Saturday morning, I cleaned the entire house until every room looked ready for a luxury real-estate listing. Fresh flowers decorated the dining table, the guest towels were folded perfectly, and even Gavin seemed impressed by how thoroughly I had prepared for Selena’s arrival. “Knew you’d come around.”
At noon, a black SUV rolled into the driveway, and Selena climbed out wearing oversized sunglasses with a designer diaper bag over one shoulder. Her mother followed with two suitcases, a portable crib, and enough boxes to make it obvious that Selena intended to settle in comfortably.
Gavin hurried outside the moment he saw them. “Let me get that.”
Selena gave him a warm smile before turning toward me. “I hope this isn’t too inconvenient.”
Her expression suggested she wasn’t particularly concerned whether it was. “Not at all.”
Gavin carried one of her suitcases upstairs, and Selena followed him before stopping halfway up the staircase. “Gavin said the guest suite has its own bathroom.”
“It does.”
“And you’ll probably handle meals?”
I looked at her, wondering whether she realized how entitled she sounded. “Probably?”
She gave a small laugh as though her expectation were perfectly reasonable. “With the baby, I mean. I’m going to be exhausted.”
Gavin appeared behind her and immediately intervened. “Lauren, don’t start.”
I smiled. “I’m not starting anything.”
By that afternoon, their sense of entitlement had become almost absurd. Selena adjusted the thermostat without asking, Gavin gave her my favorite parking space, and her mother opened my refrigerator and casually began writing a grocery list for me.
Then Selena walked into my home office without knocking and surveyed the room. “I’ll need this room during the day. The guest room doesn’t get enough sunlight.”
“My office?”
“For the baby.”
I leaned back in my chair and studied her. “You’re planning quite a life here.”
Selena folded her arms, apparently confident that Gavin had already given her all the authority she needed. “Gavin said this was basically his house too.”
That was the statement I had been waiting to hear. “Did he?”
Before Selena could respond, Gavin entered the room and immediately took her side. “Lauren, can we not make Selena uncomfortable?”
I looked from my husband to the woman he had invited to live in my house and remained perfectly calm. “No problem.”
Then I closed my laptop. “Actually, I have a surprise for everyone.”
Selena’s expression brightened. “A baby gift?”
“In a way.”
I told them to meet me downstairs at six o’clock. At 5:58, Gavin entered the living room carrying two glasses of champagne while Selena settled beside him with the baby sleeping nearby in a carrier, and her mother casually flipped through television channels.
At exactly six, the doorbell rang.
Gavin frowned. “Expecting someone?”
“Yes.”
I opened the front door, and Rebecca Sloan walked inside carrying a leather folder. A licensed process server followed directly behind her.
Gavin’s expression changed the instant he saw them. “What is this?”
I accepted the folder from Rebecca. “The surprise.”
Selena immediately stood. “Lauren, what are you doing?”
I removed the first document and handed it directly to Gavin. It was a petition for divorce.
His champagne glass slowly lowered as he stared at the paperwork. Then I gave him the second document, notifying him that his permission to reside in my separately owned property was being terminated, subject to the legally required notice period.
His mouth fell open. “You can’t kick me out of my own house.”
Rebecca answered before I needed to. “Mr. Pruett, your name is not on the deed.”
The room became completely silent.
Selena stared at Gavin. “You told me you owned half.”
Gavin’s face turned pale, but I still wasn’t finished. I placed several bank statements on the coffee table, each documenting the money he had quietly transferred to Selena. “And this is the money you transferred to Selena.”
Her mother stopped changing television channels. Gavin looked down at the statements, clearly searching for an explanation. “That was an investment.”
“Good. Then you’ll enjoy explaining it.”
Whatever confidence Selena had carried into my home disappeared from her face. I looked directly at the woman who had arrived expecting six months of free accommodation, meals, childcare, and access to a house Gavin had falsely presented as his own. “You targeted the wrong wife.”
PART 3
Nobody spoke for a long moment. The baby stirred in the carrier, made a small unhappy sound, and went still again.
“Selena,” Gavin said, turning to her. “Tell them. Tell them it was a loan for the business.”
Selena didn’t answer. She was looking at the statements, and I watched her do the arithmetic I had done weeks earlier. Her mother had gone rigid on the sofa, the remote forgotten in her hand.
“A business,” Rebecca said evenly. “Brightline Wellness Consulting. It was incorporated eleven months ago. Its only deposits are transfers from Mr. Pruett’s accounts. Its only withdrawals are a car lease, a boutique, a salon, and two payments to a landlord in Scottsdale.” She turned a page. “Nothing in that account resembles an investment.”
“I never asked him for any of it,” Selena said quickly, too quickly. “He offered.”
“You told me you were starting a company,” Gavin said, his voice cracking. “You said the baby’s father left you with nothing.”
“He did.”
“You said you needed a place to stay until the business took off. You said you’d pay me back.”
“Gavin,” her mother said sharply, “stop talking.”
But Gavin had already begun to understand, and I will admit that watching it cross his face was not the satisfaction I had expected. It was something quieter. The man I had married was not clever. He was vain, and vain men are easy to rob.
“There’s no baby’s father who left,” I said. “Is there, Selena?”
Selena’s jaw tightened.
“Rebecca’s investigator found the hospital birth record,” I said. “The father listed is a man named Trevor Haskell. He lives in Scottsdale, in the same building the rent payments go to. He and Selena are engaged.”
Her mother put down the remote.
“We needed time,” Selena said at last, and the polish had gone out of her voice. “Trevor’s credit was bad. We couldn’t get an apartment, and the baby was coming. Gavin was easy. He liked being needed.” She looked at him almost without malice. “You liked being the hero. I just let you.”
Gavin sat down heavily on the arm of the sofa. The champagne glass tipped from his fingers and rolled across the rug without breaking.
