Bury Him in Lies

The day they discharged me from the postpartum recovery center, Everett came to take me home. He brought my favorite chestnut cake. And divorce papers.

His first love was flying back into town that night. The one that got away. Gia. I read through the agreement. The company went to him. Everything else went to me and the baby.

Every house. Every account. Perfect. Exactly what I wanted. What he didn't know: Months earlier, I was the one who'd picked up his scans. Lung cancer. Midstage.

The shadow on the film was huge, impossible to miss. Treat it now, the report said. In black and white. I gave it to him untouched. He never turned a single page.

Those days his heart was already at the airport, already reaching for the woman he'd wanted half his life. Left like this, he wouldn't see the other side of winter.

So if all four years had ever made me was her standin, then fine. I'd give him what he wanted.

I'd hand this dying man back to her, along with every scrap of tenderness he'd never once spared me. I let a little hurt show on my face. "Everett.

We built this company together, year after year. You're really in this much of a hurry to cut me out?" He held out the pen. "You know how it is.

I started that company to make Gia's dream come true. So everything but the company, it's all yours." I took the pen and signed before he could change his mind.

He looked almost startled. "Four years, and you don't feel a thing?" I glanced down at the baby in my arms and smiled. "I hope you and Miss Vance have a long, happy life together." Chapter 1 Straight from the recovery center, Everett drove me to the courthouse.

He couldn't get there fast enough. And the moment the divorce was final, his face broke into something I hadn't seen in a long time. He was happy.

He glanced down at me. "I'll stop by the house later. Pack up, move my things out." "Sure. No problem." Calm. Warm. Easy.

He studied me. "You seem different." "Different how?" I tilted my head, all smiles. "I thought you'd—" "Make a scene? Cling to your arm and beg you not to go?

Hold the baby up and cry?" I smiled at him. "Go pack. Gia's flight gets in tonight, doesn't it? Wouldn't want you running late." By the time I got home the light had gone gray.

The nanny had already settled the baby down, his breathing soft and even in the dark.

Everett stared at him, a little lost. "Have you thought about a name?" The fake tenderness almost made me laugh.

His heart was already at the airport, and here he stood, playing the devoted father. I kept my voice even. "Eli. The one and only.

All my heart, no halves." A pause. "Eli Sloan." His brow pinched. "Sloan? He's a Lang." I smiled. "A Lang?

The papers say he's mine." I let it sit a beat. "You'll always be his father, though.

When he's older, if you want to see him, I won't stand in your way." Everett sighed, and at last something like guilt crossed his face. "Thank you, Vera. I'll pay child support.

Generously." "Don't bother." I shut him down flat. "I can afford him. Go on. Go chase your own happiness." He checked his phone. "Okay. Then... goodbye." "Mm.

Goodbye." I gave him a little wave and eased the door shut. There. I was finally rid of him. Rid of a man who wouldn't live to see the spring. And he had no idea I knew.

Chapter 2 The second he was gone, I blocked him. Every number, every account. Then I put all three houses on the market, priced five percent under to move them fast.

They sold quickly. Two of them paid cash for a house in a top school district, no mortgage. The rest I left in the bank drawing interest. Liquid. Ready.

Waiting for the right moment to come back swinging. Then an unknown number called. "Is this Vera?

It's Gia." Why was Gia calling me? "Speaking," I said. "What do you need?" Her voice came out tight and panicked. "It's Everett. He's been in a car accident.

My blood type doesn't match his. Could you come donate?" Was she serious? Everett and I had been divorced for almost six months.

Word was he'd married her the day after our papers cleared. Now there was blood on the line, and all of a sudden he remembered I existed. What did they take me for?

A walking blood bank? "Sorry, Miss Vance. Everett and I are nothing to each other now.

You've got the wrong person." A little catch in her throat, and then the soft, wounded whimper. "But I only just moved back. I don't really know anyone here.

You're the only person I've got. Please. Please save him." Just moved back? The only person she had? The nerve on this woman. "Miss Vance.

You've been gone a long time, so maybe you don't know how it works here. Last I checked, Everett doesn't have some rare blood type. The blood bank is full of it.

You should be calling a doctor. Not me." I hung up. Everett and I met through a matchmaker. I was twentysix, and my family had started in on me to settle down.

Of every man they lined up for me, he was the best of the lot. Polished, puttogether, a gentleman down to the smallest gesture. "How many relationships have you had?" I asked him.

He ducked his head, a little shy. "Honest truth? You'd be my first." "Your first?" He caught the way my eyes went wide. "Is that so hard to believe?" Then he came after me, hard.

He hadn't lied to me. Not exactly. He just never mentioned the girl who'd been living in his heart the whole time. The one that got away.

After the wedding, we built a filmandTV production company from the ground up. A few of the young actors we'd signed were starting to break out.

When we registered the company, I asked him what we should name it.

It was out of his mouth before I'd finished the question. "Gia Media." It would be three years before I learned where that name came from. That night, he came home wrecked.

