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Part 3: The VIP Room

Desmond wasn’t in London.

I had previously installed a stealth location-sharing protocol on his encrypted corporate iPad. He was three miles away, at an ultra-exclusive, subterranean VIP club in SoHo.

I knew exactly what I was walking into, but I needed to hear it.

I bypassed the bouncers using my status as his wife, slipping down the dimly lit, velvet-lined hallway. I found his private lounge. The heavy mahogany door was cracked open just enough for the music and voices to bleed out.

Desmond was sitting on a leather sofa, surrounded by his wealthy, arrogant inner circle. He was holding Camille tightly in his lap. She was wearing a sheer, form-fitting cocktail dress that left nothing to the imagination.

“Desmond, man,” one of his venture capitalist friends laughed, swirling a glass of scotch. “I heard Aria had a miscarriage today. Why aren’t you playing the devoted husband by her bedside? How are you in the mood to be drinking in SoHo?”

In the past, if anyone had spoken about me with such casual disrespect, Desmond would have ruined them.

Now, he just rolled his eyes, taking a drag from a cigar.

“Don’t mention it,” Desmond groaned. “I don’t know why, but lately, every time I look at Aria, I just feel suffocated. She’s so heavy. So serious. I feel like I’m walking on eggshells. If I say one wrong thing, she spirals into this depressive state about her mother.”

He exhaled a plume of smoke. “I come home to relax, not to play therapist. Living with her feels like carrying a boulder. If I keep this up for a few more years, I’ll lose my damn mind.”

The friends erupted into laughter.

“You spent ten million dollars chasing her five years ago!” another friend mocked. “Already changed your tune?”

“It’s not changing my tune,” Desmond smirked, running a hand up Camille’s thigh. “I’m just… bored. I won the prize, and now it’s sitting on the shelf collecting dust.”

“I heard a baby fixes everything,” the first friend noted. “Why’d you want her empty?”

Desmond scoffed. “I’m in my prime. I don’t want a screaming infant ruining my sleep schedule or my ability to travel on a whim. Children are a liability.”

“Is that why you brought the new favorite toy tonight?” the friend leered at Camille. “She’s a knockout. I bet the bedroom is wild. No wonder you don’t want to go back to the boring wife.”

“That’s just human nature,” Desmond chuckled, kissing Camille’s neck. “Once you get used to wagyu steak, going back to unseasoned chicken is unbearable.”

I backed away from the door, slipping out of the club and into the freezing, rain-slicked Manhattan night.

By the time I returned to the penthouse, I was shivering violently, a fever spiking in my blood.

My phone buzzed. It was an anonymous number, but I knew who it was.

It was a video file.

The thumbnail showed the floor-to-ceiling windows of a luxury hotel suite. Two figures were completely entwined on the bed.

I hit play.

“Desmond, who is the person you love? Look at me,” Camille’s voice panted in the video.

“It’s you,” Desmond groaned.

“No, call me by my name.”

“Camille. I love you, Camille.”

“Can I have a child for you, Desmond?”

“Whatever you want, baby. Anything you want.”

The video ended. A text message immediately followed.

[Do you know why you only got pregnant once in five years, Aria? Because the pills Desmond gave you were contraceptives I bought for him. He wouldn’t allow you to ruin his life with a child, but he begged me to have his. I’m pregnant, Aria. You lost.]

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