My Fiancé's Secret Wife Was Eight Months Pregnant

Erica Butler was scrolling through a resale app when she saw someone selling custom cufflinks from H-brand for ten dollars, swearing they were the real thing.

In the photos, everything matched the packaging, the cufflinks themselves, even the message on the gift card were identical to the birthday present she'd given Carter Maddox.

Something dropped in her chest. She placed the order, just to make sure.

The seller messaged her:

"Looks like our addresses are in the same building. Why don't we just meet up?"

What were the odds?

Suspicion flared, and Erica decided to go see for herself.

She reached the address the seller had given, and the door was opened by a woman in the late stages of pregnancy.

The woman carried out the gift bag and handed it to Erica, then stuck out her tongue playfully.

"Sorry about that. I'm Laura Swanson, eight months along, and my husband won't let me go out."

Erica examined the cufflinks carefully, and to her surprise, they really were genuine.

She asked, puzzled, "Why are you selling them so cheap?"

Laura huffed.

"It's my husband's fault! He won't let me leave the house, insists it's to protect me. I got mad, so to smooth it over he gave me these custom cufflinks, eight hundred grand's worth, and I decided to sell them for ten bucks out of spite!"

Just then a man's voice came from inside the apartment:

"Laura? Why aren't you back yet?"

At the sound of it, every drop of blood in Erica's body seemed to freeze in an instant.

That voice belonged to her boyfriend, Carter Maddox.

She was about to speak when Laura called back into the apartment:

"I'm not coming! Carter, quit bossing me around!"

The guess was confirmed, and it hit Erica like a bucket of ice water poured over her whole body.

A fine, spreading ache rose from the center of her chest and reached into every limb.

Her voice came out dry. "What is Carter to you?"

Laura turned her head and smiled, sweet and easy.

"He's my husband. We've been married two years already!"

...

There was a ringing in Erica's ears. She staggered half a step and nearly fell.

The boy she'd loved for five years, the one she was about to marry, was already married to someone else and about to have a child.

Her mind was in chaos, and then she heard footsteps inside, coming closer.

The next second, Carter appeared, wrapping his arms around Laura from behind, chin resting on her shoulder.

"Come inside, sweetheart. You're about to be a mother, and you're still acting like a kid."

Laura pouted.

"I'm so bored I could die! You want me to forgive you? Fine, but only if you get Mavis and the others to come over tonight and keep me company!"

Carter laughed, indulgent.

"All right. I already told Mavis James yesterday to bring over some food a pregnant woman can eat. We're throwing a party here, Terence is coming too. I was going to make it a surprise for you."

Standing outside the door, Erica heard it all, and it drenched her like ice water from head to foot.

Terence Donaldson, Mavis James, both friends she and Carter had known since childhood, the ones who'd always said how they envied what she and Carter had.

She'd treated them as her closest friends, and all along they'd known Carter had married someone else in secret and kept it from her.

The whole group had gone behind her back, folding themselves into Carter's little family long ago. Only she, from beginning to end, had been the outsider.

A helplessness welled up from the center of her chest, and her nose stung.

The whole world had betrayed her, abandoned her.

Laura, meanwhile, was cheered up at once, unable to hold back her smile.

"Oh, why didn't you tell me!"

She thumped Carter's chest, half-embarrassed, half-annoyed.

"You're awful! You didn't warn me, so it's not my fault I got mad and sold those custom cufflinks of yours!"

The smile on Carter's mouth froze for an instant, then went back to normal.

"It's fine. Just a pair of cufflinks, no big deal."

A laugh nearly rose in Erica's throat.

She'd tracked down the designer half a year in advance, humbling herself, saying every nice thing, sending every gift, until finally the designer agreed to make that one pair of cufflinks for Carter.

And now, with one weightless line, he said it didn't matter.

The thing she'd given him, it turned out, didn't matter even if it was lost.

Carter's arm curved around Laura's waist as he coaxed her gently:

"Go on inside, baby."

The girl nodded, but then slipped free of him.

"Let me say goodbye to the lady who bought your cufflinks first."

Only then did Carter lift his eyes and look toward the door.

