Genevieve
Chapter forty-four
The time had passed, but I’d stopped counting the days, weeks, months. They blurred all over again. I didn’t look at calendars anymore or bother marking doctor appointments. I didn’t have enough brain power to track feedings or sleep cycles the way new mothers were supposed to after giving birth.
I just… moved. Like a shadow in the home I used to call mine.
Because it wasn’t mine anymore.
Somewhere between Reid disappearing, Gregory’s threats, and the birth, I’d slipped into another role entirely, not a fiancée or a partner, certainly not the face of the Newman family.
I’d become something else. The woman reputable husbands hid behind closed doors while they publicized their wives. A mistress, if you could even call me that. Though mistresses were usually wanted, cherished. Hidden but adored.
I was just tolerated.
Only Jamie had come to the birth. She held my hand while I screamed through the pain and terror of it, whispering that she was right there, that I wasn’t alone, even when everything in my life said otherwise.
She did what she could in those first days. Showed me how to cradle a newborn again, how to breathe through the postpartum stress onset, how to rest when I needed it.
You forget so much after almost four years.
You forget how heavy a baby feels, how constant their needs are, how hard, how taxing it is to take care of such a fragile little thing.
But I was grateful for her.
I still am.
Unfortunately, Jamie was back in the hospital, growing weaker again and placed under full medical supervision. As a result… I hadn’t heard from her in days. Hadn’t heard from Reid either.
Every call went unanswered. Alexander’s line stayed busy or silent.
So it was just me. Well—me and Eugene.
And Cara, who stopped by when she could after she realized what a wreck I’d become. And the baby sleeping against my chest now, her tiny breaths warm on my skin.
I smoothed a hand over her back.
My daughter.
My little Brielle.
She was my mistake and salvation all at once, both her and my son. They were the only things in this world keeping me whole, or at least partially.
My gaze drifted toward the doorway when I heard a knock on the door. Too adult to be Eugene but too hesitant to be Cara.
I straightened a little, tightening my hold on the baby as the door eased open.
It was Raymond.
He stepped inside slowly, gazing gently around the nursery Cheryl had so “graciously” designed and decorated at the expense of my… her fiancé.
“Genevieve…” he said gently, “…is now a good time to talk?” His eyes drifted down to the perfect little angel in my hands before glancing back up to me.
I hadn’t been expecting him. He was always in his office these days, at the hospital with Jamie, or providing whatever face the media needed in the wake of the collapse and the scandal.
But today… I’d never seen him like this.
Unpolished and tired… he was a man who tolerated failures, knew how to mask it under the armor of protecting his public image. But the man before me wore his defeat on his skin.
He entered the room, sitting in a frilly pink seat as I rocked lightly in the rocking chair.
“She’s beautiful,” he murmured after a minute. “Truly, she is.”
I gave a small smile. “Thank you.”
He nodded, hands clasped together in front of him as he sighed. “I wanted to speak with you because—because things with Jamie have taken a turn.”
My heart stilled, my breath catching. “She… she isn’t—”
He shook his head. “She wouldn’t leave us like that. You know that. She’s fighting it… she always fights it. But this time…” He exhaled slowly, eyes glistening in a way I’d never seen from him. “This time she’s tired. And the doctors are… preparing us for difficult decisions.”
“Raymond… I’m so sorry.”
He shook his head. “It’s a part of life. Jamie accepted it long before I did. It’s only just starting to settle in now.”
I nodded, but there seemed to be something else on his mind.
“Got some other news today… about my health. Not as dire… not yet, but it’s something wrong nonetheless.” He took a shaky breath. “They found signs of early onset brain cancer.”
The nursery fell silent as my eyes stung. “Raymond—”
“It’s still early, but they think it’s a malignant tumor.
It’s small but aggressive. Doctors want to treat it fast. Too early for surgery of any kind, too risky of a procedure given its location.
There’s a possibility for treatment in the coming years, but there’s also a possibility I’ll need therapy for years on end, I’ll lose my ability to speak, walk, remember; it’s endless the walking list of risks I’ve become. ”
“Does Gregory know?”
He shook his head. “You’re the first person I’ve told.”
Hearing that didn’t feel like an honor for some reason. It felt more of a burden, some kind of load he just couldn’t hold any longer, wrapped in the grief he didn’t know how to express—but I listened nonetheless.
