His Dead Wife Is Now Boss

The day the baby was born, I was so hollowed out I didnt even have the breath to speak.

Connor, however, looked like a man who had finally set down a heavy burden. He leaned in, his voice casual, and confessed everything. He told me that the person who had spent the last year destroying my life was my best friend.

"We just got back from the motel. Shes still sleeping it off," he said, not a trace of guilt in his eyes. "This past six months, you having her 'keep an eye' on me? It just made things easier for us."

But the blow that truly shattered me was his next admission: my own mother had known all along.

"She didn't want you to lose it while you were pregnant. We did it for your own good, Paige," he murmured, his attention already shifting to the squirming infant in his arms. He poked at the babys cheek with a callous indifference. "Actually, Tiffany deserves some credit. Without her, Im not sure this kid would have made it to full term."

Then, he threw out a choice so cruel it felt like a serrated blade to the throat: "So, you decide. Does she become the godmother, or do I just make her the legal mother?"

My mind flashed back to the moment I first suspected him. He was away on that high-security engineering project, and Id found the evidence of another woman. I hadn't screamed. I hadn't made a scene. I had simply handed him the positive pregnancy test and gave him two options: we get a divorce, or he cuts her out of his life forever.

He had stared at the two pink lines for a long time before choosing us. Or so I thought.

From that day on, he was the perfect husband. He reported his every move. Even Tiffany, my closest confidante, spent every lunch break telling me how lucky I was that hed changed. I had let my guard down. I had chosen to believe in the redemption of our marriage.

I never could have imagined it was all an elaborate, coordinated performance.

...

As the epidural began to wear off, a searing, white-hot pain radiated from my lower body. But no physical agony could compare to the rot spreading through my chest.

I gripped the hospital sheets until my knuckles turned white, forcing the words out through a constricted throat.

"Why... why did you wait until the baby was here to tell me?"

Before he could answer, the door swung open. A group of Connors colleagues and former frat brothers burst in, laughing and smelling of cheap beer.

"You lost the bet, Tiff! Paige didn't cry!" one of them shouted. "That means the 'work wife' gets a victory kiss from the Lead Engineer!"

"Come on!" another chimed in. "Tiffany spent time in Londonthose Europeans are way more open-minded. Show him what hes been missing!"

Tiffany laughed, a light, melodic sound that used to bring me comfort. She feigned a blush, swatting at them. "Shut up, guys. If HR hears you talking like that, they'll have my head for being the 'other woman' before I even get my desk nameplate changed."

My pupils contracted. The term "work wife"the way they said itsounded like a title shed already officially claimed.

Seeing the raw horror on my face, Connor offered a flat, clinical explanation.

"We had a wager. If you cried when you found out about Tiffany and me, Id have to post a public apology on the company bulletin board. If you stayed stoic, Tiffany and I get to go public without the drama."

He spoke as if he were discussing a project deadline. He tilted his head, a smirk playing on his lips. "Oh, I guess you didn't know. Tiffany and I are actually the ones with the valid marriage license."

"Then what was our wedding?" my voice cracked, tears finally spilling over. "What was that ceremony? The papers we signed?"

In an instant, the room went quiet, but it wasn't a respectful silence. It was the silence of people watching a car crash.

"Paige, sweetie, you really didn't realize?" one of the guys whispered, his eyes dancing with malice. "The license you signed with Connor was a prop. He filed the real paperwork with Tiffany months ago."

Tiffany stepped toward the bed, reaching out to take my hand with a mock-sympathetic smile. "Paige, we didn't tell you for your own sake. We wanted the baby to have a stress-free environment."

It was the exact same script Connor had used.

My blood turned to ice. Ten months ago, when I ran to my mother with my suspicions, she had looked me in the eye and said, If you leave now, youre just handing him to the other woman. Men stray, Paige. Its what they do. But I can tell, Connor truly loves you.

She had talked me into staying. She had talked me into silence.

And Tiffany... my best friend. She had volunteered to be my informant. She told me every detail of Connors schedule. She even "complained" to me about how tired she was from working late nights at the office with him. I felt so bad for her that Id buy her expensive coffee and give her my spa gift cards, thinking she was burning the candle at both ends for our familys future.

Even last week, shed sat by my bed and told me that after the baby was born, I needed to "reclaim my power" and be an independent woman.

Now I realized she was the woman Id been hunting. While I was struggling through every night of pregnancythe nausea, the swollen ankles, the crushing lonelinessthey were together. They were laughing at me.

I began to shake so violently that the IV in my arm dislodged. Blood began to bloom across the white tape, dripping onto the linoleum floor. I didn't care.

Suddenly, every cold look from my mother-in-law made sense. Every time Connors students treated me like an outsider while doting on Tiffany like she was the Queen of the Department.

I was the only one who didn't know the joke was on me.

The sight of my own blood finally jolted me back to reality.

"What are you doing? Youre in recovery, you need to be careful," Connor said, his voice suddenly shifting back to that terrifyingly gentle husband-persona. He pressed a hand over the puncture wound in my arm while holding a cup of lukewarm broth to my lips.

