So Much For That
After Charlie’s childhood best friend drove her company into the ground, he wanted to take the hundred thousand dollars I had saved for me and our baby and give it to her.
I begged him to give the money back, but all he said was, “Zoe will earn it back. You need to think long-term, Anna, not act like some paranoid miser.”
When I demanded his friend sign a promissory note, he called me cold and heartless.
Later, when she cried that she’d lost all the money and was going to starve, Charlie held her and promised to take care of her for the rest of her life.
I quietly packed my bags and called my father.
“Dad, you were right. Charlie is a piece of work. I’m coming home to take over the family business.”
Just as I hung up, Charlie walked out of the guest room and said softly, “Anna, go make some soup for Zoe. She’ll be hungry when she wakes up.”
I ignored him and headed for our bedroom. His face darkened, and he blocked my path.
“Anna, it’s a hundred thousand dollars. Are you going to keep this up? Don’t you have an ounce of compassion?” he boomed. “If you’re not going to listen, then get out.”
His voice was so loud it woke Zoe. She emerged from the room, draping herself over Charlie’s shoulder and shooting me a look of pure disdain.
“Seriously, Charlie? You were the king of campus from high school through grad school. Your family’s well-off. How did you end up with such a cheapskate?”
Charlie sighed, his gaze softening as he looked at Zoe. “Not everyone can be as generous and easy-going as you.” He glanced at my stomach. “And now, with a baby on the way, it’s too late for regrets.”
I clutched my abdomen, watching the raw impatience on Charlie’s face. Could I even have this baby? My last check-up hadn’t been good. The doctor said it was a high-risk pregnancy and that the fetus was struggling. To carry this child to term and ensure its health afterward—from prenatal care to the first three years—would cost at least a hundred thousand dollars, with no guarantee of a healthy baby.
And now, every day, I could feel the tiny life inside me growing weaker. That hundred thousand dollars was gone.
My father would only help me if I divorced Charlie. When I’d ignored his objections and married him, my father had forbidden me from ever mentioning our family’s wealth, warning that it would cost Charlie his job.
I was only three months along. Maybe it was better not to bring an unhealthy child into the world to suffer, especially with a father like this.
But the thing that cut the deepest was that Charlie knew. He knew that money was meant to save my life and our child’s life, and he still gave it to Zoe without a second thought. If two lives—mine and our baby’s—meant less to him than Zoe, then there was no reason for us to stay.
I turned to grab my suitcase from the bedroom. Zoe lunged forward and snatched it away from me, her voice a shrill command.
“Stop it, Anna! Don’t you dare pull this ‘running away from home’ crap to make Charlie feel bad.” Her tone shifted, becoming theatrical. “I’ll go out drinking with my clients tonight. I, Zoe Archer, will get that money back for you if I have to drink myself into a hospital bed, okay?”
Charlie, who never set foot in the kitchen, heard the commotion and rushed out. Zoe had changed into a flimsy, black silk slip dress and was heading for the door. She patted Charlie’s shoulder as she passed.
“Don’t worry, buddy. I won’t let you down. I’m going to go earn that money right now. You just handle your wife.”
Charlie panicked and threw the deadbolt on the front door.
A tiny flame of hope flickered in my chest. Was he afraid I would leave? He strode toward me, and I held my breath, waiting for an apology.
Instead, his voice was laced with ice. “Anna, you are the most vicious woman I have ever met. You’re a woman, yet you’re trying to force Zoe to sell her body to pay you back?”
Before I could even process his words, he snatched my purse from my shoulder and tossed it directly into the fireplace.
He glared at me, his eyes cold. “Let’s see how far you get without your ID or credit cards.”
Then he turned to Zoe, his voice melting into a gentle murmur. “Zoe, we’ve known each other our whole lives. You’re more than family to me. Don’t worry about the money. We can sell the house, sell the car if we have to. Now, go change. I’ll take you out for a nice dinner.” He glanced back at the fireplace. “The smoke from that burning plastic is probably toxic. We can’t eat here.”
I scrambled to the hearth, trying to retrieve my purse, but it was already a molten ruin. My driver’s license, my last few hundred dollars in cash, all gone. The screen of my phone was cracked and blackened from the heat. Fearing it might explode, I rushed to the kitchen for a pair of BBQ tongs and carefully fished it out.
As Charlie and Zoe left, he deliberately locked the door from the outside—three full turns of the key. I was trapped.
Had he forgotten? I hadn't eaten either. The morning sickness was relentless, and I was too weak to cook. We had no snacks in the house; I’d been too sick to go shopping.
