After Leaving You, My World Has No More Storms

After the miscarriage I lay awake till dawn most nights, and I only got worse.

My husband took me to see a psychiatrist. The doctor said it was postpartum depression after a pregnancy loss.

How is it treated?

Plenty of time with family

The doctor hadn't finished before Burton Gilbert's phone started ringing.

I saw the little secretary's photo pop up on the screen.

Burton was on his feet before he thought about it.

"Admit her. Use your best equipment, your best machines, whatever it takes. I want her mental illness cured."

Then he turned and explained to me,

"If I weren't here taking care of you, I'd never have sent the girl off to handle things on her own."

"Lorraine's stuck out at the golf club in the rain. I have to go get her right now."

"You stay here and get better. The minute you're well, I'll be the first one here to bring you home."

He left in such a hurry he didn't give me a chance to say a word.

He seemed to have forgotten that I'd fallen and lost the baby because Lorraine spilled chicken soup at my feet.

And now, for her sake, he was leaving me here to be treated like a mental patient.

In that moment I finally understood. The child I had nearly killed myself to carry mattered far less to him than bringing his secretary an umbrella.

"Ms. Pruitt, there's really no need to admit you. I'll write you a prescription so you're not up all night."

"Once your body's recovered, you can go back to the IVF."

The doctor had watched Burton brush me aside, and the kindness in the suggestion was genuine.

"No prescription. And I'm done with the IVF."

The doctor looked startled.

"Done? Then you and Mr. Gilbert may never manage to have a child in this lifetime"

"Then we won't."

I had plenty of ways to have a child if I wanted one. After all, the one who couldn't have children wasn't me. It was Burton, with his severe male infertility.

For the sake of his face, to help him hold on to his place as the Gilbert heir, I had never told him the truth.

I'd even paid off a doctor to collect a sample from him under cover of a routine checkup.

After more than two hundred stimulation injections, the doctors finally managed to give us one viable embryo.

And then the child I'd fought so hard to carry was gone the day after we confirmed the pregnancy, taken from me by his secretary, Lorraine Galloway.

The doctors said producing even that one embryo from Burton had been a miracle, and no one could promise the miracle would ever happen again.

So the child I'd lost was, in all likelihood, the only one we would ever have had.

And what he was about to lose was his place as the Gilbert heir.

To him, that would be a fatal blow.

The joke of it was that I'd worried myself into depression over him, while he slept soundly through every night.

And still had it in him to run an umbrella out to his little secretary.

If he wasn't the least bit worried about the seat under him, why should I be the eunuch fretting while the emperor stayed calm.

Once I saw all of it clearly, the knot of anger that had been pressing on my chest dissolved for good.

Outside the hospital, I called a lawyer and asked him to draft a divorce agreement.

I'd barely walked in the door when my mother-in-law grabbed my hand, furious.

"Your father-in-law has actually had a lawyer draw up a contract to sign thirty percent of the shares over to that bastard's name! All because his woman is pregnant with twins!"

"You give me a straight answer, right now, when are you and Burton going to have another baby?"

"Otherwise the Gilbert seat goes straight to that bastard!"

The bastard she meant was Colin's illegitimate son, Randolph Gilbert.

I smiled a little and told her, softly,

"Mom, he and I can't have children anymore"

Before I could get out that I wanted a divorce, her face went hard.

"Well, if you can't have them, then let the one who can!"

I froze for a beat, then let out a soft laugh.

"Fine. Whatever makes you happy."

The rage drained out of her all at once, and she was suddenly bright and cheerful.

"Becca, I knew I hadn't misjudged you!"

"Once Lorraine has the baby, we'll give it to you to raise! Call it a reward for being so gracious about all this!"

It took me a moment to catch up. Lorraine was pregnant.

I quickly opened my email.

After I lost the baby, Randolph had sent me a message, telling me to take a good look at what kind of scumbag Burton really was.

At the time I was still in the middle of the miscarriage, and we were on opposite sides, so I assumed he was just trying to drive a wedge between us. I never even opened the attachment.