I looked at him, my eyes burning. "Connor, why?"

"Why the lies? The fake marriage? The career? What part of us was real?"

My chest heaved. I was spiraling. Connor set the broth down, his eyesthe eyes I used to think were full of warmthturning to cold, hard flint.

"You might have forgotten five years ago, Paige. But I didn't."

He stood up, looking down at me with a dark sense of triumph. "Five years ago, when the company went under and I was facing that federal investigation, when I was sick and broke and losing everything... Tiffany was the one who sold her car and took a night job to pay for my legal defense and my meds. You? You were too busy trying to distance yourself so your 'reputation' wouldn't be tarnished."

He leaned in closer, his voice a lethal whisper. "But you didn't get away clean, did you? You got exactly what you deserved that night in the city."

I froze. A chill that had nothing to do with the hospital AC settled in my marrow.

Five years ago, Tiffany was the one who had been terrified of the scandal. She was the one who told me she knew some "investors" who could help Connor, but they were dangerous men. She had lured me to that hotel, promising they had the evidence to clear his name. I went there for him. I endured three hours of hell at the hands of those men because I thought it was the only way to save Connors life.

When I finally escaped and found Connor, I was covered in bruises, clutching the "files" Tiffany said would help. But instead of a savior, I found him with the police and his lawyers.

"Paige, what have you been doing?" he had spat back then, looking at my torn clothes with pure disgust. "You're out here sleeping with low-lifes while I'm fighting for my life?"

He had never let me explain. He told me he never wanted to hear about that night again.

But he actually believed Tiffany was the one who saved him.

"If you think I'm such a coward," I whispered, "then why stay? Why the five years of pretending?"

Connor wiped a stray drop of blood from my arm, his gaze drifting toward Tiffany, who was laughing by the door.

"Tiffany cant have children because of the 'stress' she went through helping me back then," he said, his voice hardening. "I owed her a child. And you? You owed me a debt."

He paused, his expression curdling into loathing. "I tried to move past it. But every time I looked at you, I thought about Tiffanys sacrifice and then I thought about you... getting caught in a hotel with those thugs. It made me sick. You made me sick."

I started to laugh. It was a jagged, hysterical sound that tore at my stitches.

For five years, I had subjected myself to every experimental fertility treatment, every painful hormone injection, every "miracle" diet, all because I thought I was difficult to impregnate. I had scarred my body and my mind to give a child to the man I loved.

And the whole time, I was just a surrogate for a lie.

Connor reached out to wipe my tears, his touch clinical. "Don't cry. Its not like Im going to stop supporting you. You can stay in the guest house. Youll still be the 'Mrs. Sterling' everyone sees at the charity galas. Just... give the baby to Tiffany. Let her raise him."

The dam finally broke. I sat up, ignoring the agonizing pull in my abdomen, and screamed.

"In your dreams! This is fraud, Connor! I will take this to the board! I will go to the police! I will ruin both of you!"

Connor didn't even flinch. He just looked at me with pity. "Go ahead. Report me. But just know, if you do, youll never see that baby again. I have the resources, Paige. You have nothing."

I didn't believe him. Not at first. I tried to reach out to our "friends" in the gated community, people who had toasted to our happiness for years. But one by one, the doors closed. Some said they were too busy; others told me flat out they didn't want to get involved in "Connors private business."

By that afternoon, I was moved out of my private suite and onto a gurney in a crowded, noisy hallway. Connors doing.

I could handle the humiliation, but the baby couldn't. He cried incessantly for an hour. People walking by glared at me, muttering about "irresponsible mothers." One woman, frustrated by the noise, actually knocked a cup of hot coffee onto my bed and told me to "shut that brat up or get out."

When Connor finally returned, he saw me slumped over the edge of the bed, my gown soaked in blood and cold coffee.

"The regional board is coming through the hospital today for an inspection," he said, adjusting his tie. "Ill be introducing Tiffany as my wife to the directors. Stay quiet, Paige. Don't make a scene."

He gave me a perfunctory pat on the shoulder, promised hed "keep me safe" if I cooperated, and then took the baby away to be fed.

I collapsed. My entire life had been a carefully constructed trap.

Connor was the brilliant "Golden Boy" of the tech world. To marry me, hed supposedly defied his wealthy parents, enduring their disapproval for years. Hed bought me the designer bags, the Volvo, the house in the suburbs. Hed used his influence to get me a position at the citys top arts foundation. At every gala, hed bragged about my talent.

When Id had a health scare a few years back, hed stayed by my side, crying, telling the doctors hed give everything he owned to save me.

It was all a lie. Five years of a meticulously crafted fiction designed to keep me in place until I could produce a child for Tiffany.

But they weren't just taking the baby. They were stripping me of my dignity, my career, and my sanity to make room for her.

Connor eventually brought the baby back, seemingly wanting to watch me suffer a little longer. I gritted my teeth. I needed money. I needed to get to the Foundation and withdraw my year-end bonus so I could run.

