He Asked Me for a Divorce for Another Woman - Then My Lawyer Mentioned the Baby, and Chicago's Most Feared Man Went Silent

Bianca came to Lake Forest the next afternoon.

That should have been impossible.

Dana intercepted her at the gate, called me from the security room, and said, "There is a woman here asking for you by name. She says if you refuse to see her, she will send what she has to every newspaper in Chicago."

I already knew who it was.

"Does Adrian know she's here?"

"I haven't contacted him."

"Good."

I put down the bowl of soup I had been pretending to eat.

"Let her into the front sitting room. Search her bag. Keep the door open."

Dana hesitated.

"Mrs. Romano-"

"If I spend the rest of my pregnancy hiding from every woman who knows something about my husband, I'll never leave this house."

Ten minutes later, Bianca walked into the sitting room wearing a camel coat and an expression that looked rehearsed.

No makeup could hide that she had not slept.

She looked smaller without Adrian beside her.

Less like the woman who had destroyed my marriage.

More like someone who had badly miscalculated what would happen after she got what she wanted.

"You look well," she said.

"You don't."

Her mouth tightened.

I gestured toward the chair across from me.

"You have five minutes."

Bianca did not sit.

"Adrian told you I asked for money."

"Yes."

"Of course he did."

"You sound surprised that my husband finally decided to tell me the truth."

"He's not your husband for much longer."

The words were meant to hurt.

They did.

I refused to show it.

"Four minutes."

Bianca opened her handbag slowly.

Dana moved closer.

Bianca removed a white envelope and placed it on the table.

"You should know who you're fighting for custody against."

"I'm not fighting against Adrian. I'm fighting for my child."

"Same difference."

"Not to me."

She stared at me for a moment, then pushed the envelope forward.

Inside was a laboratory report.

I saw her name first.

Bianca Moreau.

Then a date.

Then one word.

Positive.

My stomach dropped.

I read the report again.

Pregnancy confirmed.

For a few seconds, I heard nothing but the blood pounding in my ears.

"How far along?" I asked.

"Nine weeks."

The room turned painfully bright.

Nine weeks.

I was almost eight.

The timelines overlapped so neatly it felt obscene.

"Is it Adrian's?"

Bianca crossed her arms.

"He was with me."

"That wasn't my question."

Her eyes hardened.

"It could be."

That was not yes.

My pain sharpened into something clearer.

"Could be?"

"You think I kept a calendar?"

"I think a woman asking for two million dollars to disappear keeps track of everything."

For the first time, Bianca looked uncertain.

I stood.

"Get out."

"Elena-"

"You came here hoping I would fall apart. Maybe you thought I'd call Adrian screaming and make your threat more valuable. Maybe you wanted me to refuse him access to my baby so you could become the mother of the child he was allowed to claim." I pointed toward the door. "Whatever game you're playing, I'm not playing it with you."

Bianca's face flushed.

"You have no idea who he is."

"I was married to him for eight years."

"And he still chose me."

There it was.

The sentence she had probably been saving since the first time Adrian kissed her.

I thought it would destroy me.

Instead, something strange happened.

I felt sorry for her.

Because she was still measuring victory by whether a married man had chosen to betray his wife for her.

"He chose himself," I said. "You were just the excuse."

Bianca went pale.

I handed the laboratory report back.

"If the baby might be Adrian's, contact his attorney. There are legal ways to determine paternity. Do not come near me again."

She stared at me.

"You're not going to ask him whether he loves me?"

"No."

"Why not?"

"Because I finally understand that whether Adrian loved you has nothing to do with whether he betrayed me. He did. That's enough."

Her expression changed.

It was almost disappointment.

She had wanted a scene.

I gave her a door.

After she left, I made it upstairs before I vomited.

Not from morning sickness.

Not entirely.

I sat on the bathroom floor afterward with my back against the tub and cried so hard my ribs hurt.

Dana found me twenty minutes later.

She did not ask questions. She brought water, sat outside the open doorway, and let me fall apart with dignity.

At 4:06, Margaret arrived.

At 4:13, Adrian arrived too.

I heard his voice downstairs.

"Where is she?"

Dana answered, "Upstairs. And you are not going up without permission."

Silence.

Then, "Ask her."

Margaret came to my room.

"Do you want to see him?"

No.

Yes.

I hated both answers.

"Five minutes."

Adrian entered like a man approaching a hospital bed.

He stopped six feet away.

