My Husband Bet on Who Fathered My Baby, Then Begged Me to Forgive Him

Wallace Baxter, who in all our years bound by the blood-alliance had never once agreed to give me a child, suddenly turned ravenous. Three nights in a row, no caution, nothing held back.

I thought he'd finally accepted me into the famiglia, into himself. Cheeks burning, the little test stick clutched in my hand, I went to bring him the good news. Instead I found him in the private lounge off the club floor, laughing low with the ward they'd all raised and his two brothers.

"You two spoil me. I was only curious whose baby it would turn out to be, and the three of you went and treated Dora Pruitt like she's not even a person. If she ever found out her child's father was a mystery, do you think she'd be angry?"

My husband, Wallace, gave a contemptuous snort. "Angry? It was a gift. You have no idea how happy she was when she heard she could finally have a baby."

"But seriously, big brother. Dora's built for it."

"Only you, Wallace, would be generous enough to share."

"Then let's make it a wager. See who hits the jackpot. Whoever loses buys Ivy Fox jewelry at the charity den. Nothing under ten million, capisce?"

It was a matter of male pride, the kind that runs the rackets, so all three kept raising their own stakes.

Ivy watched them argue until their ears went red, delighted by the whole thing, and through the slats of the blinds she let her gaze drift lazily across me. Her head tilted, her smile softening into something almost sad.

...

"Big brother, what if Dora finds out the kid isn't yours and the whole thing comes apart?"

Wallace gave a cold, scornful laugh, a half-second too soon, then cut his eyes sideways for an approval no one offered. "Carrying another man's seed in her belly? Any way you slice it, she's the slut. Cheated and got knocked up for it. Even if Dora knew, would she have the nerve to breathe a word of it?"

"Besides, you really think I'd leave myself exposed?"

He pulled a stack of photographs from his pocket and scattered them across the table like a man dealing a marked hand.

"Damn, you didn't even cover her face. Anyone sees these, and there goes the wife's good name. Ha, ha, ha."

"Looks like one of those magazines they smuggle in from overseas. Even on paper she looks filthy."

Ivy picked one up too, glanced at it with distaste, and tossed it aside. The softness was already gone from her face, snapped off like a switch, leaving the cold eyes that had been underneath all along.

The photo slid clean through the gap beneath the door and landed right in front of me.

I could barely breathe. I dropped to the floor, snatching up my dignity, my whole self, and shoved it deep into my sleeve.

The tears wouldn't stop.

Wallace had been forced into this union by the old Don's command, two bloodlines sealed over my head, and in all our years he had hardly ever touched me.

I thought I'd finally won him over. So even knowing there was something in the wine, I drank it down obediently, and let my own clear mind be peeled away, thread by thread.

For the sake of a child, to please him, those three nights I threw away every shred of pride to meet him, to answer him.

I never even knew when the man had changed, or when the photographs were taken.

All of it, because of one sentence from Ivy, the little ward they cradled in their palms.

I ran out of the club like I was running for my life. My clothes covered every inch of me, and still it felt like every pair of eyes along the way, every soldier at every door, was looking at the naked woman in those photographs.

The shame was so vast it nearly crushed me.

I ran with my head down, and those few minutes of road felt like a century.

Home at last, inside the walls of the Baxter estate, I rushed to the shredder and fed the photographs through, again and again.

I wanted to feed the filthy version of myself in there too, and shred it gone.

A door slammed so hard I flinched. When I came to myself, it was Wallace.

"Has your bleeding come this month?"

For a second it didn't register.

"Wh... what?"

He tipped up the corner of his mouth in a soft laugh, almost flirtatious.

"Little puff pastry, that was three full nights. I have a great deal of faith in my abilities. Come down. I'm taking you to the doctor for a look."

And with that Wallace seized my hand and pulled me straight toward the garage. My thumb turned the wedding band around my finger, once, twice, the way it always did when something frightened me.

When he saw me sitting frozen in the passenger seat, he sighed and reached over to draw the seatbelt across me.