“Eight months after divorcing me because I “couldn’t give him a family,”

Lauren stared at me.

“What?”

Dr. Sloane stood near the bar.

Every head turned.

She looked as though she might faint.

Ryan saw her.

Then he looked at me.

“What does our fertility doctor have to do with this?”

“Our?”

Lauren whispered.

The word barely carried.

I looked at Ryan.

“You didn’t know she treated Lauren?”

Ryan turned.

“Lauren?”

She looked genuinely confused.

“Dr. Sloane handled my IVF consultation. Your mother recommended her.”

Ryan’s head slowly turned toward Patricia.

Patricia started walking toward the exit.

Naomi nodded to two security officers.

They stepped in front of the doors.

Patricia stopped.

“What is this?” Ryan demanded.

I looked at Lauren.

“How far along are you?”

“Twelve weeks.”

“IVF?”

She hesitated.

“Yes.”

Ryan stared at her.

“You told me it happened naturally.”

Lauren’s eyes filled with tears.

“Your mother said you’d feel emasculated if you knew we needed help.”

A terrible realization moved across Ryan’s face.

He looked at me.

Then at Patricia.

“No.”

I removed the cryogenic report.

“One of the embryos Ryan and I created disappeared from storage.”

Lauren shook her head.

“No.”

“Dr. Sloane confessed forty minutes before your ceremony.”

Lauren stepped backward.

“No.”

I did not enjoy saying it.

Whatever Lauren had done to me, she had not known this.

I could see that now.

Cruelty has a face.

So does genuine horror.

I lowered my voice.

“Lauren, the baby you’re carrying is genetically mine.”

She screamed.

Not loudly.

Just one broken sound.

Then she grabbed the table beside her.

Ryan went completely still.

The microphone slipped from my hand and struck the carpet.

No one moved to pick it up.

Lauren looked at Patricia.

“You told me it was a donor egg.”

Patricia said nothing.

“YOU TOLD ME THE EGG CAME FROM A DONOR.”

Ryan grabbed his mother’s arm.

“What did you do?”

Patricia pulled away.

“Everything I did was for you.”