A wave of pain, sharp and blinding, crashed over Anna, stealing her breath. She gripped the cool marble of the kitchen island, her knuckles turning white against the grey veins of the stone.
“Vince, something’s wrong,” she managed to gasp into the phone, her voice trembling. “I think… I think it’s happening.”
On the other end of the line, she heard an exasperated sigh, a sound she had come to know with a chilling familiarity. It was the sound of her own irrelevance.
“Annie, relax,” Vince’s voice was smooth, detached, already miles away. “You’re not due for another two weeks. It’s probably just Braxton Hicks. Take an aspirin.”
“It’s not Braxton Hicks,” she insisted, as another contraction seized her, forcing a pained whimper from her lips. “This is different. It’s really bad. Vince, please, I’m scared. I’ve never begged you for anything, but please…”
“Look, I can’t just drop everything and race back for every little twinge,” he said, his tone hardening into cold steel. “I told you, this conference in Miami is critical. The keynote is in two hours.”
She knew there was no conference. His golf clubs had been nestled in the trunk of his Porsche when he left. The briefcase he’d carried was a Louis Vuitton weekender bag she’d never seen before. But she had no fight left in her. “Call an ambulance, Vince, please,” she whispered, her legs threatening to buckle. The phone felt impossibly heavy.
The line was already dead. The dial tone buzzed in her ear, a final, definitive statement of his indifference. He hadn’t just dropped the call; he had severed a lifeline.
Tears of pain and betrayal streamed down her cheeks. His child, she thought, a fresh wave of agony twisting inside her. This is his child, too. How can he?
Her phone slipped from her slick fingers and clattered onto the polished hardwood floor. She sank down after it, her body screaming in protest. With shaking hands, she swiped the screen and dialed 9-1-1.
“9-1-1, what’s your emergency?” a calm, professional voice asked.
“Please… I think I’m in labor,” Anna choked out, the words fragmented by the all-consuming pain. “I’m… I’m alone.“
She recited her address in the sterile, gated community—the sprawling, empty house that had felt less like a home and more like a gilded cage. Then the world began to tilt. The edges of her vision blurred, darkening into a tunnel. The operator’s voice faded into a distant echo as a profound and blissful silence replaced the pain. For the first time in hours, there was only darkness, a gentle, floating peace.
Dr. Evans entered the ICU, the soft squeak of his loafers the only sound in the hushed stillness. He approached the bed where Anna lay, a pale figure lost in a sea of white sheets and tangled wires. He scanned the monitors, his brow furrowed, then turned to the senior nurse standing vigil.
“Any change, Nenah?”
Nenah shook her head, her kind face etched with concern. “None, Doctor. Vitals are stable, but she’s completely unresponsive. So young. Breaks your heart.”
Dr. Evans gave a grim nod. “We need to get ahold of this young woman’s husband. She’s in a medically induced coma, and the next twenty-four hours are critical. Frankly, from the state she was in when the EMTs brought her in, she’d been in distress for a while. He needs to answer for that.”
“I was just about to, Doctor,” Nenah said, picking up Anna Hayes’s chart. She squinted at the emergency contact information. The digits, scrawled in hasty blue ink, swam before her eyes. She really needed to find a chain for those darn glasses. Still, the numbers looked clear enough. She began punching them into the phone, her finger hovering over the last two digits. A nine, or a zero? It looked more like a nine. She pressed it firmly.
The phone rang twice before a man’s voice, clear and professional, answered. “This is Andrew.”
“Good afternoon,” Nenah began, her tone a practiced blend of official and gentle. “I’m calling from Northwestern Memorial Hospital. Your wife, Anna Hayes, was admitted to our maternity ward earlier today. The delivery was… complicated. She’s currently in the ICU, and we felt you should be here.”
A profound silence stretched over the line. It wasn’t the silence of shock or grief, but one of deep, unnerving confusion. Finally, the man spoke, his voice hesitant. “Anna… Hayes?”
“Yes. Her husband is listed as the primary contact.”
Another pause. “All right,” he said, the words drawn out. “I’m on my way.”
Nenah hung up, a frustrated huff escaping her lips. “The men they have these days,” she muttered to herself. “Acts like he doesn’t even know his own wife is pregnant.”