All I could do was lie in bed, my stomach cramping with hunger while waves of nausea washed over me. I wanted to make a simple bowl of soup, but I didn’t have the strength.
2
I knew something was terribly wrong when I felt a warm gush and the coppery smell of blood. With the last of my strength, I crawled to the window.
Seeing a light on in the apartment below, I grabbed a long laundry pole from the balcony and started banging on my neighbor’s window, screaming for help.
The woman downstairs, Mrs. Gable, knew me. She knew about my difficult pregnancy.
“Anna, honey, don’t panic!” she yelled up. “I’m calling 911 right now! I’ll get the building manager to open your door!”
Ten minutes later, the paramedics and the manager were there. The door was open. I frantically borrowed Mrs. Gable's phone and called Charlie. I had no money, and he had just received a bonus of nearly twenty thousand dollars.
He picked up on the second ring. “Charlie, you need to come back,” I gasped. “I’m bleeding. The paramedics said I might lose the baby.”
I heard Zoe snort in the background. “God, Anna, you sound like one of those desperate housewives in a soap opera, using the baby to get your husband’s attention.”
The blood was flowing faster now. I screamed into the phone, all pretense of civility gone. “Have you no shame? He’s a married man! Stop clinging to him!”
Zoe didn’t reply. She just tossed the phone aside, but the line stayed open. I could hear music blasting—a karaoke bar. It was Charlie and Zoe, singing a duet of some classic rock anthem about friendship. I could just make out the lyrics.
One word, one life, one beer, one ride-or-die…
I screamed Charlie’s name, but he couldn’t hear me over the music.
Then, their voices rose together in a final, triumphant chorus. Through the hurt, through the pain, through it all, I’ll remain…
I hung up the phone.
I shouldn’t have held out any hope. For Charlie, friendship would always come first, even if it meant sacrificing his wife and child.
But were they just friends?
The sobs finally broke through, raw and uncontrollable. I called my father. He promised to have a friend in the city bring me cash immediately and said he’d have all my documents replaced within a day.
Only then did I let the paramedics load me onto the ambulance.
The surgery was under general anesthesia, but I still felt a deep, crushing pain in my chest. Charlie had been so excited about this baby. We’d picked out names for a boy and a girl. He knew how dangerous this pregnancy was, but the moment Zoe needed anything, he forgot everything else.
I always thought that once the baby was born, once we had more time, he would see how much I loved him, how warm our home could be. I thought he would eventually choose us over her.
How naive I had been.
When I woke up, Charlie was sitting by my bedside. But Zoe was lying at the foot of the bed, under the covers. No wonder my back was so cold; her icy feet were pressed against my waist.
I shoved her legs away.
Zoe’s eyes fluttered open. She shot me a glare, then kicked me hard under the blankets before dramatically tumbling onto the floor.
Charlie leaped to his feet and scooped her up. “Who kicked me?” Zoe mumbled, pretending to be half-asleep. “Jeez, what a jerk.”
He cradled her in his arms, his face a mask of fury as he turned on me. “Anna, do my friends mean nothing to you? Zoe was worried sick about you. She’s exhausted, but she stayed here to keep you company. I saw she was cold, so I put her in your bed to warm up.”
I almost choked on my own rage. Even a person with zero common sense knows that recovering from a miscarriage requires rest and warmth. And Charlie wanted me, the one who had just lost a child, to be his friend’s personal bed warmer?
“Get out, Charlie!” I screamed. “I want a divorce!”
Zoe scrambled behind him, pointing an accusing finger at me. “Anna, I won’t hold it against you for kicking me out of bed. But if you talk to my best friend like that again, I won’t be so forgiving.” She looked me up and down. “Who do you think you are? You’re just some girl from out of town. Charlie married you, he supports you, and what do you do? You deliberately get rid of the baby he wanted so badly. He’s been standing here for hours, and this is how you treat him?”
Her eyes darted to Charlie, then back to me. “And who was that man who paid for your surgery? You’ve been seeing him on the side, haven’t you? That’s why you got rid of the baby!”
I pushed myself up, grabbed the bowl of fruit from the nightstand, and hurled it at her.
Charlie pulled Zoe into his arms, catching the fruit with his other hand. He looked at me, his face etched with profound disappointment. “Anna, are you lashing out because you’ve been caught?”
“Haven’t I been good to you? You were the only woman I ever loved, the only one I wanted to marry. Why would you betray me?”
His words hung in the air. The two expectant mothers in the neighboring beds and their husbands were now staring at me with open contempt.
