Chapter 7 - WHEN THE OTHER WOMAN KNOCKED
Rebecca came to Simone’s apartment three weeks later.
By then, Simone was thirty-five weeks pregnant.
She had not returned to the Buckhead house.
David had moved out too.
He was staying in a furnished apartment near his attorney’s office while cooperating with federal investigators.
Richard remained in custody awaiting bond review.
The Carter name had become nightly news.
Simone’s divorce filing became public despite Maya’s efforts.
Headlines were predictably vicious.
PREGNANT WIFE DIVORCES CARTER HEIR AMID ENVIRONMENTAL SCANDAL.
TWO PREGNANCIES, ONE BILLION-DOLLAR COLLAPSE.
LAKE MISTRESS AT CENTER OF CARTER INVESTIGATION.
Simone stopped reading comments after strangers began debating whether she had “neglected her husband.”
Apparently there was no female tragedy the internet could not eventually convert into a referendum on whether the woman had cooked enough dinners.
Then one Wednesday afternoon, Natalie opened the apartment door and immediately said:
“No.”
Rebecca stood in the hallway.
She was beginning to show now.
Her blonde hair was tied back.
No makeup.
No designer clothes.
She looked younger and older simultaneously.
“I need five minutes.”
“You need a different building.”
“Natalie.”
Simone stood behind her sister.
Rebecca saw her.
The shame on her face was immediate.
“Please.”
Simone considered refusing.
That would have been easier.
But easier had become suspicious to her.
“Five minutes.”
Natalie looked horrified.
“I’ll be in the kitchen holding something heavy.”
Rebecca entered.
She sat only after Simone did.
For several seconds, neither spoke.
Finally Rebecca said:
“I’m sorry.”
Simone’s expression remained unchanged.
“I know that’s meaningless.”
“Mostly.”
“I don’t expect forgiveness.”
“Good.”
Rebecca nodded.
Her hands twisted together.
“I loved him.”
Simone almost laughed.
Not because it was funny.
Because Rebecca still believed that sentence explained something.
“So did I.”
“I know.”
“No.”
Simone’s voice sharpened.
“You knew I was his wife. You knew I was pregnant. You knew we were decorating a nursery.”
Rebecca’s eyes filled.
“I know.”
“But you didn’t know what it was like to love him as his wife.”
Rebecca lowered her gaze.
“No.”
“You got hotel rooms.”
Simone continued.
“Lunches. Trips disguised as work. Messages after midnight. You got the version of him that arrived already dressed and charming.”
Rebecca began crying.
“I got the version who lied.”
“So did I.”
That silenced them both.
Eventually Rebecca wiped her face.
“I didn’t come to ask you to understand.”
“Then why?”
“To tell you what happened at the lake.”
Simone went still.
“I already know.”
“No.”
Rebecca looked directly at her.
“You don’t.”
Something in her expression made Simone listen.
Rebecca inhaled.
“Before the dock collapsed, David and I were arguing.”
“Elijah saw you.”
“I told David I was pregnant that morning.”
“He says you told him after the rescue.”
Rebecca looked confused.
“What?”
“He told me he didn’t know until after.”
“That’s a lie.”
Simone felt cold.
“Why would he lie about that?”
Rebecca shook her head.
“I don’t know.”
Simone remembered David’s insistence.
He had said Rebecca told him afterward.
If Rebecca was telling the truth, then David had known both women carried his children when they went into the water.
And he had still chosen Rebecca.
The old wound reopened.
Rebecca continued.
“I told him the relationship was over.”
“Why?”
“Because I found the Juniper files.”
Simone frowned.
“You wrote some of them.”
“Yes.”
Shame crossed her face.
“My father died when I was twenty-three. Richard helped pay my college loans afterward. He gave me my first job.”
“So you owed him.”
“I thought I did.”
Rebecca looked down.
“When David hired me years later, Richard asked me to help with Juniper.”
“You knew about Elijah?”
“I knew they wanted his land.”
“You recommended forcing him through environmental fines.”
“Yes.”
The answer was quiet.
“I told myself it was business.”
Simone understood that lie.
Different form.
Same mechanism.
People gave cruelty professional names and hoped vocabulary changed morality.
“When did you discover the barrels?”
“Two weeks before the lake party.”
Rebecca continued.
“I found one of my father’s old storage boxes after my mother moved.”