“Reason being… this family is about to lose its head. What’s left of the business, the house, the responsibility…
I won’t be able to bear it. Not if I want to survive this, and grow old with Jamie.
” He shook his head. “I can’t just leave her behind.
No matter what we’ve gone through, I… I need to be there to take care of her…
And once I’m gone…” His jaw clenched. “Gregory will take full control… I know you were thinking of leaving, and I don’t blame you,” he said.
“God knows this house has given you more reason to run than stay.”
Tears gathered fast, but I blinked them away, swallowing hard.
“And I know my son,” he whispered. “I know what he’s capable of, especially when he feels abandoned, second best, unworthy… I know what he’ll become once I’m not here to temper him.”
“So this is a warning, then?” I hissed, unable to hold back the tremor in my voice.
His eyes lifted to mine, soft and apologetic.
“Genevieve,” he murmured, “I’m telling you the truth you already know.
I already don’t recognize the boy I raised…
I don’t want you to get the chance to see it either.
Reid won’t be able to protect you if you do stay,” he said. “And soon… neither will I.”
He was quiet for a long moment, his eyes on the baby in my arms. I had no clue what to say to him. My mind just kept spinning with the idea that soon enough, I’d be more trapped than I already was.
“I owe you an apology,” he said finally, and my eyes found his. “For what I said to you the day they took Reid away.”
The words he spat at me echoed in my mind instantaneously. “History repeats itself in this family. And apparently, so do the women who can’t keep their loyalties or their legs where they belong… Whatever you think you’re doing, it stops now. If you want this family to have any dignity left…”
It was a formal way of calling me a home-wrecking whore… but I didn’t say anything.
“I meant it when I said it.” His jaw tightened. “And I’ve regretted it every day since.” He let out a tired sigh at my silence. “You know… even when I found out about Jamie’s affair,” he murmured, eyes lowering, “I stayed.”
“…Why?” I asked after a moment.
He shrugged. “We had a family, said our vows when we got married, and because I loved her…” He swallowed hard. “…more than she loved me.”
My chest tightened.
“But looking at her now, seeing what this family did to her spirit, to her health…” His voice cracked. “There are days I wish she had run. So she could’ve had even a sliver of happiness.”
He was quiet for a moment, his eyes dropping to his hands.
“The situation with Reid and finding out he wasn’t my son…
I handled it poorly. When Gregory told me what he found out…
I had a choice. I could’ve protected the boy I raised, stood between him and what came next.
” His jaw worked. “But I didn’t.” He shook his head slowly.
“Our family was falling apart. And then Reid was just… there. The proof of it happening in real time. Instead of holding it together, I took it out on the person who needed me the most. I let Gregory tarnish his name and reputation. Told myself it was the right call.”
He gave a forced grin, one that didn’t reach his eyes the slightest bit. “If I could go back, I’d do a lot of things differently.” He exhaled slowly. “But since I can’t… the least I can do is make sure my grandchildren don’t pay for my mistakes.”
After a moment or so, he reached into the inside pocket of his jacket and set a sealed envelope on the edge of the crib. “I’ve made arrangements,” he said quietly. “For Brielle and Eugene. Whatever happens to this family… whatever Gregory does or doesn’t do, they’ll have something of their own.”
I looked at the envelope, then back at him as he lifted his gaze to mine, sincerely.
He’d already thought this through. Prepared for it… as if he knew I was leaving before I even did myself.
“Don’t make the same mistake Jamie made, Genevieve,” he said, and my throat burned. “This house… this family will take everything from you.”
He looked at down Brielle, then back up at me.
“The way it took everything from her.”
Raymond left just before midnight.
I sat in the rocking chair long after, Brielle warm against my chest, the nursery quiet around us. I watched as Eugene ran back and forth inside, curious about his sister sleeping but too hyper to stick around and watch her.
This house will take everything from you. The way it took everything from Jamie.
I thought about the way she looked at me in those final weeks before the hospital took her back. She was watching her own life play out again in someone else and couldn’t do anything to stop it.
I didn’t want to become that. I didn’t want my children to watch me disappear into the decision that I was too afraid to leave, or for Gregory to suck the life out of me while I was still here.