Part 3The Wife He Burned Alive

The pain in my wrist made me gasp, but I shook my head violently. "I don't know what you're talking about! I didn't say a word to Evelyn about your mistress!"

"Liar!" he spat. "You're coming with me right now! If anything happens to Megan or the baby, I swear to God, Camille, I will make you pay."

He dragged me out of the penthouse, half-carrying, half-pulling me down the hall. I didn't even have time to put on my shoes.

"Let go of me! Donovan, you're hurting me!"

I stumbled after him into the private elevator. I thought he was taking me across town. Instead, the elevator doors opened one floor down.

He had bought her the penthouse directly beneath ours.

He kicked the door open. Inside, Megan was on her knees on the hardwood floor, sobbing hysterically, her body trembling.

Evelyn sat on the velvet sofa, looking down at her like she was scraping something foul off her shoe. "Let’s skip the theatrics," Evelyn said coldly. "How much will it take for you to abort it and disappear?"

"Mrs. Donovan, please!" Megan wailed, clutching her stomach. "Donny and I love each other! I know I'm not from your world, I know I don't have a pedigree, but I didn't choose how I was born!"

"Love?"

Evelyn let out a sharp, aristocratic laugh. "You're a parasite playing house, and you dare invoke the word love? That’s exactly what my idiot son said when he begged me to let him marry Camille. Five years later, he’s slumming it with you. How deep could that love possibly be?"

"What?"

Megan froze. The tears suspended on her lashes. "What do you mean, slumming it? What do you mean, married?"

"Mom!"

Donovan shoved past me, dropped to his knees, and pulled Megan into his chest.

"Why the hell would you say that to her! She's pregnant! Her heart can't take this!" He whipped his head around to glare at me. "Is this your doing, Camille? Did you sick my mother on her?"

I stared at him, exhausted to my marrow. "How is this my fault?"

"If you hadn't called her, how would she have found out?!" he yelled, his face red with veins. "You were terrified Megan was going to steal your title. You used my own mother as a weapon against a pregnant girl. How could you be so vicious, Camille?!"

"You're the one who cheated on your wife!" I fired back, my voice echoing off the high ceilings. "If you could keep your pants zipped, she wouldn't have anything to find out!"

A loud gasp cut through the room. Megan’s eyes rolled back in her head, and she collapsed limp against Donovan’s chest.

"Megan! Baby, wake up! Megan!"

Panic hijacked his face. He scooped her up in his arms and sprinted out the door toward the elevator, screaming for his driver.

I stood alone in the entryway with Evelyn. She watched her son disappear, letting out a long, weary sigh.

"There’s nothing quite as pathetic as a man panicking over a bastard child," Evelyn muttered. She turned her sharp gaze to me. "I’ve never liked you, Camille. I still don't. But compared to that weeping gold-digger, you at least have a spine. I was going to leverage this to force him back in line with you. But looking at you now... I see you're done."

"Thank you, Evelyn. But you're right. I'm done."

I reached into my pocket, pulled out the heavy, vintage Cartier emerald ring—the Donovan family heirloom she had bitterly handed over on my wedding day—and placed it on the console table.

Evelyn looked at the ring, then at me. Something resembling respect flickered in her eyes. "Seven days," she said quietly. "The finalized divorce decree will be in your hands."

After Evelyn left, the silence in the apartment was suffocating. I finally looked around.

Above the fireplace hung a massive, custom-framed photograph. Donovan and Megan at a carnival. He had his arms wrapped tight around her waist, his head thrown back in a booming, uninhibited laugh.

It was a look of pure, unadulterated joy. I hadn't seen him look like that in years.

I walked slowly up the floating staircase to the master bedroom.

A sheer, ridiculously expensive La Perla nightgown was tossed carelessly across the unmade bed. It was provocative, loud. Something I would never wear.

The nightstand drawer was cracked open. Inside was a box of condoms. Only one left.

The vivid, sickening image of my husband sweating and writhing on these sheets with a twenty-two-year-old made the bile rise in my throat.

I don't know how long I stood there, trapped in a dissociative daze, before heavy footsteps thundered up the stairs. Two of Donovan's private security men stormed into the room.

"Mrs. Donovan. You need to come with us."

"Excuse me? Where are you taking me?"

One of them grabbed my arm, his grip bruising. Pure terror spiked in my chest. I fought, kicking and scratching, but they hauled me out of the building and shoved me into the back of a Suburban like a criminal.

When we pulled up to the private wing of Mt. Sinai Hospital, I saw Donovan slumped on a bench in the hallway, his head buried in his hands.

Hearing our footsteps, he looked up. His face was gray. Dead.

"You're here," he said, his voice terrifyingly flat. "Megan terminated the pregnancy."