: The Woman Who Replaced Her

I didn’t sleep.

How could I? Every time I shut my eyes, it was her I saw. That brilliant hair. That perfect smile. That little girl that put a hand on Adrian’s cheek as if she had done it a thousand times before.

Like she belonged there.

I tidied away the dining room at midnight, cleaning up on autopilot. I packed the lamb nobody would eat. I scrubbed at the wine stain that wouldn’t come out. I threw out the flowers. The staff would be back at six in the morning, and Margaret was right on one thing: I wouldn’t give them any more ammunition.

They already had enough.

Now, I sat in the living room on yesterday’s dress, watching dawn seep in through the windows. The penthouse was across town. Adrian was there right now. Maybe asleep. Maybe not alone.

My stomach gave a sick churn. I gently pressed my hand against it.

"It's okay," I whispered to the growing secret. "We're okay."

A lie. We weren't okay. Nothing was okay.

My cell phone lay on the coffee table, the screen black. Fifty-three missed calls. Forty-two of those were from Clara. Six were from unknown numbers: possibly some reporters who managed to get hold of my personal number. Three were from Adrian's office, and two were from Margaret.

There weren't any calls from Adrian, though.

I should call him. Demand answers. Ask him what the hell he was thinking parading another woman, another child, in front of the entire city while his wife waited at home like an idiot.

But I already knew what he'd say. He would be cold and dismissive, tell me I was overreacting, being dramatic, making something out of nothing. He'd gaslight me to the point where I'd doubt my own eyes and my own sanity.

He had done that before.

The door opened.

I sat up begging, hope and dread battling in my chest. Adrian. It had to be Adrian. He had come home; he would explain; he would--

But it wasn't Adrian.

It was she.

Vivian Cross walked into my home as if she owned it. Designer luggage behind her; heels clicking away on cold marble. Vivian stopped upon sighting me, with the cruelest smile I had ever seen.

Beautiful. Pitying. Triumphant.

"Oh. You're still here."

I was speechless, unable to move, staring at this woman, this stranger in the Umbrage, with her suitcases as if checking into a hotel.

"Didn't Margaret tell you?" fake concern withered from every word tilting Vivian's head. "I'm staying here temporarily, of course, just until Adrian and I figure out our... arrangement."

Our arrangement.

Thin as a thread, I managed to say, "This is my home."

"Is it?" She mused, eyes roaming the towering ceilings, the art picked by Adrian's decorator, the furniture that I had never been allowed to choose. "Funny. It feels not yours. It feels like his."

She wasn’t wrong. Nothing in this house was mine. Not really. Even the clothes I wore in the closet were picked by Margaret or Mrs. Adrian’s stylist. The books on those shelves were all for show. The art was for investment.

I was just another accessory. Easily replaceable.

"Where is your daughter?" The question came out before I could stop myself.

That smile got even wider on Vivian's face. "Emma? She is with the nanny. Naturally, Adrian employed the best. He is very particular about how his daughter is raised and nurtured."

His daughter. So casually said. So certain.

"Is she..." I couldn't bring myself to finish. I couldn't ask. But Vivian knew exactly what I meant.

"His?" Her laugh was light and ringing. "Oh Serena, you really are naive, aren't you? Of course she is. Did you think that was some kind of trick? That I would just show up with some random child and say she was Adrian's?"

She came closer, and I smelled her perfume: expensive. Floral. It was the same scent that had stuck to Adrian's collar from last week when he staggered home at two in the morning.

How long had she been back?

"Emma is four years old," Vivían said, barring an eye on her manicure. "Incidentally, then Adrian and I got together five years ago, while you two were engaged. Funny how the timing works."

The room spun. I grabbed onto the arm of the couch.

"I left when I found out I was pregnant. Thought I was doing the noble thing, you know? Letting him have his perfect little life with his perfect little wife. But it turns out..." She looked at me, really looked at me, and the contempt there was palpable. "He never wanted you. You were just the safe choice. The one his mother approved of, the one who'd keep quiet and look pretty at events."

"Stop."

"I was the one he loved. I was the one he called when things were hard. I was the one he flew to visit in London every time he said he had a business trip." She leaned in, dropping to a whisper. "I was the one he made love to while you were here playing house."

I wanted to smash her. I wanted to scream. I wanted to do anything but sit there and listen.

Because deep down, I knew she was telling the truth.