The moment he saw Erica, his pupils contracted slightly.

Erica met his gaze without flinching, without looking away.

She'd thought he would be at a loss, would panic and explain. But there was none of that.

His slip lasted only a heartbeat.

He ruffled Laura's hair. "You go in first. Good girl. I'll see the guest downstairs."

Laura, who knew nothing, was still smiling without a care in the world, and waved at Erica.

"Bye-bye, hon. I'm not in any state to walk you out myself."

Carter watched Laura waddle back into the apartment, and the indulgence in his eyes melted away. He clamped a hand around Erica's wrist and pulled her toward the elevator landing.

"We'll talk outside."

Erica stumbled after him, her wrist locked as if in an iron clamp, the bones aching.

"Carter! Let go of me!"

She fought with everything she had, prying at his fingers with her other hand, but he didn't budge, his grip shockingly strong.

Frantic now, Erica dug her nails hard into his forearm and dragged them down.

Carter flinched at the pain and let go on instinct.

Erica seized the chance to yank her wrist back, and the next second her hand flew up in a ringing slap.

"Smack!"

Carter's face snapped to one side.

He turned back slowly, running the tip of his tongue against the struck cheek, something dark and unreadable in his eyes.

"You're not going to explain?" Erica's voice shook. "Carter, you tell me what's going on!"

Carter was silent for a moment.

"There's nothing to explain," he said. "What you saw is the truth. Laura and I have been married two years. The baby's eight months."

"Laura's in her last trimester, and she can never know about this. If you take it to her and anything happens to her baby, Erica, I will never let you off."

The world spun around Erica, and her heart felt as if a hand had seized it and wrung it dry.

Carter Maddox had once loved her past all reason.

He'd told her, more times than she could count:

"Erica is the most important person in my life. Anyone who makes you unhappy, even a little, I'll never let them get away with it."

And now here he was, laying down a threat like this to her, all to protect another woman and her child.

Tears rose in her eyes. Erica forced them down.

She stared at him.

"We were together five years. You said you'd marry me this fall. Carter, what was I ever to you?"

Carter lowered his lashes and wouldn't look at her.

"I'm sorry. Let's break up."

Break up?

The two words landed like a shove into an ice cellar, and Erica felt the blood in her whole body turn solid.

She fixed her eyes on the man she'd loved for five years, and the tears finally spilled over.

"Carter, do you have any conscience left?"

"Do you even remember? Junior year, you fell into the campus lake. I can't swim, and I jumped in after you without thinking twice. I spent three days in the ICU. The doctors said the cold did too much damage, that I'd never be able to have children. Have you forgotten all of that?"

His throat worked, but he said nothing.

"And your parents!" The tears wouldn't stop now. "The year they were in that car accident, who stayed at the hospital for a whole month without so much as changing out of her clothes? Your mother lost control of her bladder and bowels, and I was the one who cleaned her. Your father spiked a fever in the middle of the night. Where were you? You were pulling overtime at the office. I was the one being a good child in your place!"

She closed the distance between them, step by step.

"I gave you everything in me. I gave you the best years of my life. Carter, can you look me in the eye and say you did right by me?"

At last he raised his head and met her eyes.

"I know. Everything you've said, I know. I loved you too, Erica. I really did love you."

"Loved?" Erica let out a cold laugh.

"And now? What is this now?"

Carter drew a deep breath.

"Laura is different. She's simple. She doesn't understand anything, like a blank sheet of paper. She isn't strong and independent the way you are. Without me, she can't survive."

He paused, and his voice dropped lower.

"But you're different. Without me, you'll still be just fine."

Erica stood frozen, as if he'd slapped her hard across the face.

She understood at last. Some people never intended to walk with you all the way to the end.

And she was nothing more than a side character in someone else's story.

Her lips trembled.

"So because I'm strong, I deserve to be betrayed? Because I'm independent, I deserve to be thrown away? Carter, what kind of garbage logic is that?"

Carter frowned, a trace of helplessness in his voice.

"Don't be like this. That's not what I meant."

