PART 2: THE LIE THAT LOVED ME TWICE

Isabel Owen tried to burn my face at a salon two weeks later.

Jennie set it up.

Of course she did.

She had tried cameras, gossip, staged accidents, and whispers about prenups. Nothing worked. Michael adored me. Nathan defended me publicly. The staff had begun calling me Mrs. Mormant without that tiny pause people use when they are not sure a title will last.

Jennie hated that most.

Isabel hated it differently.

Isabel had dated Nathan years earlier, back when they were campus royalty: golden boy and beauty queen, the kind of couple yearbooks accidentally worship. She wanted her place back. Jennie wanted me gone. Together, they had the moral compass of a shark tank.

The salon smelled of hairspray, rose water, and danger disguised as luxury.

The moment I stepped into the private room, the doors locked behind me.

“No one’s here to save you today,” Jennie said.

Isabel stood before the mirror in a silk robe, holding a curling iron. Its red light glowed hot.

“Look at that pretty face,” she said. “No wonder Nathan likes you. But tell me, Gillian—will he still want you if I add a little mark?”

Two women grabbed my arms.

My heart slammed against my ribs.

“Let go.”

“Cheap,” Isabel whispered, stepping closer. “Messy. Disposable. Do you think wearing his ring makes you my replacement?”

The curling iron came toward my cheek.

I struggled hard enough to knock over a tray of hair products. Bottles hit the floor. One shattered. The smell of chemicals flooded the room.

Then the door exploded inward.

Nathan stood there.

No tie.

Hair disheveled.

Fury making him look less like a billionaire and more like a storm with a heartbeat.

“Touch her,” he said, “and your family loses more than money.”

Isabel froze.

Jennie stepped back.

“Nathan, I—”

He crossed the room and took the curling iron from Isabel’s hand so calmly it was worse than violence.

“She is not some woman,” he said. “She is my wife.”

His hand was gentle when it touched my shoulder.

“Are you burned?”

I shook my head.

“I’m fine.”

He looked at Teddy, who had appeared behind him, breathing hard.

“Cancel the Owen deal.”

Teddy nodded.

“All of it?”

“All of it.”

Isabel’s face went white.

“My father—”

“Will be bankrupt by morning if he built his future on access to mine.”

The ambulance came because Nathan insisted.

The doctor said I had a bump on my head, bruising on both arms, no burns.

Nathan sat beside the hospital bed the whole time.

“You didn’t have to bankrupt her family,” I said.

“Yes, I did.”

“No. You chose to.”

“She threatened your face with a heated iron.”

“I’m not defending her.”

“Good. Then we agree.”

I stared at him.

“You can’t destroy everyone who hurts me.”

His eyes were dark.

“Watch me.”

That should have frightened me.

It did.

It also made my traitorous heart ache.

The next day, I returned to work early because nurses do not get to have billionaire breakdown schedules.

My head nurse, Donald, cornered me near the supply room.

“Where the hell have you been?”

“I’m on medical leave.”

He sneered.

“Medical leave? Please. I find you here getting cozy with some random man, looking like a damn slut, and now you want sympathy?”

The air went sharp.

Nathan’s voice came from behind me.

“What did you call her?”

Donald turned.

“Who are you?”

Before I could answer, the hospital administrator appeared, face pale.

“Mr. Mormant.”

Donald went very still.

Nathan stepped beside me.

“I own this hospital now.”

I stared at him.

“What?”

He ignored me.

“And as of now, Gillian Mormant is head nurse. You’re fired. Because of your repeated harassment of her, you won’t be working in any hospital connected to us again.”

Donald sputtered.

Security removed him.

Maya watched from the nurses’ station, mouth open.

“Is this still a contract marriage?” she whispered when Nathan stepped away. “Because your husband just went full alpha mode and bought your workplace.”

“He is impossible.”

“He is in love with you.”

“He has a girlfriend.”

Maya gave me a look.

“And you have a plumber.”

I did not know then that both statements were about the same ridiculous man.

Michael’s health worsened in winter.

The hospital smelled different when someone you love is the patient. I had worked through death, cleaned rooms after families collapsed, held hands during last breaths. But when Michael’s monitor beeped irregularly and his skin turned gray beneath expensive blankets, professionalism cracked.

