During Labor, My Husband Left Me Alone, and Three Days Later He Stopped at the Door and Lost the Color in His Face

The pain struck me so hard that I almost dropped the phone from my hand, while Rowan’s voice turned out to be colder than the cold floor of the maternity ward.

“Take care of yourself, Phoebe. Stop dramatizing,” he told me and ended the call.

At that moment he was at his mother’s birthday.

For three seconds I stared at the darkened screen. I could not believe that the man I had expected beside me for nine months now preferred to run away from me during the most important minutes.

The duty nurse rushed toward me. She was holding a wheelchair, and warm liquid was already completely soaking my dress.

“Is someone coming to you?” she asked me.

I looked at the phone.

“Not my husband,” I answered and clenched my teeth, because a new contraction had begun.

I was not twenty-eight weeks pregnant, but thirty-eight weeks. For months Rowan had repeated to me that we would welcome the child together. But Celine, his mother, decided that her sixtieth anniversary was the “only real family evening.”

Apparently, the birth of our child was not.

In the hospital reception, under the white lights, I called again. This time he answered me against a background of music and laughter.

“Rowan, my water broke. I have contractions every four minutes.”

Celine’s cheerful voice sounded through the phone.

“Tell her, women have been giving birth for thousands of years,” she said. “Let her not ruin everything because of one evening.”

Rowan laughed.

“See? My mother understands. Call a taxi.”

Something inside me suddenly fell silent. I no longer begged him.

“Okay,” I told him quietly. “Enjoy the cake.”

Then I called the only person I had been avoiding calling for almost two years.

“Dad,” I said when he answered.

He heard only my breathing and immediately asked me:

“Where are you?”

Twenty minutes later, Gideon Sterling entered through the hospital door. He was wearing an old wool coat and holding a small wooden cane, on the top of which an elephant was carved. He was accompanied by neither a driver, nor security, nor a secretary. No one would have thought that newspapers printed his photograph together with the words—founder, investor, and billionaire.

Rowan knew the name Gideon Sterling. He simply did not know that he was my father.

When I met Rowan, I used my mother’s surname. I wanted money to have no place in our relationship. When he mocked the “children of rich idlers,” I said nothing. When Celine referred to my father as “some forgotten salesman,” I also remained silent.

That night my father did not let go of my hand for fourteen hours. Rowan did not come.

At four seventeen in the morning my child was born. My father held Leo to his chest and quietly cried.

“Perfect,” he whispered to the baby.

And I realized that the last thin thread of my marriage had also broken.

At that same moment the phone lit up.

“Mother really liked the watch. I’ll come on Monday. Don’t start a new fight.”

I took a picture and saved it. Rowan still thought I was the woman who cried, forgave, and stayed.

He had forgotten what I did for work.

I was a forensic financial accountant.

And while my child was being born, I had already seen something in Rowan’s numbers that no one could hide from me anymore. I opened the laptop, loaded the first spreadsheet, and just then a key turned in the lock…

When the door opened, it was three twelve on Monday. Father was sitting in the armchair, and Leo was sleeping in a white blanket.

“Phoebe?” Rowan called. “Why weren’t you answering me?”

He entered, holding a bag with Celine’s gift, and immediately stopped. He looked at Father. The bag fell from his hand onto the floor.

“Mr. Sterling?”

“Are you Rowan?” Father asked calmly.

“I… didn’t know that Phoebe was your…”

“Daughter?” I finished.

There was no blood left in his face. At that moment I realized that my hidden surname had not been only a family secret. Rowan’s company had been trying for eight months to obtain financing from the Sterling Foundation.

“Where were you when my grandson was born?” Father asked.

Rowan began talking about the birthday, the time, and a misunderstanding. I turned the laptop toward him.

The watch, the resort, the jewelry, and several transfers made during the pregnancy had not left our account. The money belonged to his company.

“There is an explanation for this,” he said.

“I’m sure there is,” I answered.

At that moment I received an email. The sender was unknown, but the subject contained Rowan’s employee’s number.

“Your husband is not stealing money for his mother. Ask who Evelyn Cross is and why he is paying the expenses of her child.”

Rowan saw the name and took a step back.

“Phoebe, don’t open that file.”

I clicked the file. In the very first photograph, a woman stood beside a baby’s crib. The same gold ring that Rowan never wore at home was visible on her finger…

The file opened, and only Leo’s quiet breathing could be heard in the room. In the photograph Evelyn Cross stood in a small apartment, holding a newborn. A date was visible on the calendar hanging on the wall—exactly seven months earlier.

Then the documents appeared. Private clinic bills. Rent payments. The child’s insurance. All the transfers had been made from the same company’s internal account.

“Who is this child?” I asked.

Rowan moved his lips, but could not produce a sound.

Father hugged Leo more tightly.

“Answer my daughter,” he said.

“Evelyn is an old acquaintance,” Rowan whispered.

“Old acquaintances do not usually pay each other’s children’s clinic bills.”

“She was alone. She needed help.”

“And me?” I asked. “I was pregnant, Rowan. And you told me to take care of myself.”

He lowered his eyes.

I moved to the next document. There was a genetic laboratory result. A paternity test. The answer was clearly written: Rowan Hailey was the biological father of Evelyn Cross’s child.

A heavy silence descended in the room.

“No,” Rowan said. “This is impossible.”

“You submitted the sample yourself,” I told him. “The date and signature are here.”

For the first time Father lost his calm.

“All this time you had another woman and child?”

“I did not want my family to fall apart,” Rowan shouted. “Evelyn blackmailed me!”

“Then why were you stealing the company’s money?” I asked.

He fell silent.

There was one more recording in the file: his recorded conversation with the financial director.

“Phoebe won’t be able to decipher the numbers while she is busy giving birth. I’ll convince Mother too that all this is being done for the family.”

Rowan’s voice sounded more disgusting in the room than when spoken by his own mouth. He leaned against the edge of the armchair.

“This recording is illegal,” he said.

“The appropriate people will check its legality,” I answered.

At that moment my father’s phone rang. He listened, and his face changed.

“The Sterling Foundation has stopped transfers to all of Rowan’s company accounts,” he told me. “But that is not the main thing.”

“What else happened?”

Father put the phone on the table.

“Evelyn has filed a statement with the police. She says Rowan deceived her too and was planning to take the child away.”

Rowan looked toward the door.

“Phoebe, please, don’t interfere. I won’t let you lose your child.”

Leo sighed and moved his tiny fingers. At that moment three heavy knocks sounded on the door.

Father raised his head.

“They are already here…”