After His Pregnant Mistress Destroyed Our Marriage Deal

The Met gala was everything it was supposed to be. Crystal and marble, champagne towers, and a guest list that read like a Fortune 500 directory. I stood near the exhibition entrance in a black silk gown, talking to the museum director about the new wing dedication, when I felt the room's energy shift.

I looked up. Dallas had gone very still.

She was standing near the grand staircase in a burgundy gown that caught the light like wine. Paige. Her hair was swept up, her makeup flawless. She looked beautiful and completely out of place, like someone who had studied the dress code but missed the lesson on belonging.

She was watching Dallas. Waiting for him to acknowledge her.

I excused myself from the museum director and crossed the room. My heels made no sound against the marble. Dallas saw me coming and his jaw tightened, but he didn't move. He was trapped between us, between the woman he was hiding and the woman he had married, with three hundred witnesses watching.

I reached Paige first.

"Hello," I said, my voice warm and pleasant. "I don't believe we've been introduced."

Paige's eyes widened slightly. She had not expected me to approach her directly. She had expected a scene, or ice, or some other reaction she could use.

"I'm Paige," she said, lifting her chin. "I'm a friend of Dallas's."

"How lovely," I replied. I let my gaze drift past her to the seating chart display near the entrance. "The guest tables are being seated now. I believe the plus-one section is over there."

I gestured toward the far end of the hall, where the auxiliary seating had been arranged for associates and companions who had not merited the main floor.

The women standing nearest to us went very quiet.

Paige's face flushed. "I'm not—"

"Of course," I said gently, as if I were helping her find her way in an unfamiliar building. "It can be confusing at these events. But they'll take excellent care of you."

I touched her elbow, just lightly, and turned her toward the far tables. It was not a push. It was a redirect, the kind a hostess might offer a confused guest. But everyone watching understood exactly what it was.

Paige pulled her arm away, her composure cracking. She looked past me to Dallas, waiting for him to say something, to claim her, to prove that she mattered.

Dallas said nothing.

He stood there in his tuxedo, his expression carefully neutral, and let the moment happen.

Paige's eyes filled with something that looked like betrayal. Then she turned and walked toward the auxiliary tables, her head high but her hands shaking.

I returned to the museum director as if nothing had happened. By midnight, the line had made it to three separate group chats and a gossip column's blind item. By morning, it was a meme.

Dallas did not speak to me for the rest of the evening.

The next day, I was reviewing acquisition proposals in my study when my phone buzzed. A text from Dallas: *Handled it.*

I did not reply.

What I learned later, through sources I had carefully cultivated among his staff, was that Dallas had gone to Paige's apartment in Midtown the following afternoon. The conversation had not gone well.

"You can't just show up like that," Dallas had said, pacing her small living room. "Do you understand what you risked? The board was watching. The Stephens family was watching."

Paige had been sitting on the couch, still in her robe, her face pale. "I risked?" she repeated. "I'm carrying your child, Dallas. I'm not some secret you can keep locked away forever."

"It's not about shame," he said, but his voice lacked conviction. "It's strategy. Timing. We agreed—"

"You agreed," Paige interrupted. "You decided everything. When I could be seen. Where I could go. Who I could talk to. And then you stood there last night and let her humiliate me in front of everyone."

Dallas stopped pacing. "Athena didn't humiliate you. She handled an impossible situation with more grace than—"

"With more grace than me?" Paige's voice went sharp. "Is that what you were going to say?"

He didn't answer.

Paige stood, her hands clenched at her sides. "You're ashamed of me. You always have been. I was fine when I was hidden. I was fine when I was your secret. But the moment I tried to exist in your actual life, you couldn't get rid of me fast enough."

"That's not fair," Dallas said quietly.

"None of this is fair," Paige replied. Her voice broke. "But I'm done pretending it is."

Dallas left without resolving anything. He returned to the penthouse late, poured himself a Scotch, and sat in the dark living room for an hour.

I was in my study, reading. I heard him come in. I did not go to him.

The next morning, Paige began planning something new. I could feel it, the way you feel weather changing. She had tried visibility. She had tried confrontation. Now she would try something else.

I made a note to increase security camera coverage at the penthouse entrance.

And I waited.