had dropped by accident.

It still would have felt warm to me.

But no, he had to be cruel, and offhand about it, and tell me the truth.

"Nadia liked how it looked, so she pulled one out and gave it to some little girl on the sidewalk."

"Close enough anyway. You'd never notice one missing. Stop making a fuss over nothing."

All I had left was silence.

Just like now.

Fergus let out a self-mocking laugh and let go of me.

"Look at you, white as a ghost. Like a vampire."

"Instead of wasting your energy nitpicking and fighting with me,"

"you'd be better off getting discharged early and going home so Martha can stew you a chicken to build you back up."

Fergus assumed I'd still be going back to that house.

Assumed I'd give him the silent treatment like the countless cold wars before.

Assumed that once I'd cooled off on my own, everything would be fine.

Right on cue, Nadia's call came in, asking him to come out and have fun.

And sure enough, Fergus had no patience left to sit with me.

He set a bank card on the nightstand.

"There's five hundred thousand on the card. Call it compensation."

"The baby, we'll pretend it never happened."