"Then what did you mean?" Erica was nearly screaming now. "Say it! Tell me, where exactly do I fall short of her? Is it because she's younger and prettier than me? Or because she can give you children?"

The instant the words left her mouth, she froze herself.

Because she can give you children.

The sentence went in like a needle, straight into the softest place in her heart.

She thought of the afternoon she woke from the ICU.

Carter had held her hand, his eyes rimmed red, kissing her forehead again and again, saying:

"Ricky, you scared me half to death. Don't you ever do that again. I won't have you risking your life for me."

Later, when she found out she could never carry a child, she'd hidden on the hospital rooftop and cried the whole afternoon.

Carter had searched the entire building, and when he finally found her on the roof, he'd pulled her tight against him and said:

"It doesn't matter. We won't have children. Having you is enough. You're the most important family I'll ever have in this life."

And now?

Now he had his arm around another woman, one carrying his child.

And for her sake, he was threatening Erica, telling her they were through.

Erica felt her heart torn clean in two.

All at once she thought herself an utter fool.

She remembered last winter, one of Terence Donaldson's dinners, everyone crowded around a big shared meal.

Mavis James had raised her glass, grinning.

"Ricky and Carter are just meant for each other. I saw it back in high school! So when are you two getting married? I'm waiting to drink at the wedding!"

Terence had chimed in from the side.

"Exactly. If you two don't get married, none of us are ever going to believe in love again."

Carter had smiled then, draped an arm over her shoulders, dipped his head, and pressed a kiss to her forehead.

"Soon. Once I've got things settled at the company, I'll marry her this fall."

That night, home again, she'd been too happy to sleep, turning it over and over in her mind: where the wedding should be, what style of gown to choose, what color paper for the invitations.

She'd even gone to look at baby things. She knew she couldn't have her own, but she'd thought maybe they could adopt. Carter loved children so much, he'd surely make a wonderful father.

Thinking of it now, by then Carter was probably already making a baby with Laura.

Coaxing her with promises of marrying her in the fall, and turning around to marry someone else and have a child.

While she, like an idiot, had been kept completely in the dark.

"Terence and Mavis, they both knew, didn't they?"

Carter's eyes flickered.

"They"

"They knew you were already married, didn't they?" Erica cut him off. "They watched me circle around you like a fool for two years, watched me eagerly planning our wedding, and not one of them said a single word to me."

The tears came again.

"I treated them as my best friends. This is how they treated me."

Erica started to laugh.

"Fine. If this is how all of you want to play it, then I'll go tell Laura right now that her husband has a girlfriend of five years on the side!"

"Erica!" Carter's face changed in an instant. He grabbed her arm, gripping hard enough to hurt. "Don't you dare!"

Just then a timid voice came from behind them.

"Carter the two of you you know each other?"

Both of them went rigid at the same moment.

Erica turned her head and saw Laura standing in the doorway, one hand on her heavily pregnant belly, a cup of water in the other.

Carter's face changed instantly into something gentle. He crossed to her.

"Why did you come out? It's cold out here. Go back inside."

Laura didn't move. Her eyes went past his shoulder and settled on Erica.

"Are you and my husband acquainted?"

The air went silent.

Carter opened his mouth, but Erica got there first.

"We are."

She looked at the gift bag in Laura's hand and gave a small smile.

"Those cufflinks you sold me I'm the one who gave them to him."

Laura's eyes went wide.

"He and I were together for five years."

The color drained out of Laura's face in an instant.

The cup shattered on the floor, shards of porcelain scattering everywhere. She stumbled back a step and caught the doorframe, lips trembling as she looked at Carter.

"Carter, is it true? Were you two together for five years?"

Carter's face went ashen, fury churning at the back of his eyes.

He spun around and closed the distance to Erica in a few strides.

Crack.

His hand landed hard across her face.

She staggered into the wall with a dull thud.

Her head rang, her vision blacked out for a moment, and something warm slid slowly down from her temple, staining half of what she could see red.

Before she could steady herself, a large hand clamped down hard around her throat.

Carter's fingers tightened, pinning her whole body against the wall.

"Didn't I tell you? Don't run your mouth. Don't set her off!"

