PART 2
Sophia agreed to meet me that afternoon at a quiet bakery in Lincoln Park.
She arrived wearing an oversized trench coat, dark sunglasses, and an expression of pure exhaustion. Her pregnancy was clearly visible.
We didn’t embrace, nor did she attempt any polite gestures.
“I know I have no right to ask you to trust me,” she began.
“We agree on that much.”
She looked down at her coffee cup. “I’ve been seeing Lukas for eight months.”
Eight months.
While I was still undergoing painful fertility procedures.
While he was holding my hand in doctor’s waiting rooms.
While he kept repeating that we would get through it together.
“You knew he was married,” I said.
“Yes.”
“So don’t act like a victim here.”
Sophia nodded slowly. “I won’t. I made my choice. But he swore to me that you two were emotionally separated—that you only stayed together for financial reasons.”
I let out a bitter laugh. “We sleep in the same bed.”
Her face went pale. “He said you had no intimacy.”
“We were at a fertility clinic together six weeks ago.”
Sophia gasped slightly, pulling out her phone. “You need to see this.”
She showed me text threads with Lukas.
“When the baby is born, Evelyn will end up accepting it.”
Another:
“She has better health insurance and the house is big. It makes sense for the baby to be there at first.”
Another:
“My mom says if Evelyn gets attached, it’ll be impossible for her to leave.”
A wave of nausea hit me.
Our home was entirely in my name. I had purchased it prior to our marriage, and we had a prenuptial agreement maintaining separate property.
My job also provided the high-tier health insurance policy.
Everything snapped into place.
“And you were just going to go along with this?” I asked.
“I didn’t know he wanted to put the baby in your house. Lukas told me he would file for divorce before the birth.”
“And now?”
Sophia rested a hand over her stomach. “Now I think he intended to keep us both in separate boxes.”
She pulled up a message from Ingrid:
“If Evelyn suspects anything, remind her about the loan documents. She won’t have any ground to fight back after that.”
“What loan documents?” I asked.
“I was hoping you’d know.”
I didn’t.
But I immediately remembered the bank envelopes Lukas kept locked in his desk drawer, and a tax document he had insisted on handling entirely by himself.
Before I stood up, Sophia added one more thing. “There’s something else. I was ending a relationship with an ex when Lukas and I started seeing each other. The timeline was very close. I always assumed the baby was Lukas’s because the weeks lined up better, but…”
I looked at her. “Are you saying it might not be his?”
“I’m saying we never did a paternity test.”
The statement hung heavy between us. It wasn’t an answer yet, just another crack in the foundation.
By 2:00 PM, I was sitting in the office of Laura Medina, a veteran family law and asset protection attorney.
I laid out every detail.
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