Reborn as a Rich Ex-Wife

The accident took my husband's ability to have children.

To protect his pride, his parents begged me never to tell him.

So we told the world the problem was mine. That I was the one who couldn't.

I wore it for five years.

Then his mistress showed up at my door, five months pregnant, and asked me to step aside.

Spencer slid the divorce papers across the table like he was doing me a kindness.

"You can't give me a child," he said. "I can't just let the Shaw name die out."

He had no idea.

Chapter 1

The woman crying on my couch had worked through half a box of my good tissues, so I swapped them for the cheap store-brand ones my mother-in-law bought by the case.

She wiped her eyes and came away with lint stuck to her face.

Spencer sat in the armchair, smoking, and let a long minute go by before he said it.

"There's nothing to be done now. Daisy's pregnant. I owe her that much."

I almost laughed. Five months along, and this was the first I was hearing of it. She'd hidden it well.

"You're... Daisy, was it?" I said. "You used to work for my husband. His assistant."

She gave a small, careful nod.

"Camille. We met at the dinner. Last fall."

I tried to remember. What came back was the crab. Flown in fresh that morning, sweet enough that I'd kept my head down and my hands busy all night.

Which is how I missed the two of them making eyes across the table.

Blame the crab.

She was younger than me by a few years, and she cried the way women cry in movies. Prettily. Chin trembling. It almost worked. I got up and brought her the chair with the soft cushion.

"Camille, the baby's almost here." Her eyes went wide and wet. "I don't have a choice. Please. A child needs a father. II can't do this on my own."

She watched me, waiting for me to fold.

"Whether your kid has a father is up to Spencer," I said. "Not me."

Spencer lit another cigarette.

"I've already had a lawyer draw up the papers," he said, like the smoke bored him. "When can we sit down and go through it? Sooner's better."

I ran the math while he talked.

The house we'd bought together counted as marital property. The car was his from before the wedding, so it stayed his. That left the savings, and since he was the one who'd cheated, the bigger share came to me. With a little push, he'd walk out with nothing.

I kept my face still. Inside, I was already spending it.

"Fine," I said. "This week. I'm traveling for work, so let's move fast."

"Fine."

Then he added, not quite looking at me, "Don't tell my parents yet. They're old. I don't think they could take it."

He was right about that. They couldn't.

* * *

Five years ago, just after the wedding, Spencer went out to inspect a job site. Something went wrong.

By the time I reached the hospital, the doctor had already told me. He'd taken the hit somewhere that mattered. He would never father a child.

His mother nearly went down in the hallway.

"My son was top of his class. Top of everything. Employee of the Year five times in three years. How does this happen to him?"

I never did follow the logic. How being good at his job was supposed to keep a steel beam off him.

But she spent a full five minutes listing every trophy he'd won since grade school, right down to his SAT score, read out to the last decimal.

The doctor shook his head and leaned in close.

"You might want to get her in to see someone," he said quietly.

His father just sighed. And then the old man made a decision that went against everything he'd ever stood for.

"We don't say it at the cemetery. We don't say it to anyone. And we sure as hell don't say it to Spencer."

"Wouldn't want to dent his confidence. As a man."

Chapter 2

My father-in-law spent his younger years as the best hand with a knife in three counties.

Cutting bulls, mostly.

The way he told it, you could take the meanest bull alive, and the second he banded it, all the fight ran out of it. Drained off and never came back.

His proudest day was the fall he cornered a rangy three-hundred-pound bull loose in the hills. Seven, eight grown men couldn't pin it. He had it cut and gentled before noon.

From that he drew one conclusion, and he held it like scripture.

A man's no different from a bull. You keep him going on his pride alone.

I figured he had a point.

Which is when he looked me dead in the eye.

"From here on, we tell people you're the one who can't. Whatever it takes. We protect my son's face."

I raised one finger and pointed it, slowly, at myself.

"Me?"

He nodded like it was already settled. "It's a hard thing to ask of you."

It wasn't all bad. After that, his parents hung on my every word. I ran that house like I owned it, and I won't pretend it wasn't a comfortable way to live.

So I let the talk roll off me. A child was take-it-or-leave-it as far as I was concerned. And Spencer and I had five years between us.

What I didn't plan on was the part where, years later, his mistress turned up on my doorstep with a belly out to here, crying, begging me to let him go.

You don't need me to do the math.

That baby wasn't Spencer's.

The old man had been right about one thing. A cut bull doesn't have it in him to go chasing tail.

But a bull that doesn't know he's been cut struts around like every other one out there. Still going after anything that'll have him.

* * *

Daisy stopped crying the moment I gave in.

"Mr. Shaw." She turned those eyes on him instead. "The baby's been kicking so hard today. I get scared on my own. Will you stay with me?"

Spencer's whole face went soft.

