I should have left.
I should have gotten into a cab, disappeared into traffic, and never looked back. There was nothing left for me in that hallway except betrayal wrapped in a designer dress and a man who couldn’t tell the difference between loyalty and lust.
But rage has a way of anchoring your feet.
I turned back.
Each step was deliberate. I didn’t storm in. I didn’t scream. I just walked, slowly, intentionally, until I was standing right in front of them again.
Marcus and Savannah looked up.
He blinked like he was seeing a ghost. The audacity of his surprise almost made me laugh. Again, I was the one catching them, and he looked offended?
“Juliana, what are you doing?” he asked, voice low, stepping between us like I might lunge across the room.
“I was going to ask you the same thing,” I replied, sharp and unflinching. “Last I checked, I’m your wife. You should be at my side. Not playing doting daddy to my backstabbing best friend.”
He glanced toward the nurse station, as if worried someone might overhear. “This isn’t the place…”
“No, Marcus,” I snapped, lifting the crumpled medical report in my hand. “This wasn’t the place either.” I waved it in his face. “But that didn’t stop you from driving a knife straight through my back while I was being diagnosed with cancer.”
Savannah slowly stood from her seat, hand gliding over her baby bump like she was playing the lead in some tragic opera. Her voice trembled, and I could almost hear the rehearsed lines before she spoke them.
“Juliana,” she said softly, “I swear, I never meant for this to happen. I didn’t want to come between you two. I was just… there for him when things got hard.”
I looked her dead in the eyes. “You’ve been trying to come between us since college. Don’t act like this just ‘happened.’ You waited until I was eight months pregnant and dying. Timing was your strategy.”
Marcus’s face tensed. “That’s not fair.”
I turned on him. “What’s not fair? That I caught you? That I have receipts?”
He drew in a breath. “Savannah’s carrying my child.”
And just like that, I felt the air get sucked out of my lungs.
The words cut deeper than my diagnosis. Deeper than the doctor’s voice echoing in my head. I blinked, slowly.
“You’re admitting it now?” I asked, voice lower.
He ran a hand through his hair, eyes darting between me and the floor. “I didn’t plan for it. Things between us… changed. You’ve been distant, emotional, always on edge…”
“I’ve been pregnant, Marcus. With your child. While fighting off nausea, hormones, and the slow breakdown of my sanity every time you walked out the door claiming ‘late meetings’.”
Savannah let out a soft sniffle, eyes glassy. “I told him to stay with you. I said I didn’t want to be the reason…”
“Save it,” I cut in coldly. “You’re not the reason. He is.”
Marcus finally looked at me. “Once the baby is born, I’ll file for divorce. I’ll do it right. No drama. You’ll be taken care of.”
I stared at him, almost impressed at how he could say something so insulting and think it was noble.
“You’ll file?” I echoed, laughing bitterly. “How generous. And what will you take care of, exactly? The child you no longer want? The wife you left rotting in a hospital room while you played happy family in a maternity wing that wasn’t hers?”
“I’m trying to handle this maturely…”
“This isn’t maturity. This is cowardice dressed up in a monologue.”
Savannah’s voice came in again, soft as satin. “My baby is just as real as yours, Juliana.”
Her eyes sparkled with something dark. Cold. Unbothered.
“Maybe more,” she added under her breath.
The fury in my chest erupted so fast I had to grip the chair beside me to stop myself from lunging at her. But I didn’t move.
I didn’t need to.
Because in that moment, a nurse appeared, calling Marcus’s name.
He hesitated, eyes torn between us.
Then, like always, he turned his back on me and followed her.
Savannah didn’t go right away. She waited until he was out of sight before dropping the act.
The change in her was immediate.
Her voice was no longer soft. Her smile no longer sympathetic.
“You were always too boring for him,” she said, adjusting her blouse like she was straightening her crown. “Too safe. Too careful. He craved someone who made him feel alive.”
I didn’t respond. I just stared.
“I told him I’d raise a real son,” she continued. “A true heir. Not some fragile baby born to a dying woman too weak to survive labor.”
I stepped closer, fire in my veins. “He’ll see you for what you are.”
“Oh, he already has,” she purred. “And he still picked me.”
I tilted my head. “You sure about that?”
Her smile faltered for half a second. That was all I needed.
“I hope you’re ready for war, Savannah,” I whispered. “Because that baby you’re using as a ticket? It won’t protect you when the truth starts talking.”
She blinked, just once. But it was enough.
She thinks I'm bluffing.
