I Gave Birth Alone While My Husband Was with Another Woman

1. Christine

— ? —

Christine

The first time I saw Benedict Morgan, I ruined him.

Not metaphorically - though I’d do that later, too, or maybe he’d do it to me, depending on who’s telling the story. No, I mean literally. I ruined his suit. His ten-thousand-dollar, hand-stitched, probably-made-by-Italian-monks-who-took-vows-of-silence suit.

I was twenty-three, broke, and had absolutely no business being at the Hartford Foundation Charity Gala.

But I’d read somewhere that the best way to build a client list for an event planning business was to go where the money was, and there was nowhere in the city with more money than this room.

Crystal chandeliers dripped from ceilings that belonged in palaces.

Women wore jewelry that could’ve paid my rent for a decade.

And I was behind the bar, filling in for a friend who’d gotten food poisoning, pretending I knew the difference between a Manhattan and an Old Fashioned.

I didn’t. For the record.

The tray was heavy. The heels were new. The crowd parted like he was Moses and they were the Red Sea, and suddenly there he was - Benedict Morgan, thirty-one years old, CEO of B-Morgan Industries, featured in Forbes last month under the headline “The Most Ruthless Man in Business.”

I’d seen the photos. They didn’t do him justice.

Dark hair, slightly disheveled in a way that probably cost more than my entire outfit to achieve.

A jaw that could cut glass. Eyes so dark they were almost black, and when they landed on me - mid-collision, champagne already arcing through the air in what felt like slow motion - I understood why people called him intimidating.

He looked at me like I was an insect. A particularly disappointing insect.

The champagne hit his chest with a splash that seemed impossibly loud. Golden liquid spread across pristine white, seeping into fabric that probably had a pedigree.

“Oh my God.” The words fell out of me. “I’m so - let me - I’ll get something to-”

“You,” he said, and his voice was exactly what you’d expect: low, clipped, the voice of a man who’d never had to repeat himself, “just ruined a ten-thousand-dollar suit.”

My stomach dropped to somewhere around my knockoff Louboutins. But something else rose in its place - something stubborn, something that didn’t appreciate being looked at like dirt on his handmade Italian shoes.

“I’m aware,” I said. “I was there.”

His eyebrows lifted. Just slightly. Just enough to tell me that people didn’t usually talk back to Benedict Morgan.

“Most people would apologize.”

“I did apologize. You interrupted me.”

“You were stammering.”

“Stammering is a form of apology. It conveys remorse through panic.”

The corner of his mouth twitched. I couldn’t tell if he wanted to smile or have me thrown out. Possibly both.

“Stay there,” I said, because apparently I’d lost complete control of my mouth. “Don’t move. I’m going to fix this.”

I ran before he could respond. Actually ran, heels clicking against marble, weaving through billionaires and socialites who looked at me like I’d lost my mind.

Maybe I had. I grabbed a handful of cloth napkins from the service station - not paper towels, I wasn’t a complete disaster - and sprinted back.

He hadn’t moved. Of course he hadn’t. Men like Benedict Morgan didn’t move for anyone.

“You came back,” he said.

“I said I would.”

“I thought you were the kind that run.”

“Believe me, I’m not the kind that run,” I said, stepping forward and pressing the napkins against his chest, dabbing at the champagne with probably too much force.

He was warm through the soaked fabric. Solid.

He smelled like sandalwood and something darker, something that made my pulse do something inconvenient.

“You’re going to bruise me,” he said.

“Don’t be dramatic. This is gentle.”

“This looks like an assault with a napkin.”

“Do you want my help or not?”

“I haven’t decided. I also don’t recall giving you permission to touch my chest.” A pause. His voice dropped. “Though you do seem to be enjoying it.”

I stopped dabbing. Looked up at him. Those dark eyes were glittering with something that might have been amusement, might have been challenge.

“You’re right,” I said. “This is the highlight of my evening. Champagne-soaked Egyptian cotton. Every girl’s dream.”

“Most women would be nervous right now.”

