The Doctor Saw My Ultrasound And Begged Me To Get A Divorce… I Never Expected The Truth…
He was waiting when I got home, standing in the kitchen with that smile that didn’t reach his eyes.
My mother’s words echoed in my head, two years too late.
“How was the appointment?” he asked. “Is the baby okay?”
I smiled back, walked over and hugged him.
I showed him the ultrasound photo Dr. Brennan had printed before everything changed.
“Perfect,” I said. “Everything’s absolutely perfect.”
I deserve an Oscar for that performance.
I smiled at him over dinner while mentally calculating how much his bail would be.
I asked about his day while picturing him in an orange jumpsuit.
I even laughed at his joke about baby names. It wasn’t funny at all, but I committed to the role like my life depended on it.
Because in a way, it did.
I apologized for being paranoid lately, blamed the hormones, used the exact same excuse he’d thrown at me for months.
His whole body relaxed when he heard it. The tension in his shoulders melted away.
He thought he was still winning. He thought his plan was still on track.
That night he slept soundly beside me. I lay awake until 3:00 in the morning staring at the ceiling, planning his destruction.
The next morning I called in sick to work. Then I drove two hours to a different city, checking my mirrors constantly to make sure I wasn’t followed.
Paranoid, maybe. But I’d earned that paranoia.
I found a private investigator named Rosalind Weaver. Ex-police detective, fifteen years on the force before going private.
No-nonsense attitude, sharp eyes. The kind of woman who’d seen everything and wasn’t impressed by any of it.
I told her everything. She listened without interrupting, took notes, and when I finished she smiled like a shark who’d just spotted a bleeding swimmer.
“Your husband made a lot of mistakes,” she said. “Arrogant men always do. Give me two weeks.”
She had results in ten days.
Grant’s gambling debts totaled $180,000.
He owed money to online betting sites, underground poker games, and a few private lenders who definitely didn’t file paperwork with the IRS.
The kind of creditors who get very creative when payments are late.
The embezzlement was confirmed. Approximately $53,000 missing from client accounts at his firm.
Siphoned over eighteen months through small transactions designed to avoid detection. His bosses had no idea yet.
And then there was the affair. Eight months.
His assistant. Hotel rooms, romantic dinners, weekend getaways disguised as business trips.
Rosalind had photos, text messages, credit card receipts—the whole pathetic collection.
His assistant. Of course it was his assistant.
How completely unoriginal. I was almost insulted by the cliché.
If you’re going to destroy your marriage, at least show some creativity. Having an affair with your assistant is literally chapter one of the cheating husband handbook.
Not that such a handbook exists, but if it did, Grant would have highlighted that page.
Rosalind found something else, too. This wasn’t Grant’s first attempt at landing a wealthy woman.
Five years ago he dated someone in Boston, Caroline Ashford. Family money, trust fund, the whole package.
They were together for eight months before she discovered financial irregularities in a joint account he’d convinced her to open.
She ended things immediately but was too embarrassed to press charges.
Rosalind tracked her down. Caroline was more than willing to provide a statement now.
She’d always regretted letting him walk away clean.
I met with Molly Brennan in secret. A coffee shop an hour from town where nobody would recognize either of us.
She looked terrible. Thin, pale, dark circles under her eyes.
The guilt had been eating her alive. She started crying the moment she saw me sit down.
“I’m so sorry,” she kept saying. “I knew it was wrong. I just—the money, and he was so convincing, and I thought maybe he really was just trying to protect you from some genetic issue.”
And I stopped her.
“I need to know one thing: are you willing to testify officially on the record?”
She nodded without hesitation.
“I’ll tell them everything. I should have gone to the police the day after it happened.”
“I was just so scared of losing my license, my job, everything. But yes, whatever you need, I’ll say it under oath.”
I looked at her for a long moment. This woman had helped my husband try to destroy me.
She’d taken $30,000 to participate in fraud. By any measure, she was complicit.
But Grant had manipulated her the same way he’d manipulated me. He’d found her weakness and exploited it.
He was the architect; she was just a tool.
“Don’t be scared anymore,” I told her. “You’re not the villain in this story. He is.”
The embryologist, once he learned Molly was cooperating and had kept records, developed a sudden and convenient conscience.
He gave his own statement to Rosalind. He was terrified of losing his medical license and going to prison.
He’d say whatever we needed to put Grant away.
The hardest call I made was to my mother.
Two years of near silence. Two years of choosing Grant over her.
I’d defended him when she questioned his motives. I’d stopped inviting her to holidays.
I’d called her jealous, paranoid, and unable to accept that I was happy.
And she’d been right about everything.
The phone rang twice before she picked up.
“Daphne?”
Her voice was cautious and hopeful, like she’d been waiting for this call for two years but didn’t want to jinx it.
“Mom,” my voice cracked on the word. “You were right about everything. About him. And I’m so sorry. I’m so, so sorry.”
There was a pause. I braced myself for the “I told you so” she’d earned, for the anger, the resentment, the hurt I’d caused by choosing a con man over the woman who raised me.
Instead, she said, “What do you need, sweetheart?”
She didn’t gloat. She didn’t remind me of every warning I’d ignored.
She didn’t point out that she’d tried to tell me for years. She just asked how she could help.