Erica's hands went to his fingers on instinct, trying to pry them loose, but he didn't budge.

The suffocation rose over her like a tide. Her feet kicked uselessly against the floor, her nails dragging bloody streaks across the back of his hand, and still Carter showed no sign of letting go.

Her vision began to blur, the ringing in her ears louder and louder.

She looked at his twisted face and it struck her, suddenly, as utterly unfamiliar.

Was this the Carter who had once held her like she was precious?

The Carter who'd said, "Anyone who dares upset you, I'll never let them off"?

The Carter who'd said, "You're the only one I'll love in this life"?

The dark closed in thicker and thicker, and she felt herself starting to give out.

And then

"Ah! My stomach it hurts so much!"

Carter's grip froze.

He looked back and saw Laura clutching her swollen belly, her face white as paper, sliding slowly down the doorframe as fine cold sweat beaded on her forehead.

"Laura!"

Carter let go of Erica's throat in an instant and rushed over.

With nothing to hold her up, Erica sank limply to the floor, dragging in gulp after gulp of air, her throat raw and burning.

She lifted her eyes and through the blur saw Carter kneeling beside Laura, gathering her carefully against him, his voice frantic to the point of breaking.

"Laura, how do you feel? Where does it hurt? Look at me, look at me!"

He fumbled his phone out of his pocket to call 911, his other hand gripping Laura's and pressing it to his own cheek.

"Don't be scared. I'll get you to the hospital right now. You and the baby are going to be fine, do you hear me? You'll be fine!"

He hung up, lifted Laura into his arms, and started toward the elevators.

He passed right by Erica without a single glance.

The elevator doors closed, and Erica was left alone, sitting in the empty elevator hall.

She leaned against the wall, the blood from her forehead already reaching her jaw, and at last she made up her mind. She took out her phone and sent a text.

"Dad, I'm not marrying Carter. I'll go through with the arranged match."

She shoved the phone back into her pocket and pushed herself up off the wall, swaying on her feet.

Her head spun so badly the whole world tilted around her.

Once she was out of the complex, Erica flagged down a cab to the hospital.

In the car, she closed her eyes, and the image kept coming back to her, Carter carrying Laura into the elevator.

He'd been so frantic, so afraid, as if Laura were the only thing in his life that mattered.

And she counted for nothing.

She lost track of how long they drove before the car stopped.

The driver glanced back. "We're here, miss."

Erica opened her eyes, paid the fare, and pushed the door open.

She hadn't even reached the ER lobby when two tall men in black suits stepped into her path.

She froze.

One of them spoke, his face blank.

"Miss Butler, Mr. Maddox told us to wait for you here."

Her heart gave a hard jolt.

A flicker of something almost absurd rose in her chest, a small hope. Had Carter's conscience finally caught up with him?

"He sent you... to take me to get my head looked at?"

The two bodyguards traded a glance.

"Mr. Maddox says his wife urgently needs a transfusion. Your blood type matches hers. Please come with us."

Erica stood there rooted to the spot, like someone had dumped a bucket of ice water over her head.

"For Laura?"

"Yes, Miss Butler. Please come with us."

Erica took a step back. "No."

"I'm not going. I'm a patient too. I need to see a doctor myself. Get out of my way."

The two bodyguards exchanged another look and didn't move.

"Miss Butler, please don't make this difficult for us."

"Mr. Maddox said it's because of you that his wife needs the blood. You brought this on yourself."

"I already told you, I'm not going." Erica stepped around them and headed toward the ER lobby. "He wants blood, he can figure it out himself. The hospital blood bank is full of it. Why does it have to come out of my arm?"

She'd taken two steps when a strong arm caught her from behind by the elbow.

"Sorry about this, Miss Butler."

The next second she was hauled clean off her feet.

One on each side, the two bodyguards lifted her whole body without effort, ignoring how she thrashed, and carried her in long strides across the hospital lobby toward the inpatient wing.

"Let go of me! Let go!" Erica kicked her legs wildly. "Help! Somebody help me!"

People in the corridor turned to look, but not one of them stepped forward.

