Chapter 52 The Pregnancy Brand
Over the next month, Apple turned her pregnancy into a brand.
Every day there was something new. Maternity hauls.
Soft pastel dresses with captions about “embracing womanhood.” Flat-lay photos of baby socks and tiny shoes.
Videos of her resting a hand on her stomach, smiling into the camera, talking about how excited she was to meet her baby.
How grateful she felt. How everything finally made sense.
She posted nursery inspiration. Vitamins. Healthy recipes. “What I eat in a day while pregnant.” She filmed slow walks, careful smiles, teary gratitude. She talked about how much she already loved her baby. How she could not wait to meet “them.”
“I already love you more than anything,” one caption read.
“This little soul saved me,” another said.
Her followers adored it. The comments were endless. Hearts. Blessings. Congratulations. People telling her she would be an amazing mother. People thanking her for being “so brave” for sharing something so personal.
I watched it all from my phone, scrolling in silence.
I didn’t comment. I didn’t like. I just observed.
Then came the crying video.
Her face was bare. Eyes red. Hair pulled back. Soft instrumental music underneath.
“I lost the baby,” she whispered. “I need time to heal. I need privacy. I hope you can understand.”
“I don’t even know how to breathe,” she said, tears sliding carefully down her cheeks. “But I know I have to keep going.”
She thanked her followers for their support. She said she did not know how she would ever recover from something so painful.
The comments flooded in again. Sympathy this time. Broken hearts. Messages about strength, angels, healing.
And yet.
The same day, she posted stories. Quotes.
“Some pain changes you forever.”
“Healing is not linear.”
“God gives his hardest battles to his strongest soldiers.”
“I will survive this.”
She said she wanted privacy.
She did not stop posting.
It was exactly how it had happened in my past life.
Back then, I had been too deep in my own heartbreak to question it. Too broken to analyze. Too distracted by pain to see structure. But now I had distance. Time. Perspective.
And it didn’t feel right.
Nothing suspicious appeared in her phone clone. No payments. No obvious conversations. No trace of planning.
So I asked Amy.
“Can you get into her laptop?”
Amy did not hesitate. “Give me one evening.”
She delivered in less than two hours.
“Her phone is clean,” Amy said over speaker. “But she has another email account. One she doesn’t log into on her phone.”
“What’s in it?”
Payment confirmations.
Invoices.
Conversations.
She had paid for fake ultrasound images. High-quality. Professionally edited. Medical formatting. Correct terminology. Realistic detail.
She had paid for a forged DNA test report.
None of it was cheap.
Whoever she hired knew exactly how to make it believable.
She had paid enough to make it convincing.
The miscarriage had never been an accident.
It had always been part of the plan.
She had intended to use the baby to bind Nick. To force proximity. To build a relationship out of obligation. And when that failed, she pivoted to loss. To sympathy. To tragedy.
And she monetized it all.
The final confirmation came from my clone of her phone.
A message to Marissa.
“I thought the baby would make him stay. He still doesn’t want me. I did everything right.”
I locked my phone, leaned back against the couch, and closed my eyes.
Some people didn’t just lie.
They built entire lives on it.
Two weeks later, my phone vibrated against the counter.
I was in the kitchen rinsing a glass when the building security number flashed on the screen.
“Ms. Richards,” the guard said politely, “there’s a Mr. Nick Reynolds downstairs. He says he knows you. Should we let him in?”
I closed my eyes.
For a moment, I considered saying no. Letting the past stay outside where it belonged.
Then I exhaled slowly.
“Yes,” I said. “Send him up.”
I didn’t fix my hair. I didn’t adjust my clothes. I just waited.
The elevator dinged less than two minutes later.
I opened the door before he could knock.
Nick stood in the hallway, hands in his pockets, shoulders tense. He looked thinner. Tired. Not wrecked. Not broken. Just worn in a way that came from too many emotional losses stacked too close together.
“Hey,” he said quietly.
I stepped aside and let him in.
He entered carefully, like he was afraid to touch anything. My apartment was unfamiliar territory to him. My life was.
We stood in silence for a few seconds.
Then he spoke. “You know about the baby.”
I nodded once.
“Why are you here, Nick?”
He swallowed. “Because I thought… maybe now there’s still a chance for us.”
My chest stayed calm.
“There isn’t,” I said.
His face tightened. “Ashley, I was drugged. I would never have touched her if I had been in my right mind. I only wanted you.”
“And the second time?” I asked.
He froze.
“The… what?”
“The second time,” I repeated.
The blood drained from his face.
“There was no second time,” he said.
“I know about it,” I replied. Then I added the lie that would neatly throw Apple under the bus. “Apple told me.”
In reality, I knew because Apple had sent Marissa a smug message the next morning, bragging about it. I had seen it on the clone phone.
His throat moved as he swallowed.
“It was a mistake,” he admitted. “I was drinking. I was devastated. I thought I was going to be a father. When she told me she lost the baby. I was destroyed. She was destroyed. We were both drunk. It didn’t mean anything. It was grief. Comfort. Distraction.”
His voice cracked. “It wasn’t love.”
He looked at me like he was begging me to understand.
I watched him quietly.
Then I asked, “Did she bleed?”
He blinked. “What?”
“After the miscarriage,” I said.
He grimaced. “What? I… I don’t know. No. I don’t think so. Why?”
I studied his face for a long moment.
“Nothing,” I said quietly.
“Ashley,” he said, stepping closer again. “We can still fix this.”
“I would never be with you after you were with my sister.”
His face collapsed.
“I was drugged,” he whispered.
“And then you weren’t,” I said gently.
He had no answer for that.
I walked to the door and opened it.
“You should go,” I said.
He stood there, broken, staring at me like he wanted me to take it back.
I didn’t.
As he stepped into the hallway, I spoke one last time.
“Nick.”
He turned.
“After a miscarriage,” I said quietly, “a woman usually bleeds for weeks.”
His brow furrowed.
I didn’t explain.
He left with confusion heavy in his eyes.
I closed the door behind him.
As for Apple, I kept everything.
The emails. The payments. The lies.
I wasn’t in a hurry to use it.
There would be a right time to expose her.