"Of course," he said. "I'll stay."

That look stopped me cold for a second.

Because for years, my "problem" had eaten at him. Quietly. All the time. The neighbors had a grandson and came around handing out candy, and he dropped the whole bag in the trash. A coworker's boy turned a month old and Spencer found a reason to skip the party. One of the hens out back laid an extra egg and his face went dark over it.

He wanted a child. Badly.

So every year, the thing he thought was wrong with me sat heavier on him.

And today it finally had somewhere to go. His mistress was pregnant. Now he had a clean, reasonable excuse to walk away.

Nothing in me moved. Nothing but a small, warm interest in the size of the check headed my way.

After they left, I called the best divorce lawyer in the city.

I sent over the video of Daisy on my couch, mid-plea, along with the rest of it: the long paper trail of his cheating. None of it was new to me. I'd seen this coming from a long way off.

The next morning I went to work like always. I told my boss I wanted first pick at the six-month posting overseas.

He clapped me on the shoulder and said I had a good head on me. Said it was a real opportunity.

I smiled.

It was. By the time I flew home, Daisy would have just had the baby.

I didn't want to miss the next episode.

Chapter 3

I was leaving the office when my mother-in-law called to tell me she'd been down to the adoption agency again.

"A new batch came in. I went and had a look. There's a baby boy, all his fingers and toes, just three months old. Young enough he won't remember a thing. If you've got time, take Spencer and go see him. He's a good fit, you put in for him quick."

"You have no idea how picked-over those places are. A healthy boy goes faster than fresh brisket at the butcher's on a Saturday."

I was booking myself a full spa with my other hand. "Don't worry about it, Mom," I said. "I've got my own plans."

"What plans could you have? You won't have a baby in ten more years either. Better to adopt while you're young."

I laughed, soft and even.

"And whose fault do you think that is?"

She went quiet. Caught.

"That that's not how to put it. You're still husband and wife. Talk it over with Spencer." And she hung up.

I stretched out and let the woman work the knots out of my back.

For years I'd been too careful to book a spa even once. Couldn't bring myself to spend it. Funny how fast that goes away.

* * *

After the massage, I bought clothes. All of it on Spencer's card.

He'd assume I was sulking and shopping it off. He didn't say a word.

So I went bigger. I walked into the nicest jewelry store in the city and bought the whole set. Necklace. Bracelets. The earrings to match.

Each time the card cleared, the little screen blinked approved, and something behind my ribs let go. The total kept climbing on his dime, and not a cent of it stung.

Approved. Approved. Approved.

I got home, put on a face mask, and curled up with a show. Then the doorbell started, and it didn't stop.

Daisy was on my step, belly out to here.

"Camille. What is this? You ran up eighteen thousand dollars in one afternoon?"

I hadn't actually added it up. "Why? Is that a problem?"

"That's my baby's money you're spending!"

That got a laugh out of me. "Daisy. Spencer and I aren't divorced yet. I'm spending marital property."

Her jaw went tight. "You'll divorce sooner or later, and his money is supposed to go to my baby. You blow through that much in one day, and you don't think about my child at all?"

Now I laughed for real.

"Honey. Has the pregnancy gone to your head? Why on earth would I think about your baby?"

I let my eyes drift down to her belly and held them there.

"Besides," I said. "That baby. Is it really Spencer's?"

Something moved across her face. Just for a second. The smile slipped, the color went, and what showed underneath was the look a person gets when someone steps too close to a thing they've buried.

Then my front door opened and Spencer came in fast, and she had her whole face back on before he'd cleared the hall.

"Camille, you don't know how hard Mr. Shaw works for his money." Her voice went small and trembly. "I worry about him. The late nights, the proposals, sleeping on the office couch. Have you ever once worried about him?"

I had to hand it to her. The girl could act.

It worked, too. Spencer was up and across the room, catching her by the elbow like she might tip over.

"Camille. Is this necessary? She's pregnant."

I widened my eyes at her. I'd been about to play sweet and harmless myself.

Then his voice dropped. "Don't you glare at her."

And there it was. She turns on the tears and he holds her like she's made of glass. I look at her a second too long, and I'm the one in the wrong.

Chapter 4

Daisy curled into him and lowered her voice.

"It's my fault. I just hate seeing you work so hard. She did a spa, she bought clothes, she spent all this money of yours. Think how much overtime that is to earn back."

He held her tighter. "Don't worry about it. They're making me VP this fall. The pay doubles. We'll earn it all back."

My ears pricked up.

VP. That was seven-figure money.

Daisy's eyes fixed on the gold at my throat, and they were full of something ugly.

"Must be nice, Camille."

I pushed my sleeve up on purpose and let the two gold bracelets catch the light.

"It is, actually."