All those business trips. All those nights he had worked late. All those later evenings as I tried to touch him but he pulled himself away, saying he was tired, stressed, or just not in the mood.

He was saving himself for her.

"Now if you'll excuse me," Vivian said, standing. "I need to settle in. Margaret is having my things brought to the east wing. Right next to Adrian's room, actually. We thought it would make getting together… convenient."

She pulled the suitcase toward the stairs, then stopped and looked back over her shoulder.

"Oh, and Serena? Some advice, woman to-woman." Her smile was extremely sharp. "He never loved you. You were just keeping his bed warm until I came back. The sooner you accept that, the less this will hurt."

She disappeared up the stairs.

I sat there in my familiar wrinkled dress, inside a house that was barely lived in, listening to another woman unpack in the room adjacent to my husband's.

My hand found my stomach again.

Eight weeks pregnant. A little bean of a thing purported to solve every problem.

But how could I? To take in a child in a house where the father loved another? Where the grandmother eyed it with a trace of disappointment? Where another child had held the place meant for it by now?

The phone vibrated again. It was Clara.

**Clara:** *Please tell me you're okay. Please tell me you left. Please tell me you're not still in that house.*

I looked around. At the pristine furniture I had never picked out. At the wedding photo Margaret had now, I realized, superfluously replaced by empty frames. At the staircase Vivian Cross had just ascended wearing the carriage of a designer and the heart of my husband.

I typed back with a trembling hand.

**Me:** *Where else would I go? This is my home.*

Another lie.

This had never been my home.

And somewhere upstairs, through the hall from Adrian's, the woman who had always been his real choice was hanging up her clothes and planning a future.

A future that had no place for me.

: The Secret She Can No Longer Hide

*NEXT DAY*

"You're still here."

From my watching him and his back turned to me, and with the coffee, which Clara had forced on me three hours ago, the clock reading 11 o'clock, Adrian came home after all, Walking into the house in the tuxedo from last night, bow tie undone and hanging around his neck.

"Where else could I be?" The voice was strange to me. It was flat. As though all the emotion had been extracted from it.

"I thought..." He ran a hand through his hair, and I noticed the gold cufflinks. The ones I had given him for his first anniversary. He was still wearing them. "Margaret said she talked to you."

"She did."

"Then you understand the situation."

The situation. He called it a situation. Like it was some kind of business problem. A merger gone wrong. Not a marriage imploding.

"I understand your mistress is sleeping in the room next to yours. I understand you have a daughter you never mentioned. I understand I watched you on television last night calling them your family." Each word came out clipped. Controlled. "So yes, Adrian. I understand the situation perfectly."

He flinched. Okay, good.

“Vivian isn't my mistress.”

“Then what is she?”

The question hovered between us. He looked away, toward the window-anywhere but me.

“That is complicated.”

“Uncomplicate it.”

“Serena, I cannot deal with this right now. In less than an hour I will have a board meeting, and the PR is drowning in calls on last night. I need to get a change and-”

“I guess she's yours?” I stood up. The room tilted, so I had to grab the bedpost to steady myself. “The little girl. Emma. Is she yours?”

His jaw tightened. “Yes.”

Just one word. And that was enough to confirm what I had already known, but hearing it let go by him was a painful sort of confirmation. It made it feel real, something the television broadcasts hadn’t done.

“How long?”

“Does it matter?”

“How. Long.”

He sighed like I was inconveniencing him. Like I was the problem here. “Vivian and I were together in college. She left after graduation. Moved to London. I didn't know about Emma until recently.”

“Recently?”

“Six months ago.”

Six months. He'd known for six months and never said a word. Six months late in coming home. Six months of sleeping in his office. Six months of treating me like I didn't exist at all.

Now that was an explanation.

"And you have been seeing her. This whole time."

"It's not like that."

"Then what is it like, Adrian?" My voice was cracking. I hated that it cracked. "Tell me, because from my point of view you have been having an affair for six months, you have a kid with another woman, and you brought them both to our home without even informing me."

"I didn't bring them here. Margaret asked Vivian to stay."

"And you didn't stop her?"

Silence.

"You couldn't even tell me," I said, a burning sensation welling up in my chest. "I had to find out on television. Watching you smile at her like... like she was everything you'd ever wanted. While I was here, waiting for you, on an anniversary."