“Most women haven’t already ruined your suit. What’s left to lose?”

Something flickered in his expression. Interest. The dangerous kind.

“You have a sharp mouth.”

“And you have a ruined shirt. We all have our crosses to bear.”

I could feel his heartbeat beneath my palm - steady, calm, like he wasn’t affected at all. Like this was a game and he was already winning.

So I stepped back. Dropped the napkins against his chest and let them fall.

“You’re right, though. I overstepped.” I smiled sweetly. “Good luck with the stain, Mr. Morgan.”

I turned to walk away.

His hand caught my wrist.

“I didn’t say stop.”

“You didn’t say please, either.”

We stood there, his fingers wrapped around my wrist, my pulse hammering against his grip. The ballroom noise faded to nothing. There was only him, only this, only the impossible tension of two people who refused to blink first.

“You have champagne on your sleeve,” he said. Quieter now.

I glanced down. The cheap polyester of my borrowed uniform had caught the splatter.

“Consider us even.”

“We are nowhere near even.”

“Then consider it a down payment.”

His grip shifted. Not tighter, just enough to remind me he hadn’t let go.

“Your name,” he said.

“Christine. Christine Holloway.”

“Christine.” My name in his mouth felt like a secret. “You owe me a suit.”

“I can’t afford your suit. I can barely afford my rent.”

“Then you’ll have to find another way to repay me.”

My heart did something stupid. “And what did you have in mind?”

He studied me. That’s the only word for it. His gaze traveled from my flushed face to my champagne-stained sleeve to my borrowed heels, and I watched him calculate exactly who I was: nobody, nothing, not even a real server at this event.

Then he smiled. A real smile, slow and unexpected, and it transformed his entire face.

“I’ll think of something,” he said.

He released my wrist. Stepped back. Adjusted his ruined jacket like it cost nothing, like I hadn’t just destroyed ten thousand dollars’ worth of fabric.

“Enjoy your evening, Christine Holloway.”

He walked away. I watched him go - watched the crowd part, watched women turn to stare, watched him disappear into a sea of wealth and power.

I didn’t expect to see him again.

Three days later, a Valentino dress arrived at my apartment. The note said: For the next time you ruin someone’s evening. - B.M.

I sent it back with a note of my own: I don’t accept gifts from men who haven’t asked me to dinner properly.

The next day, orchids. Would you like to have dinner with me? - B.M.

I sent those back too. No.

A first-edition Pride and Prejudice. Why not?

I kept the book. I’m not made of stone. But I sent back a reply: Because you’re still not asking. You’re collecting.

Three days of silence. I told myself I wasn’t disappointed.

Then he showed up at the coffee shop where I worked my second job, ordered a black coffee he didn’t drink, and sat in the corner booth for four hours pretending to read the newspaper while I pretended not to notice him.

When my shift ended, he stood up.

“You’re stubborn,” he said.

“You’re stalking me.”

“I’m not. I’m pursuing you. It’s not the same.”

“The difference being?”

“Intent.” He stepped closer. “I intend to take you to dinner. I intend to learn why you’re the only person who’s talked back to me in five years. And I intend to figure out why I can’t stop thinking about a woman who ruined my favorite suit and then had the audacity to lecture me about it.”

My heart was pounding. “That’s a lot of intentions.”

“I’m an ambitious man.”

“I’ve read Forbes. I know.”

“Then you know I don’t give up.”

“And I don’t give in. Looks like we’re at an impasse.”

He smiled. That real smile again, the one that made him look almost human.

“Friday,” he said. “Dinner. Just once. If you hate it, I disappear.”

“That’s it? That’s your pitch?”

“I’m not pitching. I’m just asking.” He paused. “I don’t do that often.”

“And if I don’t?”

“Then this will be a very sad story about a man and his ruined suit.” That almost-smile again. “I’d rather it be a better story than that.”

“Why me?”

“I don’t know.” His jaw tightened, like the admission cost him. “That’s why I need to find out.”