Spencer turned on me. "I've put a limit on the card I added you to. No more of this. I'm pushing the divorce through fast, and you're going to behave."

"Relax," I said. "Meet my terms and I'll behave."

He left with her. On his way out he stopped.

"Dinner at my parents' next week. Don't blow it."

I'd forgotten about the monthly drive out to see them.

"Sure. Shame, though. You just capped the card. I was going to get them each a warm coat for winter."

His jaw worked. Then he sent me two thousand dollars.

"Happy?"

"Very."

I showered, got into bed, and ordered two puffer jackets off a discount site, twelve dollars each, free shipping. The rest of the money I loaded onto my spa account.

The day we drove out, I tucked the jackets into two glossy department-store bags.

* * *

Spencer picked me up and didn't say a word the whole drive.

We were almost there when he tried it.

"Daisy hasn't been well. The place she's renting is damp, it's no good for a pregnant woman. I want her to stay at the house a couple of days."

The nerve of him.

"Do you hear yourself?"

I knew exactly what she was doing. She'd seen the house and wanted it, and the pregnancy was her way in. Spencer couldn't afford a second place, so here he was, trying to clear me out of the first.

"You've been married to me all these years and you can't give me a child. I lived with that. And now you won't make one small concession?"

I breathed in. Let it out.

"I'm not giving up the house. Rent her somewhere else."

"She feels bad about the money," he said. "She won't hear of a hotel."

And there's your master class. A first-rate operator, punching way above her weight on pure performance. She'd sit in a damp back room all winter if that's what it took to bet on a man going soft, so she could move in and make the nest hers.

"I own half that house. The mistress is not moving in. And think about it. She moves in, the neighbors talk, the talk gets around, and how long before your parents hear every word of it?"

That did it. He let it go.

He's a good son, my husband. Bring up his parents and he folds every time.

Chapter 5

The in-laws were waiting out front when we pulled up, early.

My mother-in-law caught my eye the second I stepped out of the car.

"Did you think about what I said? That little boy is a good one. Eyes like grapes. Smiles every time he sees me, looks just like my own grandson. You talk to Spencer. Get it settled."

I yawned and pulled the two thin jackets out of the bag.

"These are the new ones this year. Light as anything." I handed them over. "For the two of you."

My father-in-law sat by the woodstove in a shirt you could see through, drinking, pleased with himself. He'd cut more bulls this year than anyone in the county, he said. Nobody for miles had a steadier hand.

I smiled and kept the thought to myself. You might want to bank some of that good luck for your son.

"Drinking all day, look at your hands shake," my mother-in-law said. "Keep it up and you'll geld yourself one of these days."

Then she caught herself, and her eyes cut to Spencer.

He had his phone out, thumbs going. Texting Daisy, most likely. He didn't put it down to eat.

My mother-in-law piled food onto his plate. "Look how thin you've gotten. Eat."

"Son. What I mean is, you two should adopt, and soon. I went down to the agency the other day, and"

"Mom." He cut her off, irritated. "Somebody else's kid is never going to be the same as your own. Those places are full of throwaways. Half of them grow up with something wrong in the head. Why does it have to be me?"

I kept my eyes on my plate.

He glanced at me. "Besides. I'm not the one with the problem."

The table went quiet.

My mother-in-law sighed. "You. I only meant you're both at the age for it."

"There'll be kids," Spencer said, sure of himself. "I promise you. Next year you'll have a fat grandson in your arms."

Dinner broke up sour. Spencer went out to the yard to smoke.

I sat on the couch with my phone. Out of the corner of my eye, his voice went soft while he talked someone down. Don't worry, he was saying. I'll wrap things up and be right back.

My mother-in-law crept to the doorway and listened.

"Who's that he's so sweet with?"

"Work," I said, covering for him. "He's up for a promotion. He's busy. It happens."

Whatever else, Spencer could not find out he couldn't have children. Not yet. If he did, there'd be no divorce, and I'd be walking away from a lot of money.

My mother-in-law beamed. "That's my boy. Management, and still so young. He'll go far. That agency baby would be lucky to land in this family."

"He sure would." I reached for more snacks. "Your son's the best."

* * *

It got dark. Spencer came in off the phone and said he was leaving.

"You said you'd stay the night." She frowned at him. "It's pitch black out, the roads are bad. Go in the morning."

"I've got work," he said, not quite easy about it. He looked at me.

I took the cue and stood. "Let's go. Work comes first."

His biggest job these days had a due date and a heartbeat, and he was driving through the night to get to it.

That same night, the two of them turned up on my feed, fingers laced together.

They really couldn't sit on it. Smiling into a camera over a baby that was never going to be his.

Chapter 6

We set the divorce talk for the weekend. My lawyer and I were at the coffee shop a good while before Spencer showed.

Then we put it all on the table.

