A wave of pain, sharp and blinding, crashed over Anna, stealing her breath. She gripped the cold marble of the kitchen island, her knuckles turning white against the gray veins of the stone.
“Vince, something’s wrong,” she managed to breathe into the phone, her voice shaking. “I think… I think this is happening.”
On the other end of the line, she heard a sigh, a sound she recognized with eerie familiarity. It was the sound of her own worthlessness.
“Annie, rest,” Vince’s voice was smooth, detached, miles away. “You shouldn’t do anything for another two weeks. It’s probably just Braxton Hicks. Take an aspirin.”
“It’s not Braxton Hicks,” he insisted, as another contraction took hold of her, forcing a painful moan from her lips. “This is different. This is really bad. Vince, please, I’m scared. I’m not begging you for anything, but please…”
“Look, I can’t just drop everything and race back for every little twinge,” he said, his tone hardening to cold steel. “I told you, this conference in Miami is critical. The keynote is in two hours.”
He knew there was no conference. His golf clubs were stashed in the trunk of his Porsche when he left. The briefcase he carried was a Louis Vuitton weekender bag he’d never seen before. But he had nothing left to fight. “Call an ambulance, Vince, please,” he whispered, his legs threatening to buckle. The phone felt heavy.
The line was dead. The dial tone buzzed in his ear, a final, definitive statement of his indifference. He didn’t just hang up; he cut a lifeline.
Tears of pain and betrayal streamed down her cheeks. Her child, she thought, a fresh wave of agony swirling inside her. This was her child too. How could she?
Her phone slipped from her slippery fingers and fell to the polished wooden floor. She sank 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 at work,” Anna trailed off, the words cut off by the pain she felt. “I… I’m alone.”
She spoke her address to the sterile, gated community—the vast, empty house that felt like a home and more like a gilded prison. Then the world began to shake. The edges of her vision blurred, darkening into a tunnel. The operator’s voice faded into a distant echo as a deep, 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 swish of his loafers the only sound in the silent silence. He approached the bed where Anna lay, a pale body lost in a sea of white sheets and tangled wires. He checked the monitors, frowning, and then turned to the senior nurse standing watch.
“Any change, Nenah?”
Nenah shook her head, her kind face etched with concern. “Nothing, Doctor. Vitals are stable, but she’s completely unresponsive. So young. Your heart is broken.”
Dr. Evans nodded. “We need to talk to this young woman’s husband. She’s in a medically induced coma, and the next twenty-four hours are critical. In fact, from the way she was when the EMTs brought her in, she’s been in a state of distress for a long time. She needs to answer that.”
“I’ll be right there, Doctor,” Nenah said, picking up Anna Hayes’ chart. She glanced at the emergency contact information. The digits, written in fast blue ink, swam before her eyes. She really needed to find a chain for those glasses. Still, the numbers looked clear enough. She began to enter them into the phone, her finger hovering over the last two digits. A nine, or a zero? It looked more like a nine. He pressed it firmly.
The phone rang twice before a man’s voice answered, clear and professional. “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 deep silence fell over the line. It wasn’t a silence of shock or sadness, but a silence of deep and disturbing confusion. Finally, the man spoke, his voice hesitant. “Anna… Hayes?”
“Yes. His wife is listed as the primary contact.”
Another pause. “Okay,” he said, the words drawn out. “I’m on my way.”
Nenah lowered her head, a frustrated groan escaping her lips. “The men they have these days,” she muttered to herself. “Acting like he didn’t know his own wife was pregnant.”
Miles away, Andrew Cole stared out at the Chicago skyline through the floor-to-ceiling windows of his 45th-floor office. The phone call was like a ghost reaching out from a life he had buried five years earlier. Anna, in a hospital, giving birth. It made no sense. He hadn’t seen her since the day she stood before him, unable to recognize his eyes, and told him she was going to marry his best friend, Vince—the friend who had sworn to steal just to prove he could.
He had loved Anna since they were teenagers. He had always imagined their future together. Then Vince, with his easy charm and ruthless competitiveness, decided that Anna was a prize to be won. And he had won.
Now, a nurse was calling him, Andrew, and saying that his wife was in the ICU. It had to be a mistake. But if Anna was in trouble, he knew with sick certainty who to blame. Vince. It always came back to Vince. He grabbed his keys. No matter what, Anna was alone. That was all that mattered.
Andrew’s sleek, dark gray Audi cut through the afternoon traffic. His mind was five years earlier, replaying the scene burned into his memory. He had just closed his first big real estate deal. He had bought a ring. He had made the mistake of telling Vince over a whiskey.
Vince smiled. “A ring? You’re still playing by the rules. I bet I can have her in two weeks.”
“Take that,” Andrew said, his voice dangerously low.
“Why? Because you know it’s true?” Vince sneered. “Do you think she loves you, or the safe and predictable future you represent?”
The ensuing argument was bitter and ended in fists. Two weeks later, to that day, Anna met him for coffee and whispered that she loved someone else. Vince. They were getting married.
Now, as Andrew entered Northwestern Memorial’s emergency entrance, the pieces of the puzzle clicked together. A complicated delivery, a wife who wasn’t there, a wrong number on an emergency form. His old number and Vince’s were definitely off by a digit. He backed the car into the parking lot. Vince had finally gone too far, and this time, Andrew was there to pick up the pieces.
He found Dr. Evans in a small consulting room. “Are you Anna Hayes’ husband?” the doctor asked.