I should have said no. Every sensible part of me screamed to walk away, to protect myself, to remember that men like Benedict Morgan didn’t fall for women like me - they collected us like art, admired us for a season, then moved on to the next acquisition.

But he’d found a book I loved. He’d sat in a coffee shop for four hours just to see me. And he was looking at me like I was the most interesting thing he’d ever encountered, like the rest of the world had gone gray and I was the only thing in color.

“Friday,” I heard myself say. “But I’m picking the restaurant.”

His smile could have powered the whole damn city.

***

That was the first night.

There were so many others after.

The proposal came on a private beach in the Maldives, the kind of place I’d only ever seen in magazines.

The kind of place where the water was so clear you could see straight to the bottom, where the sand was whiter than snow, where the sunset painted everything in shades of gold and rose and impossible pink.

He’d been nervous. I hadn’t known he could be nervous - this man who commanded boardrooms, who made grown executives sweat with a single glance. But his hands shook slightly as he reached into his pocket. His voice wasn’t quite steady.

“I’ve acquired companies,” he said, dropping to one knee. “Buildings. Empires. But you’re the only thing I’ve ever wanted that money couldn’t buy.”

The ring was obscene. A diamond the size of my thumbnail, flanked by sapphires that matched the water behind us. I barely saw it.

I was too busy looking at him. At the vulnerability in his face. At the way he looked at me like I was everything, like I was the only thing that had ever mattered.

“Be mine,” he whispered. “Let me be yours.”

I said yes before he finished the sentence.

***

That was then.

But that feels like a fairy tale now. A fantasy story locked in a vault that no one remembers the combination to.

Reality is quite different.

Today the bathroom mirror shows me a stranger.

A woman I don’t recognize anymore. And it’s not because I’m nine months pregnant, my belly swollen with a human being who kicks and squirms like she already knows something is wrong.

It’s not the dark circles under my eyes that no concealer can hide.

It’s not my hair, unstyled for weeks because the effort feels pointless.

It’s because he won’t see it anyway. Because he’s never home.

Our sixth anniversary.

Twelve thousand square feet of penthouse, and every room echoes with emptiness.

The nursery is finished. I did it myself - painted the walls, assembled the crib, hung the mobile of silver stars that catches the light and spins lazy circles in the air conditioning. He was supposed to help. He promised he’d help.

He promised a lot of things.

My phone buzzes on the marble counter. I already know what it is before I look. I know, and I reach for it anyway, because hope is a sickness I haven’t learned to cure.

Mr. Morgan sends his apologies. The Budapest deal requires his attention. He’ll make it up to you.

His assistant’s number. Not even him. Not even a text from his own phone, a few words typed between meetings, some small proof that he remembered.

I stare at the message for a long time.

Then I delete it.

I’ve stopped responding to these. Stopped pretending that “he’ll make it up to you” means anything, stopped collecting empty promises like they’re worth something. He hasn’t noticed.

He hasn’t noticed anything in months.

I lower myself onto the edge of the bathtub, one hand pressed to my belly where our daughter kicks and squirms, already restless, already fighting. She has her father’s impatience. I hope that’s all she inherits from him.

My reflection stares back at me from the mirror across the room. Designer dress, unworn, still hanging on the bathroom door. I was supposed to wear it tonight. We were supposed to go to dinner at that restaurant, the one with no prices, the one where he asked me about my dreams like they mattered.

I wonder if he even remembers.

I wonder when I became the kind of woman who waits.

The contraction comes out of nowhere - a tightening across my abdomen that steals my breath, that makes me grip the edge of the tub with white-knuckled fingers. It passes. Then another comes, sharper this time, a wave of pressure that has me gasping.

Not yet. I wasn’t ready for it to be tonight.

I reach for my phone. My thumb hovers over his name.

I imagine it ringing and ringing, going to voicemail the way it always does. I imagine leaving a message he won’t hear for hours, maybe days. I imagine his assistant calling me back, calm and professional, asking if everything is all right while he sits in some meeting, oblivious.

I put the phone down.

What’s the point?

He won’t answer anyway.