That hit. His eyes widened just a little. "Shit. Serena, I--"

"Don't," I said. "Don't apologize for forgetting our anniversary; that's not even in the top ten things you should be apologizing for right now."

His gaze fell upon me. Really fell upon me. For a moment--just a fleeting moment--I saw something pass over his face. Guilt? Regret?

It didn't matter. It was gone too fast.

“What do you want me to say?” His voice went cold again. Distant. That was Adrian the person I had grown to know. “That I made mistakes? Fine. I made mistakes. But Vivian is here now, and Emma is my daughter, and I have responsibilities—for the rest of us.”

“I’m your wife.” The words were strangled. “Doesn’t that mean anything?”

“Of course it does.”

“Then do something about it.”

“I am. I am trying to take care of this with as much discretion as possible. The last thing I want is you going nuts over this and having something dramatic hit the press.”

Making a big scene. That is what he was concerned about. Not me. Not us. The press.

Something inside me broke. Or maybe it had already been cracking for some time now, imperceptible to my own ears, and this was simply the moment at which I finally could feel it give away.

"I have to tell you."

"Can it wait? I really do have that meeting—"

"I'm pregnant."

It was like a stone thrown between us.

Adrian froze in place, his hand halfway to his tie, hanging there in mid-air. "What?"

"I'm pregnant. Eight weeks," I reached into my purse on the nightstand to take out the sonogram, my hands trembling as I held it out to him. "I was going to tell you last night. At dinner. The dinner you never came home for."

He wouldn't accept it, staring at the grainy image as if it were a document written in a foreign language.

"Eight weeks," he repeated slowly.

"Yes."

"Are you sure?"

The words hit me like a slap. "Am I sure I'm pregnant? Yes, Adrian. I'm sure. The doctor confirmed it two weeks ago. I've been waiting for just that right moment to tell you... but apparently there is no right moment anymore."

He kept looking at the sonogram. Not moving. Not speaking. Just... staring.

"Say something," I whispered.

"I don't..." Hands running through his hair, he turned away from me. "This is bad timing."

Bad timing.

My baby. Our baby. The thing I'd dreamed about, prayed for, the reason I'd endured three years of Margaret's cruel comments about my "useless womb." And he called it bad timing.

"Adrian."

"I need to think."

"Think about what? Whether you want your own child?"

"Don't put words in my mouth." He spun around, and there was panic in those eyes, something I had never seen before. "If you only knew it... Vivian has come back, and Emma needs some stability. The board is already questioning my judgment after what happened last night, and now you come to me saying that you're pregnant, and I'm supposed to just—"

"Be happy?" I finished. "Yes, that is what you are supposed to be doing. We have been trying for one whole year. A year of your mother telling me I was failing you. A year of doctor appointments and tests wondering what was wrong with me, and now I am finally pregnant, and the only thing that crosses your mind is how inconvenient this is?"

"I didn't say that."

"That is exactly what you said."

He cast his eyes once more over the sonogram in my quivering hand before they fell upon mine again-the moment I knew perfectly well. He was not happy; he was not excited; he was so far from what I had ever thought of when I had dreamed about telling him.

He was trapped.

"I need to go." He grabbed a clean shirt from the closet and began changing right there, without even turning his back on me. "We'll talk about this later."

"When?"

"I don't know. Later. After the meeting. After I figure out what to tell the board." He buttoned the shirt with jerky movements and refused to look at me. "And Serena? Don't tell anybody. Not yet. Not for now. Not until we figure out what to do."

What we were doing. As if the baby was a problem to be corrected. A situation to be controlled.

He walked toward the door.

"Adrian." I stopped him with my voice, "Do you love her?"

His hand paused on the doorknob. For a very long moment, no answer came from him. Neither did he turn around.

Then softly he said, "I never stopped."

Behind him, the door closed.

I stood in the empty bedroom, one hand against my stomach, the other still clutching the sonogram no one wanted to see.

The cologne smelled in the room. The bed was made with such precision... simply because he hadn't slept in it. There was water running through the wall. Vivian was showering right next door to his.

My phone buzzed.

Text.

**Unknown:** *Saw the news. I’m sorry. If you need anything, call me. - Lucas Grant*

I stared at the text. Lucas Grant. The CEO I had met months ago at that business dinner and who had looked upon me with something bordering on pity when Adrian had introduced me as "just my wife." He had given me his card. I had tossed it in the bin.