Now, with shaking hands, I clicked it open.

The attachment was a record of hotels Lorraine had expensed under the company's name over the past year.

More than half of them lined up with the dates Burton had been away on business.

So while I was putting myself through hell to give Burton a child, he'd been busy carrying on with his secretary behind my back.

Only, was the child in Lorraine's belly really Burton's?

The doctor had told me plainly: the chance of Burton ever getting a woman pregnant the natural way was zero.

The thought pulled a short, ugly laugh out of me.

Hope took it for me putting on a brave face.

She caught my hand and soothed me in a gentle voice.

"Becca, I know this is hard to swallow right now. But for Burton's sake, just bear it a little longer. Once he has the shares and he's the Gilbert heir, you can deal with Lorraine Galloway however you like."

"You know how much I hate a mistress. But circumstances change, and a time like this is different..."

She and Burton were mother and son, all right.

Once, Burton had told me the man he despised most in this world was a man who cheated.

He had sworn to me he would never become the kind of man his father was.

And now?

Now he wanted to do exactly what his father had done let the mistress have the baby first.

And Hope, who had suffered and been tormented by that very thing, was telling me to bear it.

She could play the patient saint if she wanted. I couldn't stand another second of it.

The moment she left, I called my lawyer.

"Redraw the agreement. I want him walking away with nothing."

Burton came home with Lorraine trailing behind him.

She was wearing his suit jacket, her face flushed and healthy, nothing like a woman who'd been caught in the rain.

Burton led her over to stand in front of me, his tone all apology.

"Becca, Mom says you're happy Lorraine and I are having a baby, that you're even feeling better. If I'd known, I never would have kept it from you!"

But there wasn't a trace of guilt on his face for the affair.

It turned my stomach until I nearly gagged.

He looked worried at once.

"Becca, if you're not feeling well, don't push yourself..."

I handed him the divorce agreement.

"Sign this, and I'll really be cured."

He glanced at it, and shock filled his eyes.

"Divorce?"

"I won't agree to it..."

Before he could finish, Lorraine sneezed.

His brows drew together in an instant, and every trace of patience left his voice when he spoke to me.

"Lorraine got soaked at the golf club today because of you. She nearly lost the baby."

"If you have any conscience left, don't make trouble at a time like this."

When I fell and miscarried, when the blood soaked my white dress all the way through, he had shielded Lorraine and called it an accident and told me to be gracious about it.

Now Lorraine sneezes, and I'm the one who's committed some unforgivable crime.

Love and the lack of it had never been so clear.

But something in me refused to let it go, and I looked him in the eyes and asked a question I knew would only humiliate me.

"Burton, our baby is gone. Do you really feel nothing at all?"

He paused for a second, his tone thick with irritation.

"I already told you it was an accident. Why do you keep dragging it up?"

"There's going to be another baby soon anyway, isn't there? And you don't even have to carry it yourself!"

Lorraine cradled her stomach and chimed in with a smile.

"Ma'am, the doctor said it was because your body was too weak. One little fall and you lost it."

"Once my baby's born, I'll hand it over for you to raise. Consider it my way of making it up to you."

Burton didn't argue. He passed me a document.

"You'll go stay in Canada with Lorraine for a few months. We'll tell everyone you're pregnant again and gone abroad to rest through it."

"You'll take care of Lorraine, she has the baby, and then we register it under our names."

"That way, even if Randolph ends up with twins, Dad won't be a problem."

He actually expected me to wait on Lorraine through her entire pregnancy.

And then nurse her through the recovery afterward.

I looked at the man in front of me, cold all the way through.

I couldn't understand how he could say any of it and think it was his due.

But I didn't ask any of that.

I only spoke, calm and even.

"Are you sure Lorraine's baby is even yours?"

"Of course it's mine. Got it right the first time too, not like you"

Burton didn't bother explaining how the two of them could have a baby. He just gave the order, his voice thick with distaste.

"Go to the kitchen and make Lorraine some chicken soup to warm her up. She caught a chill today."

I didn't move.