The driver had to haul him up the stairs. Three years together, and I'd never once seen him drink himself that far under. And he kept saying it. Over and over. "Gia.

Gia, I miss you so much." Chapter 3 Gia? Who was Gia? I ran through every possibility I could think of. I braced for the worst.

He was up all night, throwing up again and again, and I sat with him through every hour of it. By morning he found me slumped against the side of the bed.

He touched my cheek, something tender in it. "You must be worn out, babe." I smiled. "You kept calling a name last night. Gia. Over and over.

Who's Gia?" He hadn't expected me to come at it headon. He shot straight up in the bed. It took him a long time to speak. "It's not what you think.

Gia and me." "Then what is it?" I asked. He lit a cigarette. "We grew up together. She moved overseas a few years back. But don't worry.

Nothing ever happened between us." The disappointment went through me from scalp to sole.

I looked at the man I'd shared a bed with for threeplus years, and I barely recognized him. I gave a cold little laugh. "So all those trips to England, year after year.

Business, right? You were going to see her." He looked down and didn't answer. For a long, long time. After that, we were two strangers under one roof.

Fate has a sick sense of humor. Two months later, a routine checkup turned up a surprise. I was pregnant. For the baby's sake, I thought about giving him a chance.

I didn't want my child coming into the world without a father. Four, five months along, I brought him the ultrasound.

His whole face lit up. "Something this big and you didn't tell me sooner?" "Do you even care?" I shot back. "Of course I care!" He swept me up, beaming. "You and this baby are the most important people in my life." I looked at him.

He was no kind of husband. But maybe he could still be a halfway decent father. The bigger the hope, the harder the fall. He paid for the best private hospital in the city.

As my due date closed in, I spent whole days flat on my back in that bed. Everett rarely came. There was always a reason. "With you out, the whole company's on my shoulders.

I'm slammed. I'll come see you when things let up." The day I delivered, I nearly didn't make it. More than a dozen hours in that delivery room. Everett never showed.

Afterward I lay there, wrung dry. His assistant was the one standing by the bed. "You did amazing. Congratulations." I managed a smile. "Where's Mr.

Lang?" She scratched her head, awkward. "Mr. Lang said an important client flew in today, so he went to the airport to meet them.

He'll come by as soon as he's done." I knew every important client that company had. I lifted my head and looked at her. "What important client?

More important than his own wife having his baby?" The girl started to stammer. "Mr. Lang— he didn't really say. You just gave birth, you're still so weak.

Please, get some rest." Chapter 4 It was three days before Everett showed his face.

He came with a huge bouquet and held it out to me. "You've had it rough, babe." Then he leaned down and kissed my forehead. Then he looked over at our son. "That's my boy.

He's got my face." I looked at him, and my stomach turned. Something I'd been holding back for weeks tore loose. The tears came and wouldn't stop. They dripped onto the blanket.

It startled him. I sobbed and got the words out anyway. "Everett, where have you been these last few days? You have no idea. I was in labor more than twelve hours.

I almost died on that table. You told me the baby and I were the most important people in your life. So why couldn't you just be there?" By then I could barely speak.

But I made myself cry louder. Let him watch the whole performance. It was the only way to twist the guilt in deeper.

Weak as I already was, the crying drained the color from my face. "I can't stop you from carrying someone else in your heart. If I'm just in the way now, fine. I'll stop being Mrs.

Lang. But when I needed you most, couldn't you have spared me and the baby a little of that love? Even a little." His brow knotted, his face gone grave. "I'm sorry, Vera.

This is my fault." I turned away, wiped my face dry, and forced out a small smile. "Don't apologize. You're my husband. My baby's father.

The man I love most." The words made my own skin crawl. On Everett, they worked like a charm.

After that, Everett started coming by the room all the time, the picture of a good father. Only, every time he came, I cried. Cried about how hard it had all been.

Cried about the years I'd poured into building the company at his side. Cried about how much I loved him. Because I knew his type. Soon enough he'd have his fill of it.

And then he'd only ache harder for the one that got away, remembering how effortless she'd been to love. Every tear pushed him one step closer to asking for the divorce himself.

It was all a way of working him. Pile the guilt high, so that when he finally brought me those papers, he'd feel worse and hand over more.

What Everett didn't know: every single meeting with her these past months, I knew about. From the moment I learned Gia existed, I'd put a private investigator on it.

Every time her plane touched down, I knew. Finally, after forty straight days of my crying, Everett broke. He snarled at me. "Vera, do you ever stop? The same lines, day after day.

You might not be sick of it, but I am. How did I never see this side of you? You're impossible. Look around this whole hospital. You see anyone else carrying on like this?

Like some screeching shrew." Me? Impossible? A shrew? I swallowed the rage and kept my voice low. "What do you want?" He was silent for a long moment. "Let's divorce.

I'll bring the papers tomorrow." Then he turned and strode out of the room