Miles away, Andrew Cole stared at the Chicago skyline through the floor-to-ceiling windows of his 45th-floor office. The phone call had felt like a ghost reaching out from a life he’d buried five years ago. Anna, in a hospital, giving birth. It made no sense. He hadn’t seen her since the day she’d stood before him, unable to meet his eyes, and told him she was marrying his best friend, Vince—the friend who had sworn he would steal her just to prove he could.
He had loved Anna since they were teenagers. He had always assumed their future was a shared one. Then Vince, with his easy charm and cruel competitive streak, had decided Anna was a prize to be won. And he had won.
Now, a nurse was calling him, Andrew, telling him his wife was in the ICU. It had to be a mistake. But if Anna was in trouble, he knew with a sick certainty exactly who was to blame. Vince. It always came back to Vince. He grabbed his keys. Whatever was happening, Anna was alone. That’s all that mattered.
The sleek, dark grey of Andrew’s Audi cut through the afternoon traffic. His mind was five years in the past, replaying the scene that had burned itself into his memory. He’d just closed his first major real estate deal. He’d bought a ring. He’d made the mistake of telling Vince over a whiskey.
Vince had smirked. “A ring? You’re still playing by the rules. I bet I could have her in two weeks.”
“Take that back,” Andrew had said, his voice dangerously low.
“Why? Because you know it’s true?” Vince had taunted. “You think she’s in love with you, or just with the safe, predictable future you represent?”
The argument that followed was bitter and ended with fists. Two weeks later, to the day, Anna met him for coffee and whispered that she was in love with someone else. Vince. They were getting married.
Now, as Andrew pulled into the emergency entrance of Northwestern Memorial, the puzzle pieces clicked into place. A complicated delivery, a husband who wasn’t there, a wrong number on an emergency form. His old number and Vince’s must have been off by a single digit. He slammed the car into park. Vince had finally gone too far, and this time, Andrew would be there to pick up the pieces.
He found Dr. Evans in a small consultation room. “You’re Anna Hayes’s husband?” the doctor asked.
Andrew decided honesty was the only path. “Not exactly.” He explained the history, the rivalry, the near-identical phone numbers. Nenah, summoned to the room, gasped as she saw the tiny, faded zero on the chart that she had mistaken for a nine.
“Oh, dear Lord. I’m so sorry. I didn’t have my glasses,” she stammered.
While Andrew was explaining, Dr. Evans was dialing the correct number, putting it on speakerphone. A lazy, confident voice answered. “Yeah?”
“Hello, my name is Doctor Evans. I’m calling from Northwestern Memorial. We have a patient here, Anna Hayes—”
“I know, I know,” Vince cut him off, his voice laced with annoyance. “She called me earlier, overreacting as usual.” In the background, Andrew could hear the faint sound of steel drums and a woman’s high, petulant laugh. “Vinnie, come on! They’re waiting for us at the swim-up bar!”
Dr. Evans’s expression hardened. “Sir, your wife’s condition is extremely serious. She’s unconscious in the ICU.”
“Right,” Vince sighed, as if discussing a delayed package. “So what can I do about it from here? I’m out of the country. When is she scheduled for discharge? A week? Great. I should be back by then. I’ll swing by and pick her up.”
The line clicked dead. Dr. Evans stared at the phone, then looked from Nenah’s horrified face to Andrew’s grim one.
“The problem is,” the doctor said, shaking his head in disbelief, “she needs a specialized anti-coagulant that our formulary doesn’t cover. Insurance is already pushing back without payment upfront.”
Andrew stood up, his decision made in an instant. “Forget about him,” he said, his voice ringing with authority. “For the next week, as far as you’re concerned, I am her husband. Bill everything to me. Get her the medication. Get her a private room. Fly in a specialist if you have to. Don’t spare any expense. Just save her.”
He was no longer the boy Vince had pushed aside. He was a man who could move mountains, and he would move every single one for the woman lying down the hall.
Twenty-four hours later, Anna drifted up from the depths of a dreamless sleep. The first thing she registered was the soft, steady beeping of a machine. The second was the gentle weight of a hand holding hers. She turned her head. It was Andrew.
“Andrew,” her voice was a dry whisper. “What…?”
“Hey,” he said softly. “Welcome back. How are you feeling?”