Jennie used it.

She accused me of neglecting him because I had attended a dinner with Nathan. She stormed into the estate dining room and shouted that whatever happened to her grandfather was my fault.

Nathan cut off her allowance.

She looked as if he had slapped her.

“I’m your sister.”

“Half-sister,” he said coldly. “And barely that right now.”

I moved out temporarily to provide twenty-four-hour care for Michael at the hospital.

Nathan hated it.

“You don’t need to do this,” he said. “I can hire a full medical team.”

“I’m not doing it because you can’t afford help.”

“Then why?”

“Because he asked for me.”

“And us?”

I looked away.

“This whole thing feels like a beautiful dream that got out of hand. We need distance.”

His face hardened because hurt had nowhere else to go.

“The contract is still in effect.”

“That’s exactly the problem.”

Distance did not help.

It made everything worse.

Nathan became jealous of every male doctor who spoke to me for more than thirty seconds. I kept texting The Plumber Solver and noticing he had gone quiet. Then, when I finally demanded a meeting at Joyland, he refused without explanation.

I cried in an arcade parking lot like an idiot over a man I had never seen.

Nathan missed that meeting because of a car accident.

I did not know that.

All I knew was that I waited under neon lights until the arcade closed, my phone in my hand, rainbow lollipop melting sticky between my fingers, and the man who had promised to understand me did not show.

When Nathan arrived the next morning with bandaged ribs and a face too pale under his tan, I had already decided Soft Bunny was done waiting.

“I dumped my online crush,” I told him over breakfast.

His face froze.

“You did what?”

“He didn’t show. No message. No excuse. If someone really wants to see you, they show up.”

Something painful flickered in Nathan’s eyes.

“What if something urgent happened?”

“Then he could have texted.”

“What if he lost his phone?”

I narrowed my eyes.

“You are strangely invested.”

“I am not.”

“You are jealous.”

“I am not jealous of a plumber.”

The word plumber came out too sharp.

I should have noticed.

I was too busy protecting my heart from two men who were one man and somehow hurting me twice.

Then I got pregnant.

The test turned positive on a Monday morning while rain hit the bathroom window and Nathan argued with someone in the hallway about moving a meeting. I sat on the edge of the bathtub staring at the two pink lines until the world became very quiet.

I had always wanted a child someday.

Not like this.

Not in a contract.

Not when my husband had a secret girlfriend and I had just ended things with a fake plumber who made me feel understood.

The doctor said the pregnancy was high risk.

Stress could be dangerous.

I went home with vitamins, instructions, and a fear so tender I could barely breathe around it.

Nathan found me in the nursery wing, sitting on the floor among furniture catalogs.

“Gillian?”

I looked up.

“I’m pregnant.”

For once, Nathan Mormant had no clever answer.

He knelt in front of me.

His hand hovered near my knee, not touching.

“Are you okay?”

“I don’t know.”

His face softened.

Then joy broke through the control.

It was quiet, stunned, almost boyish.

“We’re having a baby?”

“We’re having a complicated medical situation,” I said, though my voice shook.

He laughed once, then stopped when he realized I was crying.

“Hey,” he whispered. “I’ve got you.”

That was the moment I almost believed him.

Almost.

The baby changed the game.

Jennie discovered my DateMe messages and decided I had cheated. She waited until Michael’s recovery celebration, surrounded by family friends, executives, and enough champagne to drown a scandal. Then she lifted her phone and smiled.

“I have an announcement too,” she said. “Are we sure this baby is a Mormant?”

The room went silent.

Nathan’s hand tightened around mine.

Jennie turned the screen toward everyone.

“Soft Bunny. That’s you, isn’t it? While you were married to my brother, you were sneaking around with your little online boyfriend.”

My body went cold.

“No. Let me explain.”

“Gold digger caught in the act,” Jennie said. “Trying to pass off a bastard as an heir.”

Michael slammed his cane against the floor.

“Enough!”

But the word had landed.

Bastard.

My child.

My baby.

I looked at Nathan.

His face was pale.

“Nathan,” I whispered.

Jennie laughed.

“Why are you protecting her? She cheated on you.”