She was carried into the transfusion room and forced down into a chair.

The nurse took one look at her and sucked in a sharp breath.

"What... what is going on here? Her head is injured. We need to treat the wound first"

"Leave it." Carter's voice came from the doorway. "Draw the blood first."

Erica lifted her head and looked toward the door through blurring eyes.

Carter stood there, arms crossed over his chest, his face dark.

"Carter, I'm a person too. I'm hurt. Can't you even look at me?"

Carter didn't answer.

He tipped his chin at the nurse. "Do it."

The nurse bit her lip, picked up the tourniquet, and tied it around Erica's arm.

Bright red blood ran down the tube into the bag, one bag, then another.

Her face went whiter and whiter, her lips fading from pale pink to gray, her body shaking beyond her control, her vision blurring, a ringing filling her ears.

The nurse looked at the reading on the blood pressure monitor, and her expression changed.

"We can't take any more! Her pressure is too low. If we keep going, she could die!"

Carter walked over and looked down at Erica.

She sat in the chair looking like one gust of wind could scatter her bones.

He reached out and touched her cheek.

"Do something wrong, and you have to be punished."

"Consider this a lesson in what you should and shouldn't say from now on. Behave, and I'll let you stay by my side."

He bent down and said, gently,

"It's not as if a barren woman like you will ever find a man willing to marry you anyway. Isn't that right?"

Erica's lashes trembled.

Her heart felt like a knife had split it down the middle, then kneaded it, torn it, ground it down, until she couldn't breathe.

Whose fault was it that she couldn't have children?

She'd lost the right to ever be a mother saving Carter, and now he was throwing it in her face.

Ungrateful animal.

Carter straightened, glanced at the blood bag, and said to the nurse, "Keep going."

The nurse gritted her teeth and drew another half bag.

At last Erica's head dropped, and she lost consciousness entirely.

The blood pressure monitor let out a piercing alarm, and the mood in the transfusion room snapped tight.

A doctor rushed in, took one look at Erica, and went pale. "Stop the transfusion now! Get ready to resuscitate! We're losing her!"

Carter stood off to the side, watching the medical staff scramble to lift Erica onto a gurney and wheel her out of the transfusion room.

He hesitated a moment, then didn't follow. He turned and walked into Laura's room.

Erica had thought she was going to die. Instead, they dragged her back.

The nurse told her Laura was fine, and for a moment Erica didn't know how she was supposed to react.

She had nearly died in that transfusion room, while the woman Carter cradled in the palm of his hand had been up and lively long before.

The door swung open, and Carter walked in.

He carried a fruit basket, which he set on the cabinet by her bed.

You're awake? His tone was flat. Laura's been discharged too. False alarm. The baby's fine.

Erica said nothing.

Laura poked her head out from behind Carter.

She wore a loose maternity dress, her cheeks flushed and rosy, looking perfectly well, with no trace of the woman who'd been clutching her belly and crying out in pain the day before.

She came to Erica's bedside and gave a sweet little smile.

Erica, thank you so much for donating blood! The doctor said if you hadn't given it in time, the baby and I might both have been in danger.

Erica's lashes trembled.

Laura tugged at Carter's sleeve and said, coaxing, Carter, let's throw a little dinner at home tonight to celebrate. Let's invite Erica too. She did me such a big favor, I have to thank her properly.

Carter looked down at Laura, his eyes soft in a way Erica had never once seen:

All right. Whatever you want.

Erica closed her eyes. I won't go. I'm not feeling well.

Don't be a killjoy. Carter's voice cooled a few degrees. Laura went out of her way to invite you. How could you have the nerve not to come?

Erica opened her eyes and met his gaze.

Carter crossed to her bedside, bent down, and under the cover of straightening the fruit basket, lowered his voice against her ear:

I already told Laura that the five years together you mentioned was a misunderstanding, that you remembered it wrong, that we were only ordinary friends. When you get there, don't say the wrong thing.

Erica's pupils widened slightly.

A misunderstanding?

Five years of what they'd been to each other, and he waved it off with one light word: misunderstanding.

She parted her lips, wanting to say something, but her throat felt as if something were lodged in it, and not a single word would come out.