He glared at me for a solid minute, and once he was sure I wasn't going to budge, he turned and went into the kitchen himself.

I stared at his back, too stunned to speak.

Back when he doted on me most, he'd said he would only ever cook for me, no one else, for the rest of his life.

Even his mother had never tasted anything he made.

And now Lorraine could get him into the kitchen with his own two hands.

I pulled my gaze away and let the corner of my mouth curve.

Then I reached to stop the video recording on my phone.

Whether or not the baby was Burton's, everything I'd just captured was enough to leave him with nothing in the settlement.

Lorraine suddenly leaned in and held her pregnancy test up in front of me.

The date on it was three days before my miscarriage.

In that instant I knew for certain: she'd spilled that bowl of soup at my feet on purpose.

Before I could say a word, she smiled and put her lips close to my ear.

"Really, ma'am, how useless can you be? You couldn't even hold on to your own baby."

"If you had any sense, you'd actually divorce Mr. Gilbert and step aside. Instead of sitting there taking up a spot you can't even fill."

I knew what she was waiting for. She wanted me to blow up, to put my hands on her.

Then she could play the martyr.

But I swallowed my anger and stayed still.

I needed this baby, to turn Burton into a joke.

"I'm not interested in playing along with either of you. Get him to sign and you get what you want. Otherwise I don't mind letting him know you made me lose my baby on purpose."

She saw I was recording and didn't panic at all. If anything, she looked smug.

"As if you could ever bring yourself to divorce him. Playing hard to get works on Mr. Gilbert, but not on me."

"Go on, guess. Do you think he'll believe you, or me?"

Then she deliberately threw herself backward onto the floor, crying out at me.

"Ma'am, I was only begging you not to put those private photos of me online. Why would you shove me?"

Burton heard her scream and came bolting out of the kitchen.

Lorraine, meanwhile, crawled to her knees in front of me and broke into sobs.

"Ma'am, please, I'm begging you"

Burton rushed to help her up, checking her over from head to toe.

Then he turned to me, his eyes full of fury.

"Rebecca! Have you lost your mind? Give me your phone!"

I watched the two of them, one performing, one shielding her, and my voice came out calm to the point of frightening.

"If you say so."

Only then did Burton notice something was off with me, and his tone eased.

"What did you record?"

The moment I took out my phone, Lorraine pulled free of his arms, choking on her tears.

"Ma'am, is it because you don't want the baby in my belly that you tried to hurt me?"

Burton snatched my phone and smashed it hard against the floor.

"Rebecca! This child is going to call you Mommy one day. How could you raise a hand against your own child? Just because it isn't yours by blood?"

The screen went black in an instant.

But Lorraine still wasn't satisfied. She suddenly stood up and ran for the door.

"Since you don't want it, I'll go get rid of it right now!"

She didn't even make it out the door before she fell.

That was when I noticed a small slick of oil by the doorway, though I couldn't say when it had gotten there.

Lorraine clutched her stomach and cried out.

"Why is the floor so slippery here"

Burton saw the oil too, and his head snapped toward me as he roared.

"Rebecca! How can you be this vicious? How many times do I have to say it? That day Lorraine spilled the soup because the bowl was too hot, it was an accident!"

Something smug flickered in Lorraine's eyes as she gripped her belly and sucked in a sharp breath.

"Ah, my stomach hurts so much"

Sick with worry, Burton scooped her up and headed straight for the hospital.

Before he left, he didn't forget to say to me, coldly:

"You'd better pray Lorraine and the baby are fine."

"Or I won't let this go."

I stood where I was.

Looking at the phone screen shattered to pieces on the floor.

And suddenly I laughed out loud.

He was right. My baby was gone, and I shouldn't let him or Lorraine off the hook.

I took the dead, cracked phone in to be repaired, and thank God, all the data could be recovered.

The lawyer watched the video and said it was enough to leave Burton with nothing in the settlement.

And to file charges against Lorraine for intentional injury.

"Then I'll leave it to you, Lawyer Lambert."

My phone buzzed. It was Randolph reaching out.

"Do you really intend to spend your whole life scraping by with a bastard son?"

