Part 2: The Truth Mark Had Been Hiding
Mark began pacing around the dining room.
“This is unbelievable.”
I remained silent.
He picked up one of the photographs.
“You printed copies? You gave these to my entire family?”
“Yes.”
“That’s vindictive.”
“Maybe.”
He blinked.
Apparently, he hadn’t expected me to agree.
But I was finished trying to prove I was the better person.
For months, I had tried to be the reasonable wife.
The understanding wife.
The calm wife.
The confident wife.
Every version of me had still been compared with Claire.
And I was exhausted.
Mark dropped into a chair.
For the first time that evening, he looked tired.
“You’re pregnant.”
“I’m aware.”
“You need me.”
He said it with such certainty that I almost felt sorry for him.
He truly believed my pregnancy meant I couldn’t survive without him.
I stepped closer.
“No, Mark.”
My voice was quiet.
“That’s what you needed to believe.”
He looked up.
“We can fix this.”
I almost asked what he meant.
The hotel?
The kiss?
The lies?
The constant comparisons?
The way he had deliberately humiliated me?
Or simply the fact that I had exposed him?
Instead, I asked something different.
“Why did you marry me?”
His expression softened.
“Because I love you.”
“Try again.”
“I do love you.”
“Then tell me why you married me.”
He stared at the table.
Several seconds passed.
Then he said something I would never forget.
“You made everything easier.”
I waited.
Mark rubbed his forehead.
“With Claire, everything was complicated. We argued constantly. Every decision turned into a fight. You were different.”
Different.
The word hung between us.
“What does different mean?”
“You were warm.”
“Meaning?”
“You trusted me.”
There it was.
He hadn’t valued my trust because it made our relationship stronger.
He valued it because it made his life easier.
“You didn’t question every little thing,” he continued. “You didn’t turn every disagreement into some huge battle.”
“So you married me because I was convenient.”
“That isn’t what I said.”
“But Claire wasn’t convenient.”
“She challenged everything.”
“And you missed that.”
“No.”
“You missed her.”
“No.”
“You kissed her.”
Mark jumped to his feet.
“I MADE ONE MISTAKE!”
His voice echoed through the room.
I flinched.
Not because I thought he would hurt me.
Because the sudden volume startled me.
He noticed immediately.
His expression softened.
“Please.”
He moved closer.
“Please don’t make decisions while you’re emotional.”
I stared at him.
“While I’m emotional?”
“You’re pregnant. Everything feels more intense right now.”
Something inside me went completely still.
Before I could respond, a voice came from behind us.
“That excuse didn’t work on me either.”
Mark went pale.
I turned.
Claire stood in the doorway.
Her phone was in her hand.
I hadn’t heard her come back.
Mark’s expression tightened.
“What are you doing back here?”
“I forgot my coat.”
She raised her phone.
“And then I remembered something else.”
Mark stared at the screen.
For the first time that night, his expression showed unmistakable panic.
“Claire,” he warned.
She narrowed her eyes.
“You should tell her.”
“Get out.”
“Tell me what?” I asked.
Mark moved between us.
“Nothing.”
Claire laughed bitterly.
“You are unbelievable.”
“What does she mean?”
Mark looked at me.
“She’s only trying to make everything worse.”
Claire unlocked her phone.
“I still have the messages.”
Mark stepped toward her.
“Don’t.”
I looked from one to the other.
“What messages?”
Claire swallowed.
Her earlier confidence had disappeared.
She looked genuinely shaken.
“He contacted me before your wedding.”
My mouth went dry.
“How long before?”
“Three days.”
“She’s lying!” Mark shouted.
Claire ignored him.
“He asked whether I thought divorcing each other had been a mistake.”
I stared at her.
“I told him it was too late.”
“Claire—”
“He said getting married didn’t necessarily mean forever.”
A cold sensation spread through my chest.
I looked at Mark.
He shook his head.
“She’s twisting old conversations.”
Claire held out her phone.
“I kept everything.”
Mark reached for her wrist.
“Give me the phone.”
“Mark!” I shouted.
He immediately released her.
Claire stepped away.
Her hand was trembling.
Then she scrolled again.
“There’s more.”
I didn’t want to hear more.
I wanted to return to the morning when I was arranging flowers and preparing for a birthday dinner.
Back when I believed the worst thing that could happen was Claire making sarcastic comments in my kitchen.
