I Found My Boyfriend Signing As Another Woman’s Husband Chapter 02

I Found My Boyfriend Signing As Another Woman’s Husband Chapter 02

I reached over and switched on the living room light.

The harsh white light flooded the room, leaving nowhere for him to hide.

Panic.

Guilt.

And the unmistakable look of someone caught red-handed.

He didn’t try to explain right away.

Instead, he walked over and crouched in front of me, trying to press his head into my palm.

I turned slightly and avoided him.

His forehead ended up resting against my knee. His voice came out low and muffled. “Clara, just hear me out. Her name is Kaylee Miller. She’s my advisor’s daughter. She’s had heart problems since she was a kid. Congenital heart failure.”

“The baby was an accident. About six months ago, I blacked out at a work dinner. When I woke up, I was in her bed. She used it to threaten me. Said her body couldn’t handle an abortion. My advisor has helped me a lot. I couldn’t just abandon her.”

“So I’ve just been playing along. Acting like her husband in public to keep her stable. Once the baby is born safely, I’ll cut ties with her completely.”

He lifted his head to look at me. His eyes were so red it looked like they might bleed. “Clara, I swear, I haven’t touched her since. That one time, I was set up. You’re the only one I love.”

I looked down at him.

At the exhaustion in his face.

At the veins standing out at his temples.

The man who had once run through the streets with me on his back.

The man kneeling in front of me now.

They were the same person.

And suddenly, I felt so tired.

“Keep her stable,” I repeated, my voice dry. “Does that require you to casually hold her waist and joke about teaching your son to beat people up for her?”

Caleb’s pupils shrank. “That was just for show…”

I let out a cold laugh. “Signing as her husband was for show too?”

He opened his mouth.

No words came out.

After a few seconds of silence, he yanked at his tie in frustration. His tone shifted, slipping into something I knew all too well. A condescending kind of helplessness. “Clara, you’ve always been the reasonable one. Why can’t you be understanding this time?”

Reasonable.

That word again.

My stomach twisted. “So being reasonable means I’m supposed to watch my boyfriend play husband to another woman?”

He pulled me into his arms. “I’ve already started looking at houses for us after we get married. Once she gives birth, I’ll cut her off immediately. Clara, you’re the only one I love.”

His chest vibrated against mine, his heartbeat loud and fast.

I didn’t struggle.

…

For the next two weeks, he tried to make it up to me.

He showed up at my workplace every day to pick me up on time. Brought me breakfast. Sat with me while I graded papers. Held me at night, talking about nothing and everything.

As if that pregnant woman had never existed.

And I tried to pretend she didn’t.

Until that weekend.

…

I was at the grocery store, pushing a cart past the baby section.

As I turned the corner, I stopped dead.

Caleb was standing there, holding a bottle of prenatal calcium supplements, carefully reading the label.

Kaylee stood beside him.

She rose onto her toes and smoothed out the crease on his coat collar with effortless familiarity.

That gesture was too natural.

Too practiced.

Not something you performed for strangers.

And the look on Caleb’s face…

It was relaxed. Indulgent. Unconsciously soft.

He had never looked at me like that.

I took a step back.

My cart knocked over a promotional display with a loud crash.

Clang.

Caleb looked up, the bottle slipping from his hand.

I turned and walked away.

Behind me, I heard his voice, low and urgent. “Clara! Clara, wait!”

Then Kaylee’s perfectly timed cry followed. “Caleb, I feel dizzy…”

The footsteps stopped.

I didn’t turn around.

But I knew.

He didn’t come after me.