Nathan stepped forward.

“Because the person you’re accusing Gillian of cheating with,” he said, “The Plumber Solver, is me.”

The room tilted.

Every sound became distant.

Glass.

Gasps.

Michael muttering, “Finally.”

I stared at Nathan.

“No.”

His eyes met mine.

“I was going to tell you.”

“When?”

His silence answered.

The betrayal was not that he had been The Plumber Solver.

It was that he had known.

That he had watched me rant about my boss, watched me cry over being ghosted, watched me choose between two versions of him while he stood behind both masks and decided I was too fragile for truth.

“You lied,” I said.

“I was scared of losing you.”

“You don’t get to call control fear and expect me to forgive it.”

He reached for me.

I stepped back.

“We fell in love twice,” he said, voice breaking. “Online and in person.”

“Did we?” I asked.

His face cracked.

I turned toward the stairs.

“I want a divorce.”

“You can’t.”

“Do not mention the contract.”

“I’m not talking about the contract. I’m talking about our baby.”

The stress hit like a blade.

Pain tightened low in my abdomen.

My hand flew to my stomach.

Nathan’s face went white.

“Gillian?”

The room blurred.

Someone called for a doctor.

Michael shouted.

Nathan caught me before I hit the floor.

PART 3: THE HUSBAND WHO HAD TO EARN HIS NAME

When I woke, Nathan was not beside the hospital bed.

That was his first good decision.

My mother was there, knitting something tiny and yellow with hands that trembled. My father sat near the window pretending to read a magazine upside down. Maya stood at the foot of the bed with crossed arms and an expression that said she would fight a billionaire, a nurse, a senator, or God if necessary.

“The baby?” I whispered.

“Stable,” Maya said immediately. “You need rest. No stress. No billionaire nonsense.”

My mother cried into the knitting.

“I’m fine,” I said, though I was not.

Nathan had left a note.

Not flowers.

Not diamonds.

Not a grand apology bought by a man who believed expensive things translated emotion.

A note.

I am outside because I do not want my presence to hurt you. I arranged the best care and then removed myself from the room because for once, I am trying not to confuse love with control. I will be wherever you allow me to be. —Nathan

I read it three times.

Then told Maya to throw it away.

She did not.

Nathan moved into a tent outside my parents’ house ten days later.

A literal tent.

In the yard.

The billionaire who owned hospitals and villas and likely several things with helipads slept on a camping mattress beside my mother’s hydrangeas because I had said I needed space and he apparently interpreted space as “remain visible but pathetic.”

Every day, flowers arrived.

Not roses.

Wildflowers.

Daisies, lilacs, tulips, sunflowers, baby’s breath, whatever he could find that looked less like wealth and more like apology.

On day eleven, my father asked if we should invite “the rich garden ghost” in for soup.

“No,” I said.

My mother peeked through the curtains.

“He looks cold.”

“He owns cashmere.”

“He is trying.”

“He lied to me.”

“Yes,” she said softly. “But he is not hiding now.”

That annoyed me because it was true.

Teddy visited one afternoon with a folder and looked deeply uncomfortable.

“Mrs. Mormant.”

“Gillian.”

“Right. Gillian. Nathan asked me to give you this only if you asked whether he had planned to confess.”

“I didn’t ask.”

“No, but your mother did.”

My mother waved from the kitchen.

Traitor.

I opened the folder.

Inside were drafts.

Bad drafts.

Embarrassing drafts.

Dear Gillian, there’s something I need to tell you. I am The Plumber Solver.

Crossed out.

Hey sweetheart, surprise! Turns out I’m the man you love and the man you hate.

Crossed out aggressively.

I lied because I was afraid that if you knew the plumber was me, you would lose the only version of me you trusted. That was selfish. I am sorry.

I sat down.

There were pages of them.

Some corny. Some painfully honest. Some never finished.

The last page was dated the night before Jennie exposed everything.

Finding out you were pregnant made today the happiest day of my life. The doctor said stress could harm you, so I delayed the truth again and called it protection. It was cowardice wearing a medical excuse. I will tell you everything openly when the time is right. I hope I have not already destroyed the right time by trying to choose it.

My throat tightened.

“Nathan is an idiot,” Teddy said quietly.

