My Fiancé Had A Secret Wife Chapter 02
“I didn’t think you’d actually show. I figured you were still upset.”
“Please don’t hold my family’s behavior against them. They were just worried about me. That’s how the whole misunderstanding blew up.”
“Come inside. This is the perfect chance for me to introduce you properly. We can clear the air.”
She looped her arm through mine and pulled me into the restaurant.
“Everyone, come here!” she called, her voice bright and carrying. “Look who I found!”
Every head in the room turned.
The smiles on Adrian, Lucas, and Serena froze halfway up their faces.
Vivian steered me toward Serena first.
“Dr. Hart, this is my best friend, Serena. Same field as you—she’s a psychiatrist at Beldridge Memorial.”
Serena’s eyes darted everywhere but at mine. Then she stiffly extended a hand.
“Dr. Hart. Nice to meet you.”
Nice to meet you.
Six years of friendship. Three girls’ trips. Two bridesmaid dresses. A cramped apartment we’d shared through residency. A promise to always tell each other the truth.
And now she was acting like she’d never seen me before in her life.
Vivian, oblivious, tugged me over to my brother.
“And this is my brother, Lucas—” A pretty laugh, her arm hooking through his. “Not by blood, of course. Just family. But he’s always taken it upon himself to look out for me like the real thing.”
“He’s the malpractice lawyer who filed against you. When I found out, I laid into him for a solid hour. Please don’t hold it against him, okay?”
Lucas’s lips parted. “Evelyn—”
Barely a whisper. Vivian didn’t catch it.
Finally, she pulled me over to Adrian and tucked herself contentedly under his arm.
“And this is my husband—”
“Adrian,” I said, cutting her off. “The owner of this restaurant. Among other things.”
Vivian went still, looking between us.
“You—you two know each other?”
I smiled. I met Adrian’s warning glare and held it, word for deliberate word.
“He’s my fiancé. We’ve been together for seven years. We were planning our wedding.”
“This restaurant was his birthday gift to me. He never mentioned that?”
I’d said it offhand once, my head on his shoulder—that I wished I could sit here every morning and watch the harbor.
The next day the restaurant was mine, wrapped up as a birthday gift.
Six months ago he’d told me the company was tight on cash flow, and I’d signed the papers he slid across the table without reading them.
Now I understood. Another lie.
“Dr. Hart, what are you talking about?”
Vivian’s eyes were already red, her voice trembling in the most pitiful way.
“Adrian and I got married a year ago. How could he be your fiancé? What are you even saying? Are you trying to hurt us on purpose—”
Adrian panicked. He gathered her into his arms, his voice low and urgent.
“Vivian, baby, let me explain—”
I was the one who’d been lied to. Betrayed. And all he cared about was soothing her.
Something in my chest cracked clean through.
Then, out of nowhere, I laughed. And I started pulling the lies apart, one by one.
“There’s a surgical scar on his lower back. It’s four years old. A patient’s family member came after me in the ER with a knife. He stepped in front of it.”
“He wears a St. Christopher medal on a chain. I gave it to him the night before that surgery. I spent six hours praying for him in the little chapel by the water.”
…
“So really, you’re the one who came in third.”
“Evelyn, shut up!”
The three of them cut me off in unison, glaring, while Vivian’s eyes went even redder.
My nails cut deep into my palms.
“Am I wrong? Adrian. Serena. Lucas. You had the guts to do it—why not the guts to own it?”
Vivian was crying so hard she was shaking.
Adrian pulled her tight against him and turned to me with a look cold as ice.
“Enough. If you have something to say, say it to me. Vivian doesn’t know anything, and I’m not going to let you hurt her.”
Serena stepped forward, her voice sharpening.
“Evelyn, Adrian hasn’t loved you in a long time. He and Vivian—that’s the real thing.”
Lucas joined in.
“Vivian almost died giving birth to Noah. Nothing you do here tonight is going to change that. Let them be a family.”
The words came at me like blades. I bit down on the tears.
“So all of you got together and torched my career. Let strangers rip me apart online. Broke my hand. Backed me into a corner so I’d stay quiet.”
“She’s the mistress. You’re the accomplices. Tell me I’m wrong.”
A full glass of ice water hit me square in the face.
“Wake up, Evelyn.”
“You’re the one getting left behind here. Not her. You.”