"I didn't know," he said.

I laughed weakly.

"You say that a lot lately."

His face tightened.

"I deserve that."

"Did you sleep with her?"

He went still.

"Yes."

I had known.

Of course I had known.

But there are facts your heart refuses to fully accept until the person who broke it speaks them aloud.

I looked away.

"How many times?"

"Elena-"

"How many?"

His voice was barely audible.

"Three."

My eyes burned.

"In our house?"

"Never."

"In our bed?"

"No. Never."

"Did that distinction make you feel honorable?"

He looked like I had struck him.

"No."

"Good."

I pressed my hands together because they were shaking.

"She says she is nine weeks pregnant."

"I know. Margaret showed me the report."

"Could it be yours?"

He did not insult me by hesitating.

"Yes."

The word tore something open in me.

Adrian took a step forward, then stopped.

"I will do whatever testing is legally and medically appropriate as soon as it can be done. I will not hide the result from you."

"Why should I care?"

"Because if that child is mine, our children would be siblings. You deserve the truth."

I swallowed hard.

Our children.

The phrase made me feel sick.

"Leave."

He did not argue.

He turned toward the door.

"Adrian."

He stopped.

"If her baby is yours, you will not use my child to repair what you broke with hers. And you will not use hers to punish yourself for what you did to me. Children are not penance."

He turned slowly.

His eyes were red.

"I know."

"Do you?"

"I'm learning."

For once, that was the right answer.

He left.

Three days later, Margaret called with another development.

The prenatal paternity test had been scheduled as soon as Bianca reached the medically appropriate point and consented through counsel.

But that was not the news that made my blood run cold.

The news was about the note thrown through Margaret's window.

Dana's investigator had traced the car seen outside the building that evening.

It belonged to a company controlled by Dominic Romano.

Adrian's cousin.

His closest business lieutenant.

A man who had sat at our dinner table every Christmas for eight years.

A man who had hugged me at our wedding and called me family.

And suddenly Bianca's knowledge of my pregnancy was no longer the worst secret in the room.

After Bianca left, I expected Adrian to demand details.

He did not.

For almost six hours, he sent nothing.

Then, just after midnight, one message appeared.

I have asked my attorney to communicate with hers. I will not contact Bianca directly while the paternity question is unresolved. I am telling you because I don't want you to hear another version later.

That sentence mattered.

Not because it changed what he had done.

Because secrecy had been the oxygen of the affair.

Now he was choosing transparency even when the truth made him look worse.

I replied before I could overthink it.

Good.

He answered with only:

Good night.

The next morning, Margaret found me standing in the nursery doorway again.

"Planning?"

"Avoiding."

"Same skill set, different emotion."

She handed me a folder containing documents from Dana's investigator.

The vehicle connected to Dominic was only the beginning. There were access logs, unusual account permissions, and a pattern of internal requests that suggested someone had been watching Adrian's movements for months.

"How did he not see this?" I asked.

Margaret gave me a long look.

"People rarely look for betrayal from the person sitting closest to them."

The irony was not subtle.

"Point taken."

I sat on the floor with the folder beside me.

"Do you think Dominic wanted Adrian's job?"

"Maybe more. People who resent power often say they want justice when what they want is the chair."

I thought about Adrian.

For years, I had watched men flatter him, fear him, imitate him, and quietly hope to replace him.

Dominic had been better than all of them because he had made himself useful.

Useful people become invisible.

I knew something about that.

By evening, I was angry again.

Not at Bianca.

At Adrian.

He called at seven and I answered with, "Did Dominic have access to our house?"

"Yes."

"Our security schedules?"

"Yes."

"Your calendar?"

"Parts of it."

"And you never thought that was too much access?"

"He was family."

I laughed without humor.

"So was I."

Silence.

"You're right," he said.

"You trusted him with systems you never trusted me to understand."

"I thought keeping you outside that part of my life protected you."

"It protected you from having to explain it."

He did not answer.

"Do you know what I hate most?" I asked. "You made me responsible for your body but not your world. I knew every medication you swallowed, but you decided I was too delicate for the truth about the life those medications were keeping alive."

His voice became quiet.

"I know."

"No. You are beginning to know."

He accepted the correction.

"Yes."

I ended the call still angry.

But anger felt different now.

Before, it had been trapped inside grief.

Now it had direction.

I no longer wanted Adrian to hurt because I was hurting.

I wanted him to understand.

That frightened me more.