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He Gave His Best Friend a Baby
Novelix
Completed
"I spent five years waiting for Ethan Shaw to make me his wife. I believed every promise—until I found his marriage certificate with another woman’s name beside his. His excuse? She needed a family, and he needed to give her his heir. I was supposed to accept being the second choice. Instead, I left. Thousands of miles away, I rebuilt my career, my confidence, and my life without him. Only when Ethan lost everything did he realize the woman he abandoned was the only person who ever truly stood beside him. But this time, I was no longer waiting to be chosen."
Chapters (2)
第1章
Ethan Shaw’s marriage certificate slipped from the cabinet in Natalie’s kitchen.
His name was printed beside hers.
Not mine.
The filing date was last October. It was the same week he’d told me the board was making his life impossible and begged me to postpone our wedding one more time.
I bent to pick it up. The edge of the paper sliced my fingertip, and a bright drop of blood landed beside Natalie Sullivan’s name.
I carried the certificate into the living room and slapped it onto the coffee table.
“Tell me this isn’t real.”
Ethan looked down at it. Then, to my disbelief, he gave a quiet laugh and pulled me against his chest.
“Natalie grew up without a family,” he said. “She wanted a child who was truly hers, but she couldn’t stand the idea of using an anonymous donor. I’m the only family she’s ever trusted.”
I shoved him away.
He exhaled as though I were the one being unreasonable. “My grandmother wouldn’t accept a Shaw child born outside a legal marriage. So Natalie and I signed the papers. Once the baby is born, we’ll divorce. Our wedding tomorrow changes nothing.”
Nothing.
Today was our fifth anniversary. Ethan had suggested we spend it at Natalie’s Napa estate.
I had thought he was finally ready to set boundaries with the woman he called his oldest friend.
Instead, I discovered that I had been the outsider all along.
That night, I accepted a position more than five thousand miles away.
“What exactly do you think I am to you?”
I stepped out of Ethan’s reach. “Don’t touch me. If you want a wedding, have one with your wife. I won’t be at ours.”
He staggered back half a step, irritation tightening his face.
“Anna, I did this for you.”
“For me?”
“Being a Shaw comes with obligations: galas, charity boards, press and people watching everything you do. You’ve always said you wanted your freedom. I didn’t want to trap you in all that.”
Natalie rested a hand on her still-flat stomach.
“Mrs. Shaw says this is the first child of Ethan’s generation,” she murmured. “The family heir. She said the baby has to be born a Shaw.”
Then she turned wide, wounded eyes on me.
“I don’t have feelings for Ethan, Anna. After the baby comes, I’ll sign the divorce papers. I can raise the child alone if that’s what you want.”
Ethan’s expression hardened.
“I never said you’d raise my child alone. How are you supposed to manage with no family and a newborn?” He glanced at me. “It’s a piece of paper. Anna understands that.”
My finger was still bleeding because I had been too stunned to bandage it. The sight of it, combined with my anemia and the fact that I had barely eaten, made the room tilt.
My stomach rolled.
But the pain in my chest was worse.
Years ago, I had been the one to ask Ethan when we were getting married.
He had studied me for a long moment before answering.
“Not yet. I just became CEO of Shaw Holdings. My brothers are waiting for me to fail, and I won’t give them a way to hurt you. Give me a little more time. I swear I’ll marry you.”
I had lived on that promise for years.
Now I understood. The timing had never been wrong.
I had simply never been his first choice.
Ethan noticed the sweat beading along my hairline and frowned.
“Are you seriously doing this again?”
“Doing what?”
“Pretending you’re sick so I’ll give in. Natalie’s pregnant and she hasn’t complained half as much as you do.”
So that was what he thought of every dizzy spell, every iron infusion, every morning I had forced myself upright when my body wanted to collapse.
Something inside me went still.
“We’re done, Ethan.”
For one brief second, panic flashed across his face. Then it vanished.
“You’re upset.”
“I’m leaving you.”
“Stop being dramatic. Natalie and I have never slept together. If I had anything to hide, would I have let you find out before the wedding?”
I stared at him.
He truly believed that made it better.