Laura, utterly oblivious, was still smiling beside them.

Then it's settled!

The three of them went home together.

Laura had just started to punch in the code when the door was pulled open from inside.

Pop! Pop!

Two party poppers went off, and gold streamers and glitter rained down, settling all over Erica's hair and clothes.

Welcome home to our adorable little mom-to-be, Laura, and the husband who loves her most!

The cheering cut off the instant they saw who was standing in the doorway.

Terence held the second popper he hadn't had time to set off, his mouth slightly open, his expression frozen on his face.

Mavis stood beside him with a bouquet in her hands, her smile stalled at the corners of her mouth before she could pull it back.

The three of them looked at each other.

The living room had been decked out to the hilt.

Balloons and flowers, the coffee table crowded with fruit and snacks, and a photo cast up on the TV screen.

It was a picture of Carter and Laura, the two of them leaning together, smiling with their eyes crinkled bright.

Erica stood in the doorway, looking at Terence and Mavis, the two friends she had once given her whole heart to.

Terence recovered first, forcing out a dry little laugh.

"Erica... you came too."

Mavis chimed in, her voice noticeably short on nerve.

"Yeah, long time no see... are, are you doing okay?"

Erica said nothing.

They knew Carter was married. They knew Laura existed. They knew that she, Erica, had been kept in the dark and played for a fool for two years.

They'd probably eaten together, gone out to dinners, sat around a table figuring out how to keep it from her.

She'd once thought they were her friends.

But it turned out she was the one who didn't belong.

Oblivious to how strange the air in the room had gone, Laura tugged Erica warmly toward the table.

"Come in, come in! Don't just stand in the doorway!"

Erica let herself be pulled to the table and sat down.

The dishes were already laid out, steaming, the smell of them filling the room.

Mavis carried the last plate out from the kitchen, sauteed green beans, and set it right in the center.

"Here, here, this is my specialty, I made it just for you," Mavis said with a smile. "Laura's appetite's been bad with the pregnancy, so I picked something that'd whet it."

Laura clapped her hands and cheered.

"Mavis, you're the best!" She picked up her chopsticks, and the very first thing she grabbed was the green beans, dropping them into Erica's bowl. "Erica, try some quick, Mavis is such a good cook!"

Erica looked at the bright green beans in her bowl, her pupils tightening a fraction.

She was allergic to green beans.

Everyone close to her knew it.

She glanced at Carter without thinking.

"Eat. What are you sitting there for?" Carter's voice came from across the table, edged with impatience. "You're here now, so drop the death-warmed-over look. You're killing the mood."

Erica lifted her head to look at him.

He was sitting beside Laura, peeling shrimp for her.

"I'm allergic to green be"

Before she could finish, Laura had already lifted a green bean, holding it up to her mouth with a beaming smile.

"Here, open up! It's so good, just try it!"

Erica instinctively turned her head to dodge it, but Laura moved faster than she expected, and the bean went straight into her mouth.

"Good, isn't it?"

Erica's face changed in an instant.

She wrenched her head aside, covered her mouth with her hand, and spat out the half-chewed bean, doubling over into a fit of coughing.

The whole table went cold.

Laura's smile froze on her face, her chopsticks hanging in midair, and she looked to Carter, at a loss.

Carter set down the shrimp shell in his hand, his expression darkening in plain view.

"Erica. What's your problem?"

"I'm allergic to green beans. I can't eat them."

Laura blinked, glancing helplessly between Mavis and Carter.

"Huh? You're allergic to green beans? I didn't know..."

Mavis's face went stiff, and she dropped her head without a word.

Carter stared at Erica, his gaze heavy.

"After all these years, that precious little act of yours hasn't changed one bit."

Something clamped down hard around Erica's heart, like an unseen hand.

Before she could get a word out, Carter was already on his feet.

He picked up the plate of green beans, came around to her, and in front of everyone's stunned eyes, took up the chopsticks, gathered a full load of the beans, gripped her chin with one hand, forced her mouth open, and shoved that big mouthful of beans down her throat.

