At My Baby Shower He Celebrated Another Woman’s Child Chapter 02
I printed out the policy change confirmation and drove straight to Graham’s law firm.
His assistant tried to stop me, but I pushed past her, shoved open the conference room door, and slapped the papers down on the table.
“You changed our joint savings to ‘Clara’s Education Fund,’ and you changed your life insurance beneficiary to Sadie. Explain.”
Graham glanced at the papers, his expression unreadable.
“It’s temporary. Just in case something happens.”
“In case what happens? That after you die, Iris and I might still get a dime?”
Two of his colleagues were in the room. He stood, shut the door, and lowered his voice.
“Nora, you’re not emotionally stable right now. I don’t want to fight with you.”
“So while I’m pregnant, you just quietly sign our money over to your widowed sister-in-law?”
“The money wasn’t transferred, I just adjusted the label. The insurance beneficiary can be changed back.” He pushed the papers toward me. “You focus on the baby. I’ll handle everything else discreetly.”
“Including handling me right out of this family?”
His gaze turned cold.
“You’ve already started pulling documents for a divorce, haven’t you? Then let me remind you—I’m a lawyer. Any impulsive, threatening, or irrational behavior will be used against you in a custody battle.”
My hand flew instinctively to my stomach.
He knew Iris was my only weakness.
Just then, the door opened.
Sadie stood there, her eyes red-rimmed.
“I’m sorry. I was just worried you two were fighting because of me.”
She walked over and linked her arm through mine, her voice gentle. “Nora, we’re family. Whatever it is, we can talk it out.”
As expected, Graham’s expression softened.
“See, Nora? Sadie never wanted to fight you for anything.”
Sadie helped guide me toward the door.
The moment we rounded the corner of the hallway, all the fragility vanished from her face.
Her nails dug into my arm as she leaned in, her whisper a venomous hiss in my ear. “I’m the one who told him to change the insurance.”
I whipped my head toward her.
She smiled.
“Your room, your money, your parents, and Graham—they’re all mine now.”
“You really think throwing a tantrum is going to get any of it back?”
Her gaze dropped to my stomach, and her voice became a silken threat.
“What, exactly, is an abandoned pregnant woman going to fight me with?”
I raised my hand.
She immediately stumbled back, tears appearing on cue.
Graham had already come out of the conference room and was pulling her behind him.
“Nora!”
I slowly lowered my hand.
“You’ll regret this.”
When I got back, I locked myself in the study.
All the little things I’d forced myself to ignore over the past few months finally clicked into place.
The hotel charges from the night Graham claimed he was on a business trip. Their overlapping travel schedules, even before Sadie was officially family. A couples’ spa package at a seaside resort on his credit card statement.
Ethan had still been alive back then.
Sadie hadn’t even been a widow yet.
I arranged every receipt in chronological order, attached the bills and booking confirmations, and sent the email to Graham, my parents, and Brooke.
At the end, I wrote only one sentence.
*This is the pitiful widow you’ve all been protecting. Now, give me an explanation.*
Less than ten minutes after I hit send, a text from Sadie lit up my phone.
*If you have the guts, come get your daughter’s things.*
I stared at the words *your daughter* and grabbed my keys.
So she was finally giving Iris her room back.
But when I got to the house, the front door was deadbolted from the inside. My key was useless.
I rang the bell.
“Sadie, open the door! You told me to come back!”
Silence.
I pounded on the door, my fear mounting that she was destroying Iris’s things. I hit it harder and harder.
“Give me Iris’s things!”
Suddenly, I heard sirens wailing behind me.
Two police cars screeched to a halt at the curb, and officers hurried toward me.
“Ma’am, step away from the door.”
Before I could even explain, the door flew open.
Sadie rushed out with Clara in her arms, tears streaming down her face. She ducked behind an officer, her hands shaking so badly she could barely hold her phone.
“Officer, she texted me saying she was coming to take my baby. Here’s our security footage—she just kept pounding on the door… I’m so scared.”
The phone screen showed only the clip of me hammering on the door, shouting for her to give them back.
The text she’d sent me was nowhere to be seen.
Then she pulled up a screenshot.
It showed a message, supposedly from me, threatening her.
*Clara was supposed to be mine. I’m taking her, and you can’t stop me.*
“That’s fake!”
I pulled out my phone. “She’s the one who told me to come back for my things! Check the original messages!”
One of the officers had just taken my phone when several more cars pulled up.
Graham, my parents, and Brooke had all arrived.
Graham’s face was ashen, but the first person he addressed wasn’t me.
“So when you and Ethan weren’t even married yet, you’d already been to that resort with me?”
Sadie shook her head, tears flowing freely.
“Those receipts don’t prove anything. Graham, she just said she was going to take Clara. I was terrified.”
Brooke saw the crying baby in Sadie’s arms, and any doubt she might have had vanished.
She said to the officers, “Nora has been hostile toward Sadie for a while. She thinks this child stole everything from her. She’s emotionally unstable.”
My mother spoke up right after.
“She’s gotten more and more paranoid since she got pregnant. She had a huge fight with us tonight.”
My father wouldn’t meet my eyes.
“We’re genuinely worried she might do something extreme.”
At last, Graham looked at me.
If he would just say this was my home—if he would just say that footage was edited—they couldn’t twist this.
But after a few seconds of silence, he handed an officer his business card.
“I’m her husband, and I’m also her lawyer. I can confirm that she has repeatedly threatened Sadie and the child. I had hoped to resolve this privately, but it’s clear she needs to be forcibly calmed down.”
An icy cold spread through my veins.
The evidence of their affair was sitting in their inboxes.
They had seen it.
And they still chose to make me the crazy one.
The officers put away my phone and cuffed my hands behind my back.
As the cold metal clicked shut, Iris kicked hard inside me.
I was marched toward the squad car. Behind me, I could hear Sadie’s muffled sobs.
And not one of them—not my husband, not my parents, not my closest friend—said a single word in my defense.