I turned and walked out.
Ethan started after me, but Natalie suddenly grabbed her stomach.
“Ethan, the baby. I think it moved.”
He stopped.
He didn’t follow me again.
By the time I reached the end of the drive, two messages lit up my phone.
Anna, I’m not letting you break up with me.
Natalie says the baby needs me. I’ll calm her down, then I’ll come find you.
She was barely eight weeks pregnant. There was no baby kicking yet.
My cut throbbed with every beat of my heart. I wrapped it in a tissue and kept walking.
Ethan had never believed I needed him.
That was all right.
I didn’t anymore.
第2章
Ethan didn’t come home that night.
I sat on our living-room sofa until dawn, running my hand over the soft Italian leather.
We had flown to Milan to choose it together.
“We’re going to have this thing for the rest of our lives,” he’d said. “It has to be the one you love.”
Then he had leaned close, his smile turning wicked.
“And it had better be sturdy. A flimsy sofa wouldn’t survive the two of us.”
We had spent an entire day trying every sofa in the showroom before making a decision.
The memory broke something open in me. I gripped the cushions and cried until exhaustion pulled me under.
When I woke, afternoon light filled the room.
I was weak, swollen-eyed and halfway through packing when the front door opened.
Ethan came in carrying a white jewelry box and a takeout bag.
“Enough of this,” he said. “I brought back the wedding necklace you wanted. And dinner, because I knew you wouldn’t remember to eat.”
He held out the bag.
The smell of shellfish hit me, and nausea surged up my throat.
The receipt was still stapled to the side. Eighteen dishes. More than three thousand dollars.
What he had brought me was a single leaking carton of leftovers.
I pushed the bag away.
Ethan dropped it onto the floor. Broth spread across the hardwood.
“What more do you want from me, Anna? Natalie and I waited three hours for a table at that restaurant.”
“For me?” I pressed a hand over my mouth. “I’m allergic to shellfish. Natalie is the one who loves it.”
He looked away.
“You married her,” I said. “Why are you even here?”
He crossed the room and locked his arms around me.
“Because I’m still giving you the wedding you’ve always wanted. The marriage certificate is paperwork. Why are you throwing away five years over paperwork?”
His grip hurt. Tears slipped down my face before I could stop them.
Once, those same arms had made me feel safe.
I had met Ethan when he pulled me away from a supervisor who had cornered me after an office party. My family warned me that the youngest Shaw son had no position, no influence and too many enemies.
I chose him anyway.
Back then, his grandfather had never considered putting him in charge of the family company. I gave up a design fellowship in Paris and stayed in San Francisco. Night after night, I built proposals, repaired budgets and turned Ethan’s half-formed ideas into profitable ventures.
Project by project, his grandfather began to notice him.
Eventually, Ethan became the heir apparent.
His oldest brother never forgave either of us.
At a company retreat in Yosemite, that brother lured me onto an isolated trail and shoved me down an embankment. I lost my first pregnancy there.
When Ethan found me, his hands shook so badly he could barely hold me.
“I can’t survive without you,” he whispered. “I will never betray you. I swear.”
He kissed my forehead as though I were the most precious thing in the world.
“You’re the only woman I will ever marry.”
Later, I learned why he had not been beside me on the trail. Natalie had twisted her ankle, and Ethan had carried her nearly three miles back to the lodge.
When I confronted him, he broke down in our apartment and dropped to his knees. He cried until I forgave him.
I had always forgiven him.
I was about to push him away when a special ringtone cut through the room.
Natalie’s.
Ethan released me at once. Embarrassment flickered across his face, quickly replaced by concern.
“Her morning sickness has been getting worse. I need to make sure she’s all right.”
He reached the door, then looked back.
“Think carefully, Anna. Decide whether you actually want this wedding.”
He answered the call as he walked away, lowering his voice into the tender tone he used only with her.
I opened the jewelry box.
Inside lay the diamond-and-pearl necklace his grandmother had worn on her wedding day. Ethan had promised the piece would welcome me into the Shaw family.
I placed it in the trash.
Then I booked a one-way flight to Paris.
