Chapter 4 - The Uninvited Guest
The woman stopped five feet away from us, her cool blue eyes sweeping over the devastated cake, the ruined party decorations, and the frozen group of family members who had finally started drifting over to see what was happening.
She had high cheekbones, perfectly styled blonde hair, and an expression of utter, chilling detachment.
“I see I missed the cake cutting,” the woman said. Her voice was smooth, cultured, and entirely devoid of emotion. “That’s a shame. I specifically requested lemon filling, but I suppose pink raspberry sends the right message either way.”
Chloe stared at the stranger, her hands shaking so violently she dropped the white envelope onto the grass. I quickly reached down, picked it up, and held it safely in my palm.
“Who are you?” Chloe demanded, her voice rising in a sharp, defensive tremor. “What are you doing in my mother’s backyard? How do you know my husband?”
The blonde woman didn't answer immediately. She turned her gaze slowly toward Spencer, who looked as though he were standing in front of a firing squad.
“Tell her, Spencer,” the woman said softly. “Or should I introduce myself as your wife?”
The word wife hung in the autumn air like a dropped anvil.
For three seconds, absolute, deafening silence gripped the entire backyard. Even Aunt Carol stopped walking toward us, her mouth hanging open in frozen shock.
Chloe staggered sideways, catching herself against the wooden back patio railing. Her face went deathly pale, her eyes wide and unblinking as she stared at Spencer.
“Wife?” Chloe breathed, the word tasting foreign and impossible on her tongue. “What is she talking about, Spencer? What kind of sick joke is this?”
Spencer looked like a man drowning in deep water. He opened his mouth, closed it, and then looked at the blonde woman with a look of murderous, trapped fury.
“Elena,” Spencer choked out, his voice a desperate hiss. “What the hell are you doing here? I told you to stay in Chicago! I told you I would handle this—”
“Handle what, darling?” Elena replied, a cold, humorless smile touching her lips. “Handle the fact that you got another woman pregnant while your legal wife was going through fertility treatments? Handle the fact that you needed to control the gender of the child so your wealthy corporate benefactors wouldn't find out you were maintaining two households across state lines?”
My blood boiled so hot I thought my veins would rupture. I took two rapid steps toward Spencer, my hand instinctively curling into a fist.
“You bastard,” I whispered, the words trembling with a lethal fury I had never felt in my entire life. “You absolute, soulless bastard.”
Chloe wasn't screaming. She wasn't crying anymore. She stood completely still, staring at Spencer with a hollow, dead look in her eyes that scared me far more than tears ever could.
“Four years,” Chloe said, her voice dropping into a terrifying, unnatural whisper. “Four years of miscarriages. Four years of hormone shots, surgeries, crying on the bathroom floor, blaming my own body for failing... while you were living a second life.”
“Chloe, honey, let me explain,” Spencer stammered, lunging forward and reaching for her hands. “Elena is... she’s crazy. She’s an ex-client from the firm who’s been stalking me—she made up this entire story to ruin my career, to destroy us—”
“Don't touch her!” I roared, shoving Spencer back with both hands hard enough to make him stumble over a plastic lawn chair.
Elena pulled a heavy manila folder from beneath her cream coat and tossed it casually onto the white folding table beside the ruined cake.
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“You can check the marriage certificate in there, Chloe,” Elena said, her tone businesslike and indifferent. “Issued in Cook County eighteen months ago. You can also check the birth certificate of my son—born seven months ago, fathered by the man who told me he was getting a divorce the moment your latest round of IVF failed.”
Chloe looked down at the manila folder. She didn't open it. She didn't need to. The truth was written all over Spencer’s panicked, sweating face.