“That’s where the bank key came from.”
“Yes.”
“There were letters too.”
“About Thomas Reed?”
“Yes.”
Rebecca wiped her eyes.
“My father was terrified of Richard.”
“So you decided to expose him.”
“I tried.”
“What happened?”
“I confronted Richard.”
Simone’s stomach tightened.
“He threatened you?”
“He threatened the baby.”
Silence.
“He said if David learned everything, David would lose the company, inheritance, reputation—everything.”
“And?”
“He said nobody would believe a mistress trying to destroy a respected family.”
That part was probably true.
Rebecca continued.
“I told David I was pregnant and said I was leaving both him and the company.”
“What did David say?”
“That we could run away together.”
Simone looked away.
Of course.
David loved escape when consequences arrived.
“I told him I didn’t want him.”
Rebecca gave a broken laugh.
“That was the first time he really became angry with me.”
“What happened next?”
“I told him I was going to tell you everything.”
Elijah had heard that.
“You were going to tell me at the party?”
“Yes.”
“Why there?”
“Because Richard was there. Investors were there. Security cameras were everywhere. I thought I’d be safer.”
Simone’s throat tightened.
“Then the dock collapsed.”
Rebecca nodded.
“I fell near David.”
“And he came for you.”
“Yes.”
Her face twisted.
“I kept screaming your name.”
Simone stared.
“What?”
“I told him to get you.”
Rebecca’s voice broke.
“I said, ‘Simone can’t swim properly pregnant. Get Simone.’”
Simone remembered underwater noise.
David shouting.
Rebecca’s arms around him.
Had she misunderstood what she saw?
No.
Whatever Rebecca said, David had physically taken her toward shore.
“Why didn’t he?”
Rebecca closed her eyes.
“Because he said you were closer to the dock.”
“That’s what he claimed.”
“There was no dock anymore.”
They both knew.
Rebecca continued.
“When he got me to shallow water, I tried to go back.”
“You had a head injury.”
“I know.”
“I saw you holding him.”
Rebecca looked stunned.
“What?”
“Afterward. Hospital.”
“I could barely stand.”
“He was holding you.”
“No.”
Rebecca shook her head.
“He was stopping me from going back into the lake.”
Simone stared.
Memory was cruel.
It took images and built conclusions around them.
But some conclusions remained undeniable.
David had chosen.
The surrounding details changed motive.
Not action.
Rebecca reached into her purse.
“I have something.”
She placed her phone on the table.
An audio recording.
Timestamped seven minutes before the dock collapse.
Rebecca had accidentally activated a voice memo while arguing with David.
Her voice came first.
“You don’t understand. This isn’t about us anymore.”
David: “You’re carrying my child.”
Rebecca: “So is your wife.”
David: “I know that.”
Rebecca: “Then go tell her the truth.”
David: “I will.”
Rebecca: “When?”
David: “Tonight.”
Rebecca: “And Juniper?”
Silence.
Rebecca: “Does Simone know what your father did?”
David: “No.”
Rebecca: “She deserves to.”
David: “You stay out of that.”
Rebecca: “I’m done staying out of it.”
Then Richard’s voice appeared faintly.
“Rebecca.”
The recording ended.
Simone stared at the phone.
David had known.
That hurt.
But another fact emerged.
He had also known Rebecca was about to expose his father.
Had he saved Rebecca because he loved her?
Because she carried his child?
Because she possessed dangerous evidence?
Or simply because she was closer in his mind than his wife had become?
Perhaps Simone would never know.
She realized something surprising.
She no longer needed to.
Rebecca whispered, “I’m sorry.”
Simone looked at her.
“You should be.”
Rebecca nodded.
“I am.”
“You hurt me.”
“I know.”
“You walked into my home. Ate my food. Let me comfort you while you were sleeping with my husband.”
Tears rolled down Rebecca’s face.
“Yes.”
“I won’t tell you that’s okay.”
“I don’t want you to.”
Simone studied her.
“Then what do you want?”
Rebecca placed both hands over her stomach.
“I want our children not to inherit this.”
There it was.
Not friendship.
Not absolution.
A boundary around the next generation.
Simone understood.
“Our children are siblings.”
“Yes.”
The sentence was difficult.
But true.
Simone inhaled.
“They will eventually know that.”
Rebecca nodded.
“I won’t lie to mine about how it started.”
“Neither will I.”