“Where am I?” she asked, her eyes scanning the private hospital room. “The baby? Is the baby okay?”
“You’re at Northwestern,” he said. “And I’ve seen her, Annie. She’s beautiful. Absolutely perfect.”
A single tear traced a path down her temple. Those were the words she had longed to hear from Vince. Hearing them from Andrew was both a comfort and a sharp, fresh pain.
“How are you even here?” she asked, her brow furrowing. “How did you know?”
“It’s a long story,” he said with a small, sad smile. “Let’s just say I’m here now, and you don’t have to worry about a thing.”
The next few days settled into a quiet rhythm. Andrew was a constant presence. He brought food from her favorite deli, went to the nursery and returned with photos of the baby on his phone. “Katie waved today,” he announced with the pride of a new father. “The nurse said it was just a reflex, but I know what I saw.”
He called the baby Katie so naturally that soon Anna and the nurses did too. The infant was no longer a chart number; she was Katie.
The day before she was scheduled to be discharged, Andrew came into her room while she was rocking a sleeping Katie. “Annie,” he said, his voice serious. “We need to talk.”
He told her Vince’s flight landed at 3:00 p.m., an hour after discharges ended for the day.
“I know,” she said quietly. “He called me this morning. His first call. He told me to take an Uber or wait for him.”
Andrew winced. “An Uber? With a newborn baby, after what you’ve been through? Anna, I have to ask. Do you love him?”
“He’s Katie’s father,” she deflected, the words a shield she’d been hiding behind.
“That’s not what I asked,” Andrew said, stopping in front of her. “I know he’s the biological father. That’s a fact of science. I’m asking about your heart.”
Her composure finally shattered. “What do you want me to say, Andrew? That I regret it? That I was a stupid girl who fell for a flashy smile and empty promises? Of course I do. It’s the biggest regret of my life.” Her voice broke. “I have to go home. I have to keep pretending, for Katie’s sake.”
“Why?” Andrew’s voice was raw with emotion. “Do you really believe he’s what’s best for her?”
“What’s the alternative?” she cried.
“She has a father,” Andrew said softly. “Me. I’m proposing you come home with me, Anna. I never stopped loving you. And in the last week, I’ve fallen completely in love with Katie. Let me be her father. Let me be your husband. For real this time.”
He was offering her the life she’d thrown away, a second chance she never believed she deserved.
Vince drove home to their sprawling suburban house, mentally preparing his speech: sorry he missed the birth, stressful trip, here’s some jewelry. It always worked.
But the house was dark and unnervingly silent. “Anna?” he called out. Nothing.
Cursing, he drove to the hospital, an enormous bouquet in hand. “I’m here to pick up my wife, Anna Hayes,” he announced at the reception desk.
The nurse looked at him with cool indifference. “Anna Hayes was discharged today at noon. She’s already been picked up.”
“Picked up by who?”
“I can’t give out that information, sir,” she said, a hint of a smile on her lips. “But he seemed like a wonderful husband. Brand new car seat, beautiful car. A real Prince Charming.”
Bewildered, Vince walked out onto the cold street and dialed Anna’s number. “Hello?” It was her voice, but it sounded different. Stronger.
“Anna, where the hell are you? I’m at the hospital.”
“Are you?” she replied, her voice icy. “For the first time in eight days. I’m surprised you found the place. Don’t ever call me again. I’m with Andrew now.”
Before he could process it, a man’s voice came on the line. Andrew. “The game’s over, Vince,” Andrew said, his voice calm and lethal. “The days when you could push me around are long gone. Trust me, you don’t have the leverage to play in my league anymore.”
The line went dead. Stunned, Vince called a contact in the city’s real estate circles. “Hey, you ever hear of a guy named Andrew Cole?”
His friend laughed. “Are you kidding? The guy’s buying up half the West Loop. He’s a monster. Frankly, the way he’s expanding, I’m getting worried about my own portfolio.”
Vince let the phone slip from his hand. It crashed onto the asphalt, the screen splintering into a spiderweb of cracks. He had lost. He had lost everything, and he hadn’t even realized they were playing a game. In the quiet luxury of his Porsche, with the overpriced flowers wilting on the passenger seat, he was utterly and completely alone.