"Eat." His voice was cold. "Laura went out of her way to serve you, so you swallow it. Don't be so ungrateful."

Erica choked, tears streaming down her face, her whole mouth flooded with the taste of the beans. Instinct told her to spit it out, but Carter's big hand clamped over her mouth, forcing her to swallow.

"Swallow it," he repeated.

Her throat was forced to work, several times over, choking the beans down bit by bit.

Tears slid down her cheeks and dripped onto the back of the hand pressed over her mouth.

Only then did Carter let go, step back, and sit down again with a bland look on his face.

Not a sound at the table.

Terence kept his head down, not daring to look. Mavis sat frozen, gripping her chopsticks.

Startled by the sudden turn, Laura mumbled under her breath.

"Carter... what did you do that for... if she doesn't want it, just leave it..."

Carter picked up another shrimp and peeled the shell off it, unhurried.

"It's fine. She just needs to be put in her place."

Erica sat in the chair, her whole body starting to itch.

Her memory ran back.

She and Carter had been out to eat, and she'd swallowed green beans by mistake. In under ten minutes her whole body had broken out in red welts, her breathing gone ragged, and it had scared Carter so badly he'd scooped her up on the spot and rushed her out of the restaurant, tearing across the city to the emergency room.

He'd paced back and forth outside the treatment room, fists clenched, looking worse than she did.

When she came out, his eyes were red as he took her hand, his voice shaking.

"Erica, this is my fault. I didn't watch what you were eating. I swear I'll never let anything like that near you again."

After that, anywhere she went, Carter would tell the restaurant and the kitchen in advance that not a single dish could have green beans in it.

He even saved pictures of the common kinds of green beans on his phone, checking carefully every time before he ordered.

Back then he'd protected her so completely nothing could slip through.

But now...

That man, and this one across from her coldly peeling shrimp, were they really the same person?

Or had the Carter who loved her died a long, long time ago.

And she was only finding out today.

Erica sat in the chair, and the red welts spread across her body at a speed she could watch with her own eyes.

Laura was the first to notice something was wrong.

"Erica? Your face..."

She set down her chopsticks, leaned in for a look, and her expression changed.

"Your allergy is really bad! I'm sorry, I'm so sorry, I didn't know you actually couldn't eat them!"

She scrambled up and grabbed Erica's wrist.

"Come on, I remember there's allergy medicine in the nightstand in the bedroom, it should still be good, I'll go find it for you!"

Pulled to her feet, Erica followed her toward the bedroom on unsteady legs.

Behind her she heard Terence ask quietly, "Is she all right?", only for Carter's flat "What could possibly be wrong" to shut it down.

Laura brought her into the bedroom, sat her on the edge of the bed, and dug through the drawers for the medicine.

"I remember it's right here, found it!"

She pulled a blister strip out of the drawer, broke the foil, and tipped the pills into her palm.

Erica held out her hand, waiting for her to pass them over.

But Laura didn't give her the pills.

She looked down at the pills in her palm, then suddenly raised her head and looked at Erica.

The next second, Laura shoved the whole handful of pills into her own mouth.

Erica froze.

"You..."

Laura chewed twice and forced the pills down.

She lifted a hand and dug several red marks into her own arm, mussed up her hair, stumbled back two steps, and dropped to the floor.

Erica! Erica, I'm sorry! I really didn't know you were allergic! Don't do this to me!

The cry was shrill, thick with sobs, and it tore through the whole room.

Erica stood frozen where she was, her mind blank.

Before she could make sense of any of it, the bedroom door was kicked open.

Carter came storming in.

Laura! He rushed over, dropped to one knee, and pulled her into his arms, his voice shaking. What is it? What happened?!

Laura buried her face against his shoulder, crying so hard she could barely breathe.

I was only trying to find her the medicine, and she grabbed the allergy pills and shoved them all into my mouth, forced me to swallow them, and pushed me.

Carter, will our baby be all right? I don't want to die!

Erica's pupils shrank hard.

I didn't! She did it herself

Shut up!

Carter's head snapped up.

Erica, have you lost your mind? She's pregnant! And you put your hands on her?!