Andrew decided that honesty was the only way. “Not exactly.” He explained the history, the rivalry, the almost identical phone number. Nenah, who had been summoned into the room, gasped when she saw the small, faded zero on the chart that she had mistaken for a nine.
“Oh, dear Lord. I’m sorry. I don’t have glasses,” she stammered.
As Andrew explained, Dr. Evans dialed the correct number, putting it on speakerphone. A lazy, confident voice answered. “Yes?”
“Hello, my name is Doctor Evans. I’m calling from Northwestern Memorial. We have a patient here, Anna Hayes—”
“I know, I know,” Vince interrupted, his voice filled with irritation. “She called me earlier, overreacting as usual.” In the background, Andrew could hear the faint sound of steel drums and a woman’s high, seductive laugh. “Vinnie, come on! They’re waiting for us at the swim-up bar!”
Dr. Evans’s expression hardened. “Sir, your wife is in a critical condition. 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 come by and pick her up.”
The line was dead. Dr. Evans looked at the phone, then looked from Nenah’s frightened face to Andrew’s sad face.
“The problem is,” the doctor said, shaking his head in disbelief, “she needs a specialized anti-coagulant that’s not covered by our formulary. Insurance is pushing back without paying upfront.”
Andrew stood up, his decision made in an instant. “Forget about her,” he said, his voice ringing with authority. “Next week, for you, I’m her husband. Pay for everything from me. Get her some medicine. Get her a private room. Fly her to a specialist if you need to. Spare no expense. Just save her.”
She was no longer the kid Vince had pushed aside. She was a man who could move mountains, and he would move every one for the woman lying in the hallway.
Twenty-four hours later, Anna rose from the depths of a dreamless sleep. The first thing she noticed was the soft, steady beeping of a machine. The second was the gentle weight of a hand holding her. She turned her head. Andrew.
“Andrew,” her voice was a dry whisper. “What…?”
“Hey,” she said softly. “Welcome. How are you feeling?”
“Where am I?” she asked, checking her eyes in the private hospital room. “The baby? Is the baby okay?”
“You’re at Northwestern,” she said. “And I’ve seen him, Annie. He’s beautiful. Absolutely perfect.”
A single tear traced a path down her temple. Those were the words she’d longed to hear from Vince. Hearing them from Andrew was both a relief and a sharp, fresh ache.
“How are you?” she asked, frowning. “How did you know?”
“It’s a long story,” she 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 his favorite deli, went to the nursery, and returned with pictures of the baby on his phone. “Katie’s waving now,” he announced with the pride of a new father. “The nurse said it was just a reflex, but I knew what I saw.”
He called the baby Katie, so naturally Anna and the nurses soon did the same. The baby was no longer a chart number; she was Katie.
The day before she was scheduled to be discharged, Andrew came into her room as she rocked the sleeping Katie. “Annie,” he said, his voice serious. “We need to talk.”
He told her that Vince’s flight landed at 3:00 PM, an hour after the departure for the day.
“I know,” she said calmly. “He called me this morning. His first call. He told me to take an Uber or wait for him.”
Andrew sighed. “An Uber? To 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 she kept behind her shield.
“That’s not what I’m asking,” Andrew said, stopping in front of her. “I know he’s the biological father. That’s a scientific fact. I’m asking about your heart.”
Finally, her guard broke. “What do you want me to say, Andrew? That I regret this? That I was a foolish girl who fell for a flashy smile and empty promises? Of course I do. This is the biggest regret of my life.” Her voice broke. “I have to go home. I have to pretend for Kath’s sake.”
“Why?” Andrew’s voice was filled with emotion. “Do you really believe that he is the best for her?”
“What’s the alternative?” she shouted.
“She already has a father,” Andrew said softly. “I. I told myself, come home with me, Anna. I haven’t stopped loving you. Last week, I fell in love with Katie. Let me be her father. Let me be your husband. For this very moment.”
He was offering her the life he had thrown away, a second chance he hadn’t thought he deserved.
Vince drove home to their sprawling suburban home, preparing his speech: sorry he missed the birth, tiring trip, here’s some jewelry. It always works.
But the house was dark and unnervingly quiet. “Anna?” he called. Nothing.
Cursing, he drove to the hospital with an enormous bouquet in his hand. “I’m here to pick up my wife, Anna Hayes,” he said to the reception desk.
The nurse looked at him with cold indifference. “Anna Hayes was discharged this afternoon. She was taken.”
“To whom?”
“I can’t give that information, Sir,” he said, with the hint of a smile on his lips. “He seems like a very nice husband. New car seat, nice car. A real Prince Charming.”
Confused, Vince stepped out onto the cold street and dialed Anna’s number. “How are you?” His voice was the same but different. Louder.
“Anna, where are you? I’m in the hospital.”
“Is that you?” he replied, his voice cold. “For the first time in eight days. I’m surprised you found the place. Don’t call me anymore. 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 deadly. “The days of you pushing me around are long gone. Believe me, you’re not fit to play in my league anymore.”
The line was dead. Startled, Vince called a contact in the city’s real estate circles. “Have you ever heard of a man named Andrew Cole?”
His friend laughed. “Are you kidding me? The guy is buying half of the West Loop. He’s a monster. Honestly, the way he’s expanding, I’m worried about my own portfolio.”
Vince let the phone slip from his hand. It fell to the asphalt, and the screen shattered into a spiderweb of cracks. He was defeated. He had lost everything, and he didn’t even realize they were playing a game. In the quiet luxury of his Porsche, with overpriced flowers drying on the passenger seat, he was completely and utterly alone.