My Billionaire Fiancé Kissed His Mistress Fifteen Minutes Before Proposing to Me

I didn't answer the unknown number.

They sent the clips anyway.

The first one showed Sabrina in my kitchen, standing barefoot at the stove. She was stirring something in my blue Le Creuset pot. The second showed her curled up on our couch under the gray throw I'd knitted badly one winter. Graham's head was in her lap.

The date in the corner said March.

It was July now.

I had told myself he slipped once. I'd told myself it started after the ring. A stupid, drunk, last-minute panic.

He'd been bringing her home for four months.

---

Diane's office smelled like toner and burnt coffee. She slid papers across the desk one at a time, like a dealer at a card table.

"Co-op lease release. Venue cancellation. Florist. Caterer." She tapped each one with her pen. "Sign where the yellow flags are."

I signed. My name looked like someone else's handwriting.

"One more thing." Diane folded her hands. "The Brooklyn townhouse. On Carroll Street."

My pen stopped.

"It was purchased through Whitmore Development," she said. "Company asset. Your name isn't on the deed. It never was."

"He bought it for me."

"Did he put that in writing?"

"He put it in a promise."

Diane didn't soften. That was why I trusted her. "Promises aren't property, Claire."

At twenty, Graham and I had rented the basement unit of that house. One window at sidewalk level. A mattress on the floor. A couch we dragged home from a curb on Court Street, and four-dollar pizza on Fridays when the rent was paid.

When the owner sold the whole building six years later, Graham bought it. He handed me the old basement key on a ribbon.

"Upstairs is ours now," he'd said. "The whole thing. Our first real home."

We never moved in. There was always a bigger deal, a better time.

"I want to see it," I told Diane. "One last time."

---

A pink Porsche was parked in front of the stoop.

Two girls in matching sunglasses carried a rolling rack of dresses up the steps. A man on a ladder was prying the brass house number off the brick. I'd hunted three antique shops in Red Hook for that number.

"Careful with that!" I said.

The man glanced down at me, then at the doorway.

Sabrina stood there in white linen, holding an iced latte. She didn't look surprised. She looked like she'd been waiting.

"Claire. Wow." She sipped. "Graham said the house was just sitting empty. Such a waste, right? So he let me move in."

"Tell him to take that number down gently."

"Oh, we're going with something modern. Matte black." She leaned on the doorframe. "He also said you're too sentimental. That you'll never learn how to actually enjoy your life."

One of her friends giggled into her phone.

I walked past Sabrina so fast her latte splashed across her shoes.

"Hey!"

Inside, everything was white and bare. Drop cloths covered the floor. A trash can sat by the stairs.

On top of the takeout boxes was a ball of thick paper. I knew it before I even touched it.

I smoothed it out on my knee. Graham's crooked pencil lines. My notes in purple ink. *Reading nook here. Big window for plants. Kitchen open to the living room, so I can see you while I cook.* We'd drawn it on the floor of the basement the night I graduated from Brooklyn College.

I turned to the living room wall.

Our handwriting used to be there. Him in black marker, me in red, both of us a little drunk on cheap wine. *Home is wherever we are together.*

Fresh gray paint covered it now. Still wet. It shined under the light.

I called him. He picked up on the fourth ring.

"Come to Carroll Street," I said. "Now."

---

He made it in twenty minutes. Sabrina was crying on the stoop by then, mascara streaked, her friends patting her back.

Graham went to her first.

He crouched and murmured something. She nodded into his shoulder. Then he stood and came at me, his face hard.

"What the hell, Claire? You scared her half to death."

"I scared *her*?"

"She said you shoved her."

"I walked past her. Her coffee spilled."

He rubbed the bridge of his nose. "Fine. Look. I know this house meant something. I'll give you the place in Tribeca instead. Two bedrooms. It's in a better neighborhood anyway."

I laughed. It sounded ugly, even to me.

"A better neighborhood."

"Claire—"

"You gave her the promise you made me when we were broke." My voice climbed until the workers on the ladder froze. "When we ate pizza on a curb couch. When you swore this would be ours. You gave her *that*, and now you want to buy me off with Tribeca?"

The tears came hot and fast. I didn't wipe them.

Something flickered over his face. He flinched like I'd slapped him.

Then his chin came up.

"You don't get to throw away twelve years," he said, low, "because I made one mistake. I loved you that whole time. You know I did."

I dug into my bag. The basement key was still on its faded ribbon. Nine years, and I'd carried it through four purses and two cities.

I grabbed his hand, pressed the key into his palm, and closed his fingers over it.

"Then take your love back too."

I didn't look at Sabrina when I walked down the steps.

---

I found out later what happened after I left.

Sabrina slipped her arm through Graham's and walked him to the basement door.

"We should turn this into a speakeasy," she said. "Velvet booths. Little bar in the corner. So cute, right?"

Graham stood at the top of the stairs. He stared down into the dark.

He was remembering the winter the company almost went under. The bank had frozen his accounts. He'd sat down there for three nights straight, calling investors. I'd sat beside him with a 103-degree fever, wrapped in that gray throw, making coffee and reading his contracts out loud because his eyes had stopped focusing.

"Graham?" Sabrina tugged his sleeve. "Babe, hello?"

He pressed a hand to his chest. He didn't answer her.

---

The clinic called at 9:40 that night.

"Ms. Bennett? This is Dr. Ramirez from Lenox Women's Health. I'm sorry to call so late. Your bloodwork from last week came back."

I'd gone in for dizziness. I'd blamed the wedding stress.

"Is something wrong?"

"Not wrong." She paused. "You're pregnant. About six weeks along. Congratulations."

I said thank you. I think I said thank you.

Then I was on Nathaniel's bathroom floor with the printed results crumpled in my fist. The tile was cold through my jeans. I cried so quietly I barely made a sound.

Six weeks. Before the roses. Before the study door.

My thumb hovered over Graham's name. I didn't know what I would say. I only knew some stupid, nine-year-old part of me wanted him to know first.

The screen lit up with a notification.

Sabrina had posted a photo. Graham stood on the stoop on Carroll Street, his arms wrapped around her from behind. The new matte-black number gleamed over their heads.

*Our new home. New beginnings.* 🖤

I turned the phone off. My hands were shaking so hard it slipped onto the tile.

"Okay," I whispered to my stomach. "Okay. Just us, then."

I folded the paper and reached for the sink to pull myself up.

The bathroom door creaked.

Graham was standing in the doorway. His tie was gone, his hair a mess, the basement key still looped around his fingers. Behind him, I heard Nathaniel shouting from the front hall.

Graham's eyes dropped to the paper in my hand. My name. The word in bold at the top.

He went completely still.

"Claire," he said, and his voice broke right down the middle. "You're pregnant with my baby?"