Chapter 4

Chapter 4: Chapter 4

4.

I set a timer on my phone. Sam made it home with a minute to spare, face like a thundercloud, June trailing behind him looking put out.

"What's so urgent, big sis? You scared Sam so bad he ran a red light on the way over. That's dangerous!"

I looked at June, cold. "Whatever happens between my husband and me, do I owe you a report? Get out of my house."

June turned to Sam, all wounded innocence. "Sam, I'm sorry. I never should have dragged you out to pick a stroller."

"When you choose to be a single mother, you have to accept the sneers and the mockery."

Sam steadied her by the shoulders, eased her down onto the couch with painstaking care, poured her a cup of warm water. "Don't get worked up. Rest for now. I'll talk to her."

They looked, for all the world, like a devoted married couple.

I was the one who didn't belong here.

"Sam, whose baby is she carrying?" I held his eyes. Would he tell me the truth?

Something panicked flickered across his face. "You really think that low of me, of what June and I are? There's nothing between us. We're clean."

"June is an independent woman. She did IVF to become a single mother. All I've done is help her out a little more."

I looked at him, calm, and asked again. "Then the man who provided the sperm, was that you?"

Sam couldn't meet my eyes. He turned his head away and cleared his throat.

"Big sis, the hospital has a sperm bank. I picked a young, accomplished donor. Don't get the wrong idea. I only had Sam keep me company." June stood up to smooth it over for him, but the look in her eyes was anything but distant.

"Since the baby you're carrying has nothing to do with Sam, then let's get it notarized. If you've lied to me, we divorce, and Sam walks away with nothing." I took out paper and a pen and slapped them down on the coffee table.

At the word divorce, June's eyes lit with delight. Then she heard walks away with nothing, and her mouth curled into a pout.

"Daisy, you're just a pathetic little leech living off me right now. What right do you have to bring up divorce?" Sam cracked. He grabbed my arm, his face gone livid.

I pried his fingers off one by one. "Sam, I'm no leech, and I've never lived off you for free. More than half the company's business came through me."

"You care so much about June. Wouldn't it be better if I just let you two have each other?"

June rose from the couch, tears running down her face. "Big sis, this is all my fault. Don't divorce Sam. He loves you so much."

"The fourfold-devotion pact, let's cancel it today. I never should have come between you."

She said cancel, but her hands clung tight to Sam's arm.

Sam shielded her behind him, as if terrified I might lose my mind, and murmured to soothe her. "Don't take her words to heart. She hides behind postpartum depression all day long. It's just her way of forcing me to fall in line, of trying to control me."

I watched him, and it hurt. The postpartum depression was a hospital diagnosis. The doctor was the one who told him to spend more time with me.

And he called it my excuse, my way to control him.

This man who once swore to protect me for the rest of my life, to make me happy, had brought me nothing but grief and storms.

He looked at me with disgust. "Daisy, that scheming face of yours is honestly sickening."

June pressed a hand to her chest. "Sam, my chest hurts. I can barely breathe."

Sam scooped June up into his arms and glared at me. "Daisy, if anything happens to the baby in June's belly, I'm not done with you."

He wasn't even bothering to pretend anymore.

If he was this frantic over their child, then of course I would let him have his way.

The next day, the legal team I'd hired walked into Sam's office.

I sat in the new apartment, drinking coffee, while the nanny mixed formula for my daughter.

Sam's call came through, and he was screaming into the phone. "Daisy! You're actually divorcing me. Who gave you the nerve?"

"You want to destroy this whole family, drag our daughter into a broken home to suffer?"

I laughed, cold. "Sam, after the divorce our daughter gets all my love and all my money to herself. Stay married, and someday she'll be fighting four illegitimate little brothers for the inheritance. That is what suffering looks like."