Chapter 2 - THE GHOSTS IN THE MESSAGES
That night,
while the boys slept soundly in their rooms,
I sat in my study,
staring at the city skyline.
The memories I had tried to outrun for half a decade came flooding back,
unbidden and cruel.
I remembered the night the messages were found.
Blake had come home early,
his face a mask of cold fury,
holding my phone as if it were a weapon.
The messages were from a man named Julian.
“I’m waiting for you,”
one read.
“We need to discuss the future of the project,”
read another.
And the final one,
the one that broke Blake’s heart:
“I’ve never felt this way before,
Emma,
thank you for letting me be a part of this.”
Blake didn't know that Julian was a world-renowned fertility specialist.
He didn't know that I had been seeing him for months in secret because I wanted to surprise Blake with the news that we were finally,
after years of trying,
pregnant.
I had kept the appointments secret because Blake had been so stressed with the company,
and I wanted to give him a moment of pure joy.
But Julian had been more than a doctor;
he was a friend who had helped me navigate the difficult process of high-risk pregnancies.
When Blake saw the messages,
he didn't see a doctor.
He saw a lover.
He didn't see a woman trying to save her marriage;
he saw a woman destroying it.
I had tried to tell him that night,
sitting on the edge of our bed with tears streaming down my face.
“Blake,
please,
just call the number,”
I had begged.
“Ask for Dr. Julian Vance.”
But Blake was a man who lived by his instincts,
and his instincts told him he had been betrayed.
“I don’t need to call a doctor to know when my wife is lying to me,”
he had spat.
He had thrown the phone against the wall,
shattering the screen,
and walked out.
Two days later,
the divorce papers were served.
I discovered I was carrying triplets a week after the divorce was finalized.
I had considered calling him,
standing with the phone in my hand for hours,
but then I remembered the way he had looked at me.
The disgust.
The hatred.
I decided then that I would rather raise my children alone than with a man who could turn his back on me so easily.
I moved to Chicago,
changed my name back to my maiden name,
and used my own savings to start a small environmental consulting firm.
I never asked for child support.
I never checked his social media.
I became a ghost,
and I made sure my children were ghosts too.
Until a chance encounter on a first-class flight brought the past screaming back into the present.
A knock at my front door startled me.
I checked the security camera.
It was Blake.
He was leaning against the doorframe,
looking like he had been walking through the rain for hours.
May you like
He wasn't the billionaire CEO anymore.
He was just a man who had realized he had burned down the only thing that ever truly mattered.
