My Husband Made Me Carry His Mistress’s Baby

The scream was still echoing off the vaulted ceiling when Jaxson rounded the corner. He didn't look at the gap between me and the stairs. He didn't analyze the physics of the fall. He only saw Isabela, a crumpled heap of crimson velvet and practiced agony at the bottom of the landing.

"Isabela!" His voice cracked, raw with a panic I hadn't heard since his mother's stroke.

"She pushed me!" Isabela sobbed, clutching her legs—legs I knew were strong enough to wrap around him just hours ago. "Jaxson, the baby... she wants to kill us all!"

I opened my mouth to defend myself, to scream the truth about her lies, but the air left my lungs in a rush. Jaxson turned. His eyes were voids, stripped of the man I married. He didn't walk toward me; he lunged.

Before I could raise my hands, his designer loafer connected with the small of my back.

The impact was a supernova of pain. It wasn't a dull throb; it was a jagged bolt of lightning that shattered my spine and sent me sprawling onto the marble. My chin hit the floor hard, teeth clacking together, tasting copper. The world tilted on its axis, gray spots dancing in my vision.

"You monster," he spat, looming over me, his chest heaving.

I curled into a ball, hands instinctively flying to my stomach. The instinct to protect the life inside me overrode the hatred for its conception. My breath came in shallow, terrified gasps, every inhalation a fresh stab of agony in my kidneys.

"Jaxson, please," I wheezed, tears leaking from my eyes, hot against the cold floor.

He didn't hear me. He was already kneeling beside Isabela, lifting her effortlessly into his arms, cooing to her in a voice he used to save for me.

"I've got you, Bella. I've got you."

He carried her past me, stepping over my twitching legs as if I were nothing more than discarded trash. The front door slammed, leaving me alone in the silence, the throbbing in my back keeping time with the breaking of my heart.

***

A week later, the bruises on my back had bloomed into a mottled galaxy of purple and yellow, hidden beneath the high collar of a navy dress I hadn't chosen. Jaxson needed a prop for the quarterly board meeting, and a "happy, glowing" wife was non-negotiable.

The boardroom was a shark tank of glass and steel. Twenty men in suits sat around the mahogany table, their eyes sliding over me with varying degrees of indifference and pity. The air smelled of stale coffee and aggressive cologne.

"Gentlemen," Jaxson announced, his hand gripping my shoulder tight enough to trigger a flare of pain from my injury. "To our record profits."

He didn't signal the waitstaff. He nudged me.

"Pour, Nina."

The command was quiet, but it rang like a gunshot. The humiliation burned my cheeks. I was the wife of the CEO, not the help. But the pressure of his fingers against my bruise was a silent threat: *Obey, or pay later.*

I took the heavy magnum of Dom Pérignon. My back screamed in protest as I moved around the table, filling flutes. The crystal clinked, a cheerful sound that mocked my misery. I kept my eyes down, focusing on the bubbles rising in the golden liquid, trying to dissociate from the degradation.

I reached the end of the table. Marcellus Stephens sat there, a dark stillness in the room's frantic energy. He didn't look at the quarterly reports. He looked at me. His eyes, dark and intelligent, traced the stiffness in my gait, the way I favored my left side to spare my bruised ribs.

As I tipped the bottle toward his glass, his hand shot out, "accidentally" jarring my wrist.

Champagne foamed over the rim, soaking the sleeve of his impeccable suit.

"Clumsy," Jaxson hissed from the head of the table, his face tightening with embarrassment.

"My apologies," Marcellus said, his voice a deep rumble that vibrated in my chest. He stood up, using his broad shoulders to shield me from Jaxson's glare as he reached for a linen napkin.

In the chaos of blotting the spill, he leaned in. His breath ghosted against my ear, warm and steady amidst the cold corporate air.

"Montauk Point. Midnight. Friday."

He pulled back before I could react, his face an impassive mask. "No harm done, sister-in-law."

My heart stuttered against my ribs. It wasn't an apology. It was a lifeline.

***

Hope is a dangerous thing, but desperation is a powerful fuel. Two days later, I found my window. Jaxson was at a charity luncheon, and Isabela was supposedly napping in the west wing.

I slipped into the guest study. My hands shook as I woke the computer. I didn't need much—just one frame. One second of footage from the hallway camera the night I saw them. Proof that she could walk. Proof that would grant me a divorce on my terms, not theirs.

I navigated to the security cloud, the interface blurring through the sheen of sweat in my eyes. *Log in. Date selection. Camera 4.*

The file was there. *2:00 AM.*

I clicked play.

Static. The screen washed out in gray noise. *Corrupted.*

"No," I whispered, clicking frantically. "No, no, no."

"Looking for something?"

The voice was silk wrapped around a razor blade. I spun around. Isabela sat in her wheelchair in the doorway, a heavy marble paperweight from Jaxson’s desk resting in her lap. She wasn't smiling. She looked bored.

"It’s gone, Nina. Jaxson wipes the servers every week. He’s very particular about privacy."

"You can walk," I said, my voice trembling with rage. "I saw you."

"And who will believe you?" She rolled forward, the rubber wheels silent on the plush carpet. "The hormonal, barren surrogate who pushes crippled women down stairs?"

She picked up the paperweight. With a casual flick of her wrist, she hurled it.

It smashed into the laptop screen with a sickening crunch of liquid crystals and plastic. The image fractured, spiderwebbing into darkness. Isabela laughed, a light, airy sound that chilled my blood.

"Save your energy for the baby, Nina. You're going to need it."