Tyler Clark sat down across from me, pausing briefly as our eyes met.
I held back a bitter smile.
“Mr. Clark, are you sure the child is yours?”
Tyler’s expression shifted momentarily into shock when he saw me but quickly returned to his usual indifferent demeanor.
To the outside world, I was nothing more than a placeholder wife.
Just then, Mindy Benson, his childhood friend, noticed something was off.
“What’s going on, Tyler? Do you two know each other?”
Tyler awkwardly shook his head. “No, we don’t.”
With one sentence, he erased my existence as his wife in front of someone else.
I swallowed my anger, refusing to make a scene. This wasn’t the first time he had done this.
We’d been married for ten years, yet none of his friends knew I even existed. Only his family recognized me as his wife.
I took a deep breath and focused on the documents Mindy handed me, sorting through them before handing them back to her.
“We’ll need to do a preliminary prenatal exam to check the baby’s condition.”
As a doctor, I had a job to do.
After sending Mindy to the ultrasound room, I stood outside and turned to Tyler, my expression calm.
“When did you become a father?”
Now that we were alone, Tyler grabbed my hand, his tone softening.
“It’s not what you think,” he said. “Mindy is my childhood friend. Her family’s been a huge investor for me. She got duped by some guy, and I’m just helping her out. You know how important funding is for my next movie.”
He spoke earnestly, trying to explain. “Sarah, you have to understand.”
I pulled my hand away from his grip. “Understand what? That you’re playing dad to a child that isn’t even yours?”
My bluntness made Tyler frown. “It’s just a title. Why are you overreacting?”
“Just a title?” I laughed bitterly and asked, “Then what about our child? The one we lost?”
“What are you trying to say?”
Hearing footsteps nearby, Tyler lowered his voice and stared at me as he said, “You think I didn’t want it? Let’s be honest. Who’s really to blame?
“You’re in your mid-thirties now. Have some dignity. Why are you jealous of a girl in her twenties?”
I wanted to argue further, but just then, Mindy emerged from the ultrasound room. Swallowing my emotions, I reverted to a professional distance.
I watched silently as Tyler became doting. He gently placed a hand on her belly and spoke with a tenderness I hadn’t seen in years.
“Our little baby has to be born healthy, okay?”
It was a painful scene to witness.