"On behalf of my client, I've adjusted a few points." My lawyer slid the pages across. "The house goes to her. There's just under two million in savings as well. We're proposing seventy-thirty."

Spencer's brows pulled together. "That's quite an appetite, Camille."

Letting him walk away with anything at all was already mercy.

If my lawyer hadn't told me the courts go easy on a cheating spouse these days, that even in front of a judge he likely wouldn't be left with nothing, and that for a clean, fast split thirty percent was the smart give, I'd have asked for more.

I smiled. "Spencer. You're making VP this fall. You're going to fight me over pocket change?"

That brought the smugness right back.

"It's not the money. But the house is yours now. Where does Daisy live once the baby comes? Recovery costs money too. You have to think about me here."

"Did you think about me," I said, "when you were sleeping with your assistant?"

Asking me to think about him now. As if he'd earned it.

"Are you trying to bury me?" His voice climbed. "You think I'd have gone looking if you could have given me a child? I can't just let the Shaw name end with me."

The sweet things he used to say had all been melted down and beaten into knives. Every one of them pointed at me now.

None of it could reach me anymore.

"Spencer. This is the floor." I set my coffee down. "Letting you walk out with anything is the most generous I'm going to be. We sign today, or tomorrow it's eighty-twenty. The day after, ninety-ten. I'll keep going until you sign."

"Or we let a judge sort it, and we find out which of us can wait longer."

His face went a blotchy, furious red. He grabbed the pen off the table and scrawled his name across the line.

The agreement held. I let out a breath.

The split went through fast. Inside a week it was done.

Daisy posted a ring next, two fresh marriage licenses fanned behind it. She really was good at this. Finding the baby a father that fast, landing a decent chump to play the part.

None of it was mine to worry about anymore. By then I was already in Europe.

* * *

My ex-mother-in-law called while I was still asleep, jet-lagged, and her voice came down the line in a fury.

"What is this? When did you two divorce? A thing this big and not one word to me? Do I even count as your mother anymore?"

"You don't," I said. "Was there something you needed, ma'am?"

Behind her, I caught my ex-father-in-law raging at nothing he could fix.

"Spencer says that Daisy is pregnant. Says he had it checked, says it's a boy. You believe that? Is that baby even a Shaw?"

It wasn't. Plainly.

I stretched. "I'm overseas, both of you. Whatever you need, go ask your son. What are you yelling at me for?"

The wailing started up. Her boy had been played. Taken in. Stuck raising another man's child for free. She called Daisy every poison she could reach for, a snake, sliding a stranger's blood into the Shaw line and passing it off as their own.

I let them have their moment. Then, gently, I gave them the rest of it.

"They're married now. The hat's on his head, and it isn't coming off. You wanted to protect his pride as a man, didn't you. This is the part where the two of you swallow it and say nothing."

Chapter 7

My ex-in-laws were in a bind with no way out of it.

They couldn't tell their son he'd never father a child. And they couldn't stand to watch him get played.

So I helped.

"Look at it this way," I told them. "Spencer's never going to have one of his own. Adopt, don't adopt. How is this any different?"

The more I helped, the deeper their hell got.

By the end I couldn't quite keep a straight face. My ex-mother-in-law was crying so hard I had to hold the phone away from my ear.

I hung up and slept like a baby.

* * *

Two months later, a new post from Spencer slid across my feed. A son. All smiles.

So his parents still hadn't told him.

Good. The longer he sank into it, the worse the day the floor dropped out. The bigger the buy-in, the deeper the loss.

I tapped the little heart and put my phone down.

* * *

I came home for the holidays and ran into the two of them at the complex. Daisy pushing a stroller, Spencer beside her, the whole picture of it.

She lit up. "Camille. It's been so long."

She'd rented in my building on purpose. Same complex, just to twist the knife.

"Cute kid," I said.

"He's our little good-luck charm." She beamed down into the stroller. "His dad made VP at corporate the day he was born."

"Oh? That's still waiting on the board, isn't it?"

Spencer's chest puffed out. "Done deal. The sign-off's a formality."

I nodded and gave them congratulations I didn't mean.

* * *

At home, I opened my laptop and pulled up the email I'd written two months back.

I read it over. A clean record of every kickback he'd taken at the regional office. Years of it. Dates, amounts, the accounts they ran through.

He thought I never knew. I'd started the file the year everything went wrong for him, the year I learned the only thing you can count on is what you hold in your own two hands.

I wasn't going to keep being the reason it stayed buried. Not for a man who lied to me and stole on the side. The people who needed to see it could see it.

He'd spent five years climbing toward that VP chair. It was the one rung he'd been waiting his whole career for. The sign-off was days away.

He didn't know it yet, but it was already over.

I just hadn't hit send.

I picked the perfect day, and I sent it