My Fiancé Had A Secret Wife Chapter 06
“Is Noah really Adrian’s? Vivian—tell me the truth!”
“What if he isn’t? We broke up years ago, Lucas! Don’t you dare use that one night to try and pull me and Adrian apart!”
“I already had the paternity test done! He’s mine, Vivian—he’s my son! I’ve already betrayed Evelyn for you. Are you going to make me lose my own flesh and blood too?!”
“Six years, Vivian. Six years. You can’t be this cruel to me…”
A handful of lines, and the whole tangled history of two people was laid bare.
The last frame of the video: Lucas dragging Vivian by the arm into the storage room at the far end of the corridor.
They were so wrapped up in each other they didn’t even hear the baby crying in the nursery.
They didn’t know the child had almost cried himself into suffocation. That if a nurse hadn’t happened by and rushed him to the ER, he wouldn’t have made it.
“Lucas. Vivian. Tell me this isn’t real. Tell me it’s fake.”
Serena’s fingernails were digging into the edges of the laptop screen. Her nails were nearly cracking the frame.
“Say something! It’s fake, right? Evelyn cut this together to get back at us. That’s what this is, right?”
She was hysterical, and past the point of holding herself together.
But the man she loved could only stammer. He couldn’t answer. He couldn’t deny it.
Because Lucas had never dreamed there was a camera in that corridor.
The silence stretched. Finally he forced the words out of his throat.
“I’m sorry, Serena. The video’s real.”
Something in Serena’s eyes broke apart.
And Vivian felt real fear for the first time.
“Why would you admit it? Lucas, are you out of your mind?!”
She went at him like she wanted to draw blood, pounding on his chest. He didn’t try to stop her. He caught her by the wrists.
“Enough, Vivian. I’ve already done too many wrong things for you. I’m not doing any more.”
He looked up, done with hiding, and finally tore open the truth he had been carrying for six years.
He and Vivian had never been “college friends.”
They’d been together. Together for a long time. But because his family didn’t measure up to hers, the Pierces had never approved of him. From undergrad through law school, they’d hidden it. Four years of a relationship no one was allowed to see.
He’d worked himself into the top firm in the city. He’d been ready to propose.
And Vivian’s family had cut him off with a five-hundred-thousand-dollar check. Four years of his life, bought out and thrown away.
When he saw her again, it was at Adrian’s side. His own brother-in-law’s wife.
Serena listened to it all. And something inside her went past despair, into something worse.
“Ha—ha ha ha ha—so I’ve been the joke the whole time? Lucas? You never loved me? Not for a single day?”
His silence was the answer.
She flew at Vivian and slapped her across the face, hard enough that the baby wailed in Vivian’s arms.
“Why? Why did you do this to me?! You two were sneaking around behind everyone’s backs—why did you have to drag me into it?!”
In that moment, Serena would have given anything to take it all back.
To un-betray Evelyn. To un-marry Lucas.
The room was chaos. The baby was screaming. Vivian curled her body over him to shield him, and Serena’s nails opened up long red lines down her cheeks.
Finally Vivian had had enough. She stood up and returned the slap, just as hard.
“That’s enough, Serena. What right do you have to blame me?”
“You were the one who was jealous of Evelyn. Jealous of her hands. Jealous of how fast she made attending. That’s why you came sucking up to me. That’s why you begged me to have my father hand you a promotion. From day one, you were the one who inserted yourself. You did it for yourself.”
“And Lucas—that was you, too. You wouldn’t leave him alone. If you hadn’t clung to him like a leech, we wouldn’t be here right now.”
Every last piece of the mask came off.
Vivian was finally showing her real face.
She held the baby against her, looking down at Serena with contempt, and drove the last knife in.
“And honestly—a piece of trash straight out of foster care? Only an idiot like Evelyn would ever want to be your friend. Nobody else wanted you around.”
Something snapped behind Serena’s eyes.
She launched herself at Vivian a second time, wild now, trying to claw back her dignity with her bare hands.
Behind her, Lucas grabbed a vase off the console table and brought it down on her back with everything he had.
“Serena, I’m sorry. But you’re not touching Vivian or my son.”