I froze.

"Wasn't it you who"

Randolph cut me off and told me a story.

His mother, Eva Lambert, had been Colin Gilbert's real first wife.

To help Colin get his company off the ground, she'd handed over every cent of her savings.

But once he'd made his fortune, he tricked her into a divorce with the excuse that they needed to be legally single to buy property, then turned around and married Burton's mother, who was already pregnant.

Eva learned the truth later. When she tried to demand answers for herself and for Randolph, my mother-in-law treated her like the mistress and humiliated her.

The truth was the exact opposite of everything my mother-in-law had told me.

For a moment I didn't know who to believe.

Randolph read my silence for what it was and let out a breath.

"It's fine if you don't believe me. I just don't want to watch you get played the way they played my mother."

I went and checked it out at once.

By the time I confirmed that everything Randolph said was true, Burton was back.

He grabbed my wrist and dragged me to the hospital.

"Apologize to Lorraine!"

"I did nothing wrong!"

His eyes were full of disappointment.

"You almost killed her baby!"

"Rebecca, when you turn into someone like this, how am I supposed to spend my life with you?"

When Lorraine caused me to lose my baby on the spot, he hadn't spared me a single word of blame, let alone made her apologize to me.

I looked up at him and smiled.

"Then let's not."

He faltered, then said coldly, "Your parents' company is a supplier for the Gilberts. The day you divorce me, they go bankrupt."

My parents' company was their life's work.

Back when Burton was courting me, he'd handed the Gilberts' biggest purchase order to my family's factory himself.

I thought it was love.

I thought he cared about my family.

Only now did I understand that as long as the order sat in his hands, it was leverage to keep me in line.

Seeing me go quiet, his tone finally softened.

He came over and reached out to touch my hair.

I turned my head away.

He didn't take offense, just drew his hand back and sighed.

"As long as you behave and cooperate, your parents' company will always be a supplier for the Gilbert Group."

"Lorraine's baby will be yours once it's born. You won't have to worry about a thing."

"You get to be a mother without ten months of carrying it. Haven't I been good enough to you?"

So this was what he called being good to me.

I looked into his eyes, the eyes that had once been full of tenderness whenever they landed on me.

Now there was nothing in them but calculation and entitlement.

I said nothing.

He wasn't wrong. My parents' company had to lean on the Gilberts to thrive.

But if I could get the Gilberts to change their heir, this threat would simply cease to exist.

I sent Randolph a message:

I can help you get back everything that's yours, but I have one condition.

Randolph replied the second he saw it:

I'm abroad. I'll be back tomorrow and we'll talk it through.

With his answer in hand, I looked straight at Burton and said it again.

"Divorce!"

Something flickered in Burton's eyes, confusion, and beneath it an uneasiness he couldn't name.

"Becca, I've never once thought about divorcing you..."

Lorraine went suddenly pale and asked me through her tears, "Ms. Pruitt, why won't you let me go?"

Burton glanced at her phone, then immediately called his assistant.

"Send them up."

Something told me this was bad. I got up to leave.

Burton blocked my way.

"Selling Lorraine's private photos on the dark web is a crime."

"For the sake of you being my wife, I'll smooth things over with Lorraine so she doesn't press charges. But your illness really does need to be treated."

The words had barely left his mouth when four men came toward me.

"Ma'am, you'll have to come with us."

I refused to go, and Burton's face went dark and cold.

"Becca, if you're scared now, it's already too late. I know it's your illness that made you do something this vicious."

"Don't worry. I've already spoken with the director. As long as you cooperate with the treatment, you'll be home soon."

The four men came forward and pinned my arms.

I struggled with everything I had. It made no difference.

Burton used the moment to take my phone.

As they dragged me out of the room, Lorraine mouthed the words at me:

"You lost."

At the psychiatric hospital, two nurses forced a cup of water down my throat.

Within minutes my arms and legs began to go weak.

They dragged me into a chair and strapped down my hands and feet.

The drug took hold fast, and as the treatment went on, step by step, I sank into unconsciousness.