I’d just finished my postpartum confinement and finally had enough strength to go out. I took my baby to the county office to request a copy of her birth certificate.
“Hi, I’m here to get my daughter’s birth certificate. Her name’s Blair Evan Sinclair.”
She typed for a while, then paused. Her eyes narrowed at the screen.
“Ma’am… there’s already a child registered under that name. Blair Evan Sinclair is listed under Jordan Evan Sinclair’s household. The child’s about six years old.”
I blinked at her. “That can’t be right. My baby’s only a month old. You have to be looking at the wrong file.”
She shook her head slowly. “I’m sorry. It’s the same name. Same father.”
Before I could even process that, my phone buzzed in my pocket.
It was a message from Jordan’s assistant. Anastasia Beverly.
My chest tightened before I even opened it.
The photo loaded.
Jordan had his arm around her waist and his other arm was around a little boy, maybe five or six. They were standing outside a kindergarten. The three of them were laughing like they were the happiest family in the world.
The boy’s school badge was clear.
Blair Evan Sinclair.
My throat closed.
Another message popped up.
“Genevieve, how does it feel being the other woman? I guess you’ll always live under the real wife.”
The screen blurred. I wasn’t even sure when my eyes filled with tears.
Other woman? Me?
What was I then? What were the past seven years?
I forced myself to breathe and looked back at the clerk. My voice didn’t sound like mine.
“Can you… can you check Jordan Sinclair’s marriage record too?”
She hesitated but nodded. A few minutes later, the printer started humming.
The paper felt light when she handed it to me, but my hands were shaking like it weighed a hundred pounds.
Spouse: Anastasia Sinclair.
Marriage date: Seven years ago.
Seven years.
That was the same year he’d married me.
“Ma’am,” the clerk said gently, “do you still want to process your daughter’s paperwork?”
I looked down at my baby sleeping in her carrier. Her tiny lips moved like she was dreaming.
I swallowed hard. “Yes. Please register her under my name only. And… I need to change her name.”
I couldn’t let my daughter carry a lie.
...
When I walked out of the county office, my legs felt weak, like the ground wasn’t steady.
My phone buzzed again.
Jordan.
“Honey, I’m stuck in a meeting right now. I’ll come home later and spend time with you and the baby. Don’t wait up, okay? Miss you already.”
Honey.
Wife.
He’d called me that every single day. He’d texted me whenever he went out, told me where he was, who he was with. He’d hug me the second he stepped through the door, like he couldn’t survive a minute without me.
Was any of it real?
At some party years ago, some rich girl insulted me in front of everyone. The next day her family’s company collapsed. Jordan told me softly, “No one gets to disrespect my wife.” I’d believed him. I’d thought I was protected.
Once I mentioned I liked a limited edition bag I saw online. He flew overseas overnight just to buy it and came back smiling like he’d won a war. “If it makes you happy, it’s worth it,” he’d said, kissing my forehead.
All that devotion. All that sweetness.
Was it guilt? Was it a performance?
I sat in the driver’s seat and tried to put the key in the ignition, but my hands wouldn’t stop shaking.
So while he was wrapping his arms around another woman and picking up their son from school, he was texting me that he missed me?
How many times had he left their house and come straight to mine?
The thing that used to move me the most was that hospital mistake.
The nurse had mixed up the reports and told me I had bone cancer. Late stage. I still remembered the way the room spun when I heard it.
Before I could even react, Jordan grabbed the doctor’s coat with both hands. His eyes were red in seconds.
“What do you mean bone cancer? Do something!” he shouted. “Find the best specialist, the best hospital, I don’t care how much it costs. If she needs my bone marrow, take it. Take everything. If she dies, I’m not living either. Do you hear me?”
He was shaking. Actually shaking.
When they finally came back and said it was a mistake, that the report wasn’t mine, he slid down the wall in the hallway and squatted there like a lost kid. His shoulders were trembling.
He pulled me into his arms and kept saying, “Thank God, Gen! Thank God you’re okay. I thought I was going to lose you. I can’t lose you.”
I’d believed that. How could I not?
Everyone used to warn me. As his business got bigger, more women would circle him. They’d say powerful men never stayed clean.
But he treated me like I was the only woman in the world. I couldn’t even force myself to doubt him.
So why Anastasia?
Of all people, why her?
He used to despise her.
Back when she worked as a nanny for the Sinclair family, she once showed up in this low cut dress to bring him coffee. I still remembered the sound of the glass shattering against the wall.
“Don’t play these cheap tricks with me!” he’d snapped at her. “You think I don’t see what you’re doing? Don’t come back tomorrow.”
He turned around and pulled me into his arms right in front of her. His voice dropped, low and intense.
“Wife, you’re the only one in my heart. Anyone who tries to get close to me like that, I’ll throw them out. I won’t let anyone disrespect you.”
Anastasia had knelt on the floor crying, begging him not to fire her. He didn’t even look at her.
“I only love my wife,” he'd said coldly. “I can’t stand dirt in my sight. Don’t ever show your face to me again.”
She’d packed up and left that same day.
And then months later, when she suddenly appeared as his personal assistant at the company, I’d questioned him.
He held my face and sighed like he was the reasonable one.
“Genn, after she lost her job, her family tried to marry her off to some old widower. She’s been threatening suicide every day. I’m worried she’ll start spreading rumors about us. It’s safer to keep her where I can see her. I’m doing this to protect you.”
To protect me.
And I believed him.
Six years. They’d been together for six years. They even had a six year old son.
Right under my nose.
I bit down hard and forced the tears back. Crying wasn’t going to change anything. I contacted a private investigator.
Thirty minutes later, he sent me a video with the live location.
I drove there without thinking.
Jordan wasn’t at the company. He’d just come out of Blair’s kindergarten after a parent teacher meeting.
He was holding Anastasia’s hand. Carrying the little boy in his other arm. The three of them crossed the street together, laughing.
The smile on his face looked so soft and real. Softer than any smile he’d ever given me in our family photos.
Why did that hurt more than the marriage certificate?
I pressed the gas and followed them all the way to a villa area on the outskirts of the city.
Jordan got out first and opened the trunk. He pulled out a huge box of toys.
The boy screamed happily and ran off with it.
Anastasia leaned into him, her voice playful. “You spoil him way too much. One day he’s going to walk all over you.”
Jordan chuckled and brushed her hair back. “If I don’t spoil my son, who will? Of course I’m proud.”
He leaned down and kissed her. Not quick. Not distant. A real kiss.
She looked up at him, “Baby, thank you for arranging the best private primary school for Evan. You didn’t have to do so much. When I found out I was pregnant back then, I didn’t even plan to tell you. I never wanted to cause trouble for you and Genevieve. Just seeing you from far away was enough for me.”
“What are you saying?” Jordan pinched her cheek gently. “Don’t think like that. She won’t find out. And even if she does, what can she do?”
He smiled at her like she was the only one who mattered.
“You’re my wife on paper. You and our son deserve everything. It’s only right that I take care of you.”
My wife on paper.
So what was I?
The public decoration? The woman he cried for in hospital hallways? The one he swore he couldn’t live without?