But she continued.
“He contacted me again after your honeymoon.”
I looked at Mark.
“And after you announced the pregnancy.”
My stomach tightened.
Mark spoke quietly.
“Enough.”
Claire stopped scrolling.
Then looked at me.
The silence was unbearable.
“What?” I asked.
She hesitated.
That hesitation frightened me more than anything else.
“What happened after we announced the pregnancy?”
Slowly, Claire turned her phone toward me.
There was a message from Mark.
It had been sent two days after we told his family we were expecting a baby.
I read it.
Then read it again.
My fingers went numb.
The message said:
I need to know if you still have the paperwork from the clinic.
For several seconds, I couldn’t understand what I was looking at.
“What clinic?”
Claire glanced at Mark.
He said nothing.
I looked back at her.
“What clinic?”
Her face became pale.
“You don’t know.”
It wasn’t a question.
My heartbeat seemed painfully loud.
“Know what?”
Mark stepped toward me.
“We are not doing this tonight.”
I backed away.
“Doing what?”
Claire lowered her voice.
“When Mark and I were married, we tried to have a baby.”
I already knew that.
Mark had told me about their unsuccessful attempts to have children.
He had described it as something that simply hadn’t worked out.
Claire continued.
“We went to a fertility clinic.”
My eyes moved toward Mark.
He stared at the floor.
“Mark froze genetic material.”
The room seemed to shrink around me.
“I don’t understand.”
Claire looked disturbed.
“Neither did I when he suddenly started asking me about those records again.”
I turned toward my husband.
“Why were you asking for them?”
He didn’t answer.
“Mark.”
Silence.
I stepped closer.
“Why were you asking your ex-wife for fertility clinic records after I became pregnant?”
His face had turned gray.
Claire spoke again.
“I asked him the exact same thing.”
She scrolled through the conversation.
“And he answered me.”
Mark moved toward her.
“Claire, don’t.”
There was no anger in his voice now.
Only fear.
Claire looked directly at him.
“You used both of us.”
“Stop.”
“You lied to her.”
“Claire.”
“And you lied to me.”
“STOP!”
His shout echoed through the house.
Our baby kicked.
Harder this time.
I pressed both hands over my stomach.
Claire turned the screen toward me.
I read the first sentence.
Then the next.
Breathing suddenly became difficult.
I knew I should sit down.
I knew I should call someone.
I knew there had to be an explanation.
But the words on the screen made it impossible to think clearly.
The message said:
If the dates match, there could be a legal problem. I need the old embryo records before she discovers anything.
I slowly looked at Mark.
“Old embryo records?”
He said nothing.
Claire appeared horrified too.
And that was when I understood something important.
Whatever Mark had been hiding, Claire didn’t fully understand it either.
My voice was barely audible.
“What did you do?”
Mark moved toward me.
I stepped away.
“Don’t touch me.”
“I can explain.”
“You’d better.”
He opened his mouth.
Before he could speak, his phone began ringing.
All three of us froze.
Mark pulled it from his pocket.
The screen displayed an unknown number.
He rejected the call.
Almost immediately, it rang again.
Claire stared at him.
“Who is calling you?”
“No one.”
It rang a third time.
I moved before I had time to reconsider.
I took the phone from his hand and answered.
“Hello?”
For a moment, nobody spoke.
Then a woman responded.
Her voice was professional.
Careful.
“May I speak with Mr. Mark Ellison?”
“Who is calling?”
A brief pause.
“This is Dr. Voss’s office.”
Mark snatched the phone away.
But it was too late.
I had already seen his expression.
And Claire had heard the name.
“Dr. Voss?” she whispered.
Mark ended the call.
I turned toward her.
“You know that name?”
She nodded slowly.
“That was our fertility doctor.”
Everything around me seemed to disappear.
Mark took a step backward.
For the first time since I had known him, he looked like a man who had run out of places to hide.
I stared at the husband I thought I understood.
The man who kissed my forehead each morning.
The man who had assembled our baby’s crib.
The man who cried when we first heard the heartbeat.
I placed one hand over my stomach.
“Mark…”
My voice trembled.
He closed his eyes.
“What exactly did you do before I became pregnant?”
His eyes opened.
The fear in them answered me before he spoke.
But I wasn’t ready for whatever he was about to say.
And neither was Claire.