But when I called the office, they told me Id been replaced. My bonus and my seat on the board for the upcoming gala had been handed to Tiffany.

I was blacklisted.

The baby started crying again. I begged Connors aunt, who was passing by, to help me soothe him. She just looked at me with cold eyes. "Paige, your 'services' aren't worth a tenth of what Connor brings to this family. Im not lifting a finger."

Desperate, I tried to check back into a room, but the nurse just shook her head. "Mr. Sterling withdrew the payment. If you want a bed, youll have to pay the private rate upfront."

I had thirty dollars in my pocket.

With my legs shaking and my body still reeling from the birth, I tucked the baby into his carrier and began the long walk home.

The front door to our house was ajar. My heart hammered against my ribsI thought wed been robbed. But then I heard the voices coming from the master bedroom.

"Connor... what if Paige finds us?"

It was Tiffany.

I pushed the door open. They were on the bedour bed. Tiffany was beneath him, the rhythmic creak of the mattress a sickening metronome.

When they saw me standing there, pale and trembling, Connor didn't pull away. He just looked over his shoulder and smirked. "Whats the matter, Paige? Youve been watching for a while. Want to join in?"

I felt the bile rise in my throat. I shielded the babys eyes, but Tiffany just laughed.

"Paige, your own mother told me... she said I was your best friend, and if I could satisfy Connors needs while you were 'out of commission,' it was better than him going to a stranger. Shes the one who pushed us together."

The room spun. I turned and ran out of the house, screaming at the top of my lungs for the neighbors to hear.

"Everyone! Look at him! Look at the great Connor Sterling! Hes a fraud! Hes been married to this woman the whole time! Theyve been lying to everyone! Hes using his position to threaten me and take my child!"

I was hysterical, my face flushed with a desperate, suicidal rage.

"Have you had enough?" Connor asked, stepping onto the porch with Tiffany, both of them fully dressed now. "Youre making a fool of yourself in front of the whole neighborhood."

I didn't care. If I was going down, I was taking them with me.

But before I could speak again, Tiffany stepped forward and slapped me across the face so hard my ears rang.

"Paige! I treated you like a sister, and youre trying to seduce my husband?" she cried, her eyes instantly welling with fake tears. "The board members are on their way here! Everyone knows how hard Connor works for this community, and youre trying to destroy him because youre mentally unstable?"

The neighbors, people Id hosted for dinner parties, started to gather.

"Shes always been trouble," one woman hissed. "I heard about what happened five years ago. Once a tramp, always a tramp."

"Connor is a saint for putting up with her," another added. "Get her out of here! Shes a disgrace to the neighborhood!"

Connor sighed, playing the part of the grieving, exhausted husband. "Everyone, I didn't want it to come to this. But for the sake of the truth... I swear, I have never been unfaithful to the values of this community. Paiges claims are the delusions of a woman whos been obsessed with me since I tried to help her out of the gutter."

My heart shattered. I looked at the crowd. I saw the woman whose son Id helped find when he got lost at the mall. I saw the kids Id bought expensive chocolates for. They were all looking at me with disgust.

"Slut!" someone yelled. A stoneor maybe a piece of gravelcaught me in the forehead.

The physical assault began. Not with fists at first, but with shoves. My hair was pulled. I felt my postpartum bandages shift, the scent of blood and sweat filling the air.

Tiffany looked at me with pure revulsion. "Oh my god, Paige. Did you just leak on the driveway? Thats disgusting."

The crowd backed away as if I were a leper. "Keep that filth away from us!"

I curled around the baby, shielding him with my broken body. I don't know how long it lasted. I felt my clothes tear, felt the sting of spit on my skin.

Connor finally walked over, looking down at me with mock pity. "Ill give you one last chance, Paige. Admit who you really are. Admit the truth."

I looked at my shoes, my vision blurring.

Suddenly, Tiffany lunged forward and snatched the baby from my arms. "Are you even a mother? The baby is choking and youre just sitting there!"

"Give him back!" I shrieked, reaching for my son.

Tiffany put her hand around the babys neck, her eyes cold as a snakes. "Stay back, or I swear, youll watch him take his last breath."

I froze. My heart stopped beating.

I watched, paralyzed, as Tiffany told the crowd that I had been abusing the child, that I had attacked her.

"Paige, youre insane! Youd hurt your own son just to get back at me?" Connor shouted. He kicked me in the side, sending me sprawling into the dirt, before picking Tiffany up and carrying her into the house.

I tried to crawl after them, but someone grabbed my collar. A sharp pain exploded at the back of my head.

The world went black.

When I opened my eyes, I was lying in a secluded patch of woods on the edge of town. My clothes were rags.

Panic surged through me. "Whos there? Wheres Connor?"

A group of menthe kind of men Connors "security" team usually handledwere standing around me. One of them reached out and touched my leg, his eyes gleaming with a sick hunger.

"You don't know? Your man sold you to us. Said we could have our way as long as you didn't come back."

Sold?

My body began to convulse with tremors. "No. Connor... he wouldn't. Not even him..."

But then, the truth hit me like a freight train.