When you picture betrayal, you never imagine it happening in your own living room—while you’re swollen with life, your feet aching, and your heart still stupidly in love.
At seven months pregnant, carrying twins, I should’ve been picking out names and tiny onesies, not planning my next move like a chess game against a pair of sociopaths.
It started with a ping. I was eating a peanut butter sandwich I’d been craving for days when I got the message. From Veronica Tisdale. My husband Eric’s boss. I remember thinking, Weird. Why is she messaging me directly? I figured it was work-related. Some boring office update. Maybe he left his laptop again.
I tapped the notification.
And the world shifted.
It was a picture. Eric. Shirtless. Smirking in some sunlit bedroom I didn’t recognize. The caption?
“It’s time for you to know. He’s mine.”
I blinked. Read it again. I felt my stomach lurch—but not from the pregnancy. My sandwich slid off my lap as I stood, shaking. I called Eric. No answer. Called again. Voicemail.
That night, I sat on our sofa, heart pounding, belly taut under my sweatshirt. The second the key turned in the lock, I stood. My breath hitched. But he wasn’t alone.
Veronica walked in first, strutting like a runway model in heels too sharp for a Wednesday night. Eric followed behind her, looking more annoyed than ashamed.
“Lauren,” he said, like he was trying to break news to a child. “Let’s be adults. I love Veronica. I’m leaving you.”
I stared at him. His words didn’t land. I was still trying to make sense of how we got from diaper registries to this.
Then Veronica added, “And since this is his apartment, you’ll need to be out by the end of the week.”
I could feel my face burning. “I have nowhere to go! I’m carrying HIS children!”
She tilted her head, like I’d said something adorable. “Twins, right? I’ll rent you a house. Cover your expenses… if you give me one of the babies.”
I blinked. “What?”
She smiled, like this was a reasonable discussion. “Twins are exhausting. But I want a child—without ruining my body. I’ll raise the baby as mine. You get stability. It’s a fair deal.”
Eric nodded. Just nodded. Like this was a Craigslist barter.
I wanted to scream, to throw something, but instead, I made myself smile. A tearful, tight-lipped smile.
“Deal,” I said softly. “But I have one condition.”
Veronica’s lips curled. “Smart girl. What’s the condition?”
I looked down at my belly, ran my hand across the curve of it, and made a silent vow.
“You don’t get to choose which baby. That’s up to me.”
She exchanged a glance with Eric, then shrugged. “Fine. Doesn’t matter. They’ll be the same anyway.”
Oh, Veronica.
You had no idea.
The moment they left, I got to work. I called my sister, Molly, who lived three hours away in Charleston. I hadn’t told her much lately—we’d grown a little distant, mostly because she never liked Eric. Now I knew why.
When I told her everything, she didn’t hesitate.
“You’re not staying in that apartment another night. I’m coming to get you.”
By midnight, I was in the passenger seat of her SUV, belly pressed up against the dashboard. We didn’t stop talking the entire drive. Plans started forming in that car, between sips of decaf coffee and silent curses at the man who betrayed me.
Over the next two months, Molly helped me with everything. Doctor’s appointments, setting up the nursery in her guest room, even dealing with Eric’s legal threats when I “ghosted” him. Apparently, disappearing with his babies was “abandonment.”
But I wasn’t hiding.
I was building something stronger.
When I finally went into labor, it was long and brutal. The kind that leaves your body hollowed out but your heart full. I gave birth to two perfect boys. Identical. Healthy. Screaming their lungs out.
I named them Noah and Dean. And I knew what I had to do.
I waited six days before texting Eric.
“Boys are born. Healthy. Ready to talk.”
He responded in five minutes.
“About time. When can we come pick up the one that’s ours?”
The one that’s ours. Like he was ordering from a catalog.
“Let’s meet in Charleston. Neutral ground. I’ll bring both babies.”
They agreed. Veronica even said she’d bring a lawyer to finalize everything “cleanly.” The gall.
When the day came, I arrived at the café early, Noah and Dean bundled in the double stroller. My heart thudded in my chest as I saw them walk in—Eric in a blazer too tight for his midlife crisis gut, Veronica wearing sunglasses indoors like she was hiding from paparazzi.
Their lawyer—a thin man with a tired briefcase—sat beside them.
I slid an envelope across the table.
Veronica raised an eyebrow. “What’s this?”
I kept my face calm. “You asked for one of the babies. I brought birth certificates. But you’ll see something important.”
She opened it and paled. Her lips pressed into a hard line. Eric grabbed the papers, scanned them, then looked at me in confusion.
“They’re not both mine?” he asked, eyes wide.
I shook my head slowly. “One is yours. One isn’t.”
Silence.
I let it sit.
“You cheated?” Eric hissed.
I looked him dead in the eye. “You left me. For your boss. While I was pregnant. And you have the audacity to talk about cheating?”
He stood abruptly. “Which one is mine?”
I smiled sweetly. “That’s the thing. I won’t tell you. And I’m not giving up either one.”
Veronica shot to her feet. “We had a deal!”
I laughed. “You offered to buy a baby like you were shopping for shoes. You thought you had a deal. But you never had me.”
The lawyer cleared his throat. “If paternity is uncertain—”
“I’ll see you in court,” I said, standing. “But just know—no judge in this country is going to rip apart two bonded twins based on a man who abandoned their mother in her third trimester.”
They screamed legal threats as I walked out. But I didn’t care.
I had my boys. My freedom. My sister. And a new job offer from a woman who ran a family law practice in Charleston. Turns out, she’d been at the same café and overheard everything. Said I had fire. Said she wanted that kind of fighter on her team.
It’s been nine months since that day. Veronica and Eric filed for custody, but the case fizzled when their lawyer mysteriously withdrew. Rumor has it Veronica was under investigation at work. Something about misappropriation of company funds. I didn’t ask.
Noah and Dean are crawling now. They light up every room with their matching grins. And as for me? I smile more these days. Laugh louder. Love deeper. Because sometimes rock bottom is the foundation you didn’t know you needed.
People ask if I ever think about what could’ve been.
I do.
And I thank God it didn’t happen that way.
So if you’re reading this, and someone tried to break you—just know, the sharpest glass comes from shattered things. You can still cut through the lies.
Would you have made the same choice I did?
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