Apparently, he had retained my number.

I should just delete the text.

I should be concentrating on my marriage, on my husband, on figuring out how to fix this.

But those words kept resonating:

*I never stopped loving her.*

My finger hovered above the delete button.

Then I saved the contact instead.

Just in case.

: The Mistress Moves In

I didn’t leave the bedroom for the rest of the day.

Clara called six times. I let it go to voicemail. What would I even say? That my husband's college girlfriend was living down the hall? That I was pregnant with a baby he called “bad timing”?

The words wouldn’t come. Nothing would come except the hollow ache spreading through my chest.

Around seven PM, my stomach cramped. Sharp enough to make me gasp. I curled up on the bed, one hand pressed to my abdomen, the other gripping the sheets.

Please. Please don’t let anything be wrong.

The cramp faded. Then came back. Stronger this time.

I forced myself to breathe slowly. In through my nose. Out through my mouth. The doctor had warned me. Stress could cause complications. Stress could hurt the baby.

But how was I supposed to not be stressed when my entire world was collapsing?

Another cramp. This one sent me stumbling to the bathroom, dizzy and nauseated. I made it to the toilet just in time.

When I finally looked up, my reflection in the mirror was a stranger. Pale. Hollow-eyed. Hair a mess. Yesterday’s dress wrinkled beyond recognition.

There I was, looking as though I were falling to pieces.

Because I really was, coming apart at the seams.

Painful contractions had mostly subsided by the time I heard voices downstairs. Time for dinner. The family always dined together. Margaret always had to push the matter—she said it set the right standards.

I should stay here. Hide. Never confront whatever fresh hell awaited me down there.

But I was so tired of hiding.

I changed into clean clothes, something simple. I brushed my hair. I put on just enough makeup to carry me less like a walking shadow. Then I walked down the stairs, one hand gliding on the trailing for support.

The dining room doors were open. I could hear the voices even before I saw them.

"...simply divine, Margaret. You must give me the name of your decorator."

Vivian's voice. Bright. Cheerful. As if she belonged here.

I stepped into the doorway, and the conversation came to a halt.

They were all there. Margaret was there at the head of the table, regal as a queen. Adrian was to her right, in his work clothes, tie loosened. Vivian was to her left, wearing a cream-colored gown that probably was worth more than my car. And at the other end, sitting in a little chair, was a little girl with dark curls and Adrian's eyes—in the process of coloring a book.

Emma.

The husband’s daughter, with another woman, was sitting at the table where I ought to have been.

“Serena.” Margaret’s voice could have stopped a river. “How kind of you to join us.”

I started to walk towards my seat. The one beside Adrian, opposite Vivian, who was now seated as if it had always been hers.

“I didn’t realize we were having company for dinner,” I said softly, slipping into the chair.

“Vivian is family,” Margaret said to the staff, signaling for the food to be served, “Not company.”

Family. She'd known Vivian three days... And already she was family! I'd been married to her son for three years, and she was still mocking me for how I hold my fork!

“Serena, darling.” Vivian smiled a sickening smile. “You look exhausted. Are you feeling alright?”

That distraction was enough to turn all eyes on me. Adrian’s jaw contracted, almost imperceptibly.

“Oh, I'm fine,” I lied.

“Are you sure? You’ve been in your room all day. We were starting to worry.”

We. Like she had any right to worry about me. Like she hadn’t just blown up my entire life.

The staff brought forth the first course. Some sort of soup. The smell was rich and creamy, and my stomach twisted. I pushed the bowl away ever so slightly, trying to be discreet.

Margaret caught her cold stare upon me. "Not hungry? You've been looking rather thin lately. I just hope you're not indulging in something foolish, like all those ridiculous diets."

"I'm just not feeling well."

"Then you should see a doctor," Vivian advised, dabbing at her mouth with her napkin. "Self-care is important, especially at your age. Stress can really do terrible things to a woman's body."

At your age, I wondered. I was twenty-eight years old. She couldn't have been more than thirty.

"I've already seen a doctor," I heard myself say before I could stop.

Adrian's head shot up. His eyes locked on mine, sharp with warning: don't.

But I was tired; I was so tired of being silent. I was so tired of swallowing down everything. I was tired of pretending.

"Actually," I pushed on, my voice much steadier than I actually felt, "I have some news."