Zoe shot me a triumphant smirk. “Come on, buddy,” she said, pulling Charlie’s arm. “Let me buy you breakfast. As for your wife, let her stay here and think about what she’s done.”
Charlie sighed, patting Zoe’s back. “Friends are so much better than wives. At least you care about me.”
3
My hands clenched into fists under the blanket. Had he forgotten? He used to have terrible stomach problems. For three years, I cooked him special, nutritious meals every single day until he was better. His “friend,” on the other hand, only ever dragged him out for heavy drinking and greasy food—the very combination that had once landed him in the hospital with a perforated ulcer. I was the one who nursed him back to health. He’d forgotten all of it.
Exhausted, I drifted off to sleep. Less than an hour later, I was shaken awake. It was Charlie, his face a cold mask.
“Hey. I’ve signed the discharge papers. Get up. Someone else needs the bed.”
I clutched my aching stomach. “Why? I’m not well enough to leave.”
“It’s just a miscarriage, what’s the big deal?” he said impatiently. “I got a refund on the hospital fees. I need to go with Zoe to a meeting with a client. If we can land this contract, it might save her company.”
I stared at him, bewildered. “What does that have to do with me?”
Zoe waltzed in, dangling a new designer handbag. “We were five thousand dollars short for this little gift for the client, so we had to use your hospital deposit.” She gave me a condescending look. “And don’t look at me like that. I know your lover boy paid for it. When I make my money back, I’ll pay you both back. Not that I want your dirty money, but Charlie spent his whole bonus trying to cheer me up last night, and I can’t let my buddy down.”
Charlie grabbed her arm. “Let’s go, we’re going to be late.” At the door, he seemed to remember something. He pulled a hundred-dollar bill from his wallet and threw it at me. It fluttered onto my face.
“I’m going with Zoe. Get yourself home. We’ll deal with you and that man of yours when I get back.”
The moment they left, my father’s friend, Arthur, arrived with my father himself. I broke down, sobbing in my dad’s arms as I told him everything. He immediately hired a lawyer to handle the divorce, worried that Charlie would harass me while I was trying to recover. My father chartered a private jet to take me home.
Just as we were about to take off, my father’s assistant came aboard with a gift bag.
“Mr. Thorne, a contractor downstairs asked me to give this to your daughter. He’s hoping to secure his bid for this year’s project.” He presented the bag to me. “Perhaps you’d like to see if you like it?”
I recognized it immediately. It was the same bag Zoe had been holding in the hospital. So, this was her brilliant plan: buy a gift to bribe my father for a business opportunity. What a coincidence.
I looked at the assistant. “Tell the person who sent this that the money used to purchase it is tainted. We will never do business with them.”
He nodded, understanding, and made the call before we took off.
Back home, I found hundreds of missed calls and a flood of messages from Charlie on my old phone.
Anna, have you lost your mind? All I did was lend some money to my childhood best friend. Why are you demanding a divorce?
Is this because of that guy who paid your hospital bill? I saw his car, his watch. They’re worth millions.
Are you leaving me because you think I’m poor? I’ve worked my ass off for you! I went from making nothing to a six-figure salary in three years! I’ve supported you this whole time!
I tossed the phone in a drawer and started using a new one.
He wasn’t wrong. He was incredibly driven. Most of his peers were still struggling to find stable jobs, but he had already made a name for himself in the city. When Zoe wasn’t around, he was a good partner. I cooked, he cleaned. He was frugal, didn’t smoke or drink, and spent less than five hundred dollars a month on himself. I earned a decent salary, and we managed to save almost everything, putting away a hundred thousand dollars in our joint account in just three years.
I had been so close to proudly telling my father that I could make it without his help.
But the moment Zoe reappeared, none of it mattered. Charlie would give her everything without a second thought. Even if nothing physical had ever happened between them, I couldn’t accept a husband who valued his friendship, his “bro code,” more than his wife.
A week later, my father, using methods I didn't ask about, got Charlie to sign the divorce papers. The decree was finalized. To celebrate my return, my dad decided to throw a massive gala and publicly announce that he was transferring fifty percent of the company’s shares to me. It also meant officially changing my surname from my mother's back to my father's.
Seeing the silver in his hair, I agreed.
Because I was still recovering, I was sensitive to the cold. Even though the occasion called for a gown, I opted for a chic, custom-tailored Chanel suit. It was warmer.
I was standing in a quiet corner, nibbling on a piece of cake, when a hand clamped down on my arm.
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