“But we don’t make them pay for us.”
Simone looked toward the nursery Natalie had helped create in the spare bedroom.
“No.”
Something softened.
Barely.
“We don’t.”
Rebecca stood.
At the door, Simone stopped her.
“Rebecca.”
She turned.
“Was there ever a point when David said he would leave me before you started the affair?”
Rebecca went pale.
There was the answer.
“No.”
Simone nodded.
“Thank you.”
Rebecca looked ashamed.
“I should have left.”
“Yes.”
“I wish I had.”
“So do I.”
She left.
Natalie emerged holding a cast-iron frying pan.
Simone stared.
“Seriously?”
“I promised something heavy.”
Despite herself, Simone laughed.
It became uncontrollable.
Pregnancy hormones.
Exhaustion.
Absurdity.
Natalie started laughing too.
Soon both sisters were crying.
When they finally calmed, Natalie sat beside her.
“Did it help?”
Simone considered.
“Yes.”
“Because she apologized?”
“No.”
“Then why?”
“Because I finally understand something.”
“What?”
Simone touched Isabella’s moving foot beneath her ribs.
“I kept asking why he chose her.”
Natalie waited.
“But the answer doesn’t change what I choose now.”
That evening, David called.
Simone answered.
“I know Rebecca came.”
“How?”
“She told me.”
“You lied about knowing she was pregnant.”
Silence.
“Yes.”
“Why?”
David breathed out.
“Because saying I didn’t know made what I did look less deliberate.”
Simone closed her eyes.
“So you lied to protect yourself.”
“Yes.”
“Thank you.”
He sounded confused.
“For what?”
“For finally answering without explaining.”
David became quiet.
Then:
“Isabella okay?”
“She’s doing gymnastics against my ribs.”
He laughed softly.
“I wish I could feel that.”
Simone looked down.
Months earlier, she would have invited him over.
Not now.
“You will have opportunities to know your daughter.”
He understood what she meant.
As a father.
Not as her husband.
“Simone.”
“Yes?”
“I signed the divorce papers.”
She closed her eyes.
A strange grief moved through her.
Not regret.
A funeral for possibility.
“Okay.”
“I’m not going to contest the house.”
“Okay.”
“And I’m resigning from Carter Urban.”
That surprised her.
“What will you do?”
“I don’t know.”
For perhaps the first time in David’s adult life, there was no family company waiting to define him.
Simone almost pitied him.
Almost.
“Figure it out.”
He laughed sadly.
“You always made that sound easy.”
“It isn’t.”
She paused.
“That’s why it means something.”
Three days later, David signed a cooperation agreement with federal prosecutors.
One week later, Richard Carter was charged in connection with an expanded conspiracy investigation surrounding Thomas Reed’s death.
The prosecution could not yet prove murder.
But a former Carter security contractor came forward after seeing the news.
He claimed Richard had paid him in 2004 to tamper with Thomas Reed’s brakes.
The charge became homicide.
Elena Reed cried when Maya told her.
Not with joy.
Justice after twenty-two years was not joyful.
It was simply late.
At thirty-seven weeks, Simone stood before a mirror and barely recognized herself.
Her marriage was ending.
Her husband’s family empire was collapsing.
Her name was appearing in newspapers.
She had agreed to join Maya’s firm after maternity leave.
And somehow, beneath all of it, she felt more like herself than she had in years.
Then at 1:13 a.m., her water broke.
Natalie stood in the hallway wearing one sock.
“Oh my God.”
Simone looked down.
Then another contraction hit.
Hard.
“Natalie.”
“Yes?”
“Call the hospital.”
“Right.”
“And David.”
Her sister froze.
“You sure?”
Simone breathed through the pain.
“He’s her father.”
Natalie nodded.
As they headed toward the elevator, Simone placed one hand against the wall.
Another contraction.
This one enormous.
Natalie stared.
“How far apart are these?”
“Three minutes.”
“Oh, hell.”
Simone laughed despite the pain.
“What?”
“You litigate everything slowly except apparently childbirth.”
The elevator opened.
Simone stepped inside.
Seven months earlier, she had imagined giving birth with David holding her hand.
Now she had no idea what waited downstairs.
But for the first time, uncertainty did not frighten her.
She had already survived the moment she thought would destroy her.
May you like
Now she was going to meet the person who had given her the strength to survive it.
Her daughter.