Everything stopped, even Emma putting down her crayons to look up with curious eyes.

"Serena." Adrian's voice was soft but dangerous. "Not now."

"When, then?" I looked at him. I actually looked at him. "When would be a good time, Adrian? After you move Vivian into the master bedroom? After you erase every trace of me from this house? When?"

"What is she talking about?" Margaret demanded.

I turned to them-all of them, actually-and pulled out the sonogram from my pocket. Carrying it all day had been like carrying a secret. A burden. A hope.

Now, it just was the truth.

"I'm pregnant."

Silence.

Complete, total silence.

Margaret's soup spoon clattered into her bowl. Vivian's face went gray while the perfect composure cracking. Adrian closed his eyes as if I had detonated a bomb in the middle of dinner.

Maybe I had.

"You're...what?" Margaret was the first to find voice, though it was strangled.

"Pregnant. Eight weeks." I placed the sonogram on the table, the black-and-white image facing up. "I found out two weeks ago. I was going to tell everyone at our anniversary dinner, but..." I gestured vaguely at Vivian. "Well."

Margaret grabbed the sonogram and held it close to her face as if she refused to believe it. Like it was fake. Her mouth opened and closed several times before she could speak.

"This is... you mean... I mean, are you sure?"

"Yes."

"Confirmed by doctor?"

"Yes."

She looked at Adrian. "Did you know about this?"

"I told him this morning," I answered for him. "Right before his board meeting. Right after I found out his mistress was moving into our home."

“She’s not my mistress,” Adrian said through clenched teeth.

“Then what is she?”

No one cared to answer. Vivian stared at the sonogram as if it were some snake that may bite her. Her knuckles glistened white while clutching the napkin.

“Well.” Margaret laid the sonogram down gently and displayed an expressionless face. “This is certainly… unlike the arrangement one might expect.”

“Unexpected,” I said. “One way to describe it.”

“Mommy?” Emma's small voice pierced through the tension. She was staring at Vivian, eyes full of confusion. “What's wrong?”

That very moment, Vivian's face immediately softened, and maternal concern took over. “Nothing, sweetheart. Everything is fine. Why don't you go upstairs with the nanny so she can prepare you for bed?”

“But I want to finish my picture.”

“You can do that tomorrow. Now go.”

From nowhere appeared a nanny-well, at least I'd never seen her before-who then ushered Emma out of the room. The little girl went reluctantly, glancing back over her shoulder.

Once she was out of sight and out of earshot, Vivian turned toward me, with the sweetness gone-faced with something cold and calculating.

“How convenient,” she said in a whisper.

“Pardon me?”

“This pregnancy. How terribly convenient that you'd suddenly be pregnant just as I am coming back into Adrian's life!”

The implication felt like someone having hit me with a blow. “You think I'm lying?”

"The timing, I find, very suspicious."

"I have a medical record. Doctor's appointments. Blood tests." My voice rose and I could not retain it. "For one year I have been attempting to conceive whilst my husband was supposedly sleeping with you; so forgive me if I won't apologize for actually succeeding and getting pregnant."

The door slammed shut behind Adrian, who stood up abruptly. "Enough, both of you."

"Don't you dare tell me what's enough," I said through bitter tears. "You invited this woman into our home; you humiliated me on television; you have a daughter you never told me about. And when I finally tell you I'm pregnant, you call it bad timing. So no Adrian, nothing is enough, nothing will ever be enough to make up for what you've done."

Margaret's hand struck the table, causing the utensils to rattle. "That is quite enough, Serena. You will not speak to my son that way under this roof."

"This is my house too," I said.

"Is it?" Ice trickled into Margaret's eyes. "Because it seems to me you've been nothing but a burden on this family. After three years of marriage, you're only now saying you're pregnant? Only now, that our real family has come back?"

Real family. Words like knives.

"She's manipulating you," Vivian added with false sympathy. "Can't you see? She's aware she's losing him. She's aware that it's Emma and I that Adrian truly wants. So suddenly she's pregnant; suddenly there's a baby that will tie him to her."

"I'm not manipulating anyone." My hands were trembling. Everything was trembling. "I'm telling the truth."

"Are you?" Vivian leaned in, the look in her eyes razor sharp. "Because it seems awfully convenient that you'd finally conceive right now. Unless..." She paused, letting the charge hang in the air. "Unless it's not his at all."

The room exploded.