I looked up.

He swallowed.

“But he has been less of one since you.”

I almost laughed.

Almost.

That night, I texted him.

Joyland. Tomorrow. Noon.

His reply came in seconds.

I’ll be there.

No excuses.

No excuses.

He was hit by another car on the way.

Because apparently our romance was cursed by traffic.

He arrived at Joyland twenty-six minutes late, limping, one sleeve torn, blood dried at his hairline, holding a crushed bouquet from a gas station and looking like a man who had escaped both death and common sense.

“Oh my God,” I said. “What happened?”

“Minor accident.”

“Again?”

“Technically.”

“Technically?”

“I was unconscious longer last time.”

I stared at him.

“The day you stood me up?”

He winced.

“Yes.”

I hit his chest lightly, then immediately panicked because he groaned.

“You idiot.”

“I know.”

“You absolute impossible idiot.”

“I know.”

“You could have told me.”

“I believed if I really wanted to see someone, I should show up.”

“My words?”

“Yes.”

“You used my words against medical advice?”

“Romantically.”

“Stupidly.”

“Also true.”

I wanted to stay angry.

Then he pulled a rainbow lollipop from his pocket, cracked in half from the accident, and held it out with such desperate hope that my heart betrayed me.

“I forgot flowers,” he said. “But this is day eleven. Eighty-eight more before I earn forgiveness.”

I cried.

He looked terrified.

“Don’t cry. I’ll do anything. I’ll sleep in the tent until the baby starts college.”

“That is not necessary.”

“I’ll learn plumbing.”

“You should not touch pipes.”

“I’ll stop buying hospitals without warning.”

“That one is actually important.”

He nodded solemnly.

“I love you,” he said. “Not as my contract wife. Not as Soft Bunny. Not as the woman my grandfather chose. You. The nurse who insulted me in a VIP room. The woman who protected her chaotic parents. The woman who told me family means staying even when the cookies are terrible. I love you, Gillian Willow Mormant, and I am done hiding behind any name that is not mine.”

The arcade lights flickered around us.

Children screamed near the claw machines.

A teenager dropped tokens into a racing game.

It was not romantic in the way billionaires usually arranged romance.

That made it perfect.

“I love you too,” I whispered.

Then narrowed my eyes.

“But I am still furious.”

“I can work with furious.”

“You will.”

The final attack came on Halloween.

Jennie did not accept defeat quietly.

She never had.

After Michael publicly tore apart the contract papers and declared our marriage real because “entertainment before death is a human right,” Jennie spiraled. Her trust fund was threatened. Her cars were revoked. Her access to Mormant accounts frozen. Isabel was gone, bankrupt and humiliated. Donald had vanished from the medical community. Every weapon Jennie borrowed had broken in her hand.

So she hired men.

I was leaving the hospital party dressed as a very tired pregnant witch when someone grabbed me from behind.

A cloth over my mouth.

A sharp smell.

Hands.

Darkness.

I woke in an abandoned warehouse, wrists tied, stomach aching with fear.

Nathan was brought in thirty minutes later, face bruised, hands bound, fury burning through every inch of him.

The man holding me pressed a knife near my throat.

“Stay there or she dies.”

Nathan stopped.

Immediately.

No arrogance.

No performance.

Just terror.

“If you want leverage,” he said, voice rough, “take me. Let her go.”

The kidnapper laughed.

“She’s the valuable one. Pregnant wife. Future heir.”

My blood went cold.

“Jennie,” I whispered.

The man’s eyes flicked.

Too quick.

Nathan saw it.

“She did this?”

“I didn’t say—”

“You didn’t have to.”

Nathan looked at me.

“Gillian, listen. There’s a side door behind you. My car is outside. When I move, you run.”

“No.”

“You’re carrying our child.”

“And I’m not weak.”

The old me—the woman Nathan first met, terrified outside a hospital, ashamed of debt, humiliated by wealth—would have waited to be saved.

That woman had changed.

At Joyland, Nathan had taught me how to aim at arcade targets. Steady hands. Breathe. Fire.

Now, on the floor beside me, half-hidden under a broken pallet, lay the kidnapper’s dropped gun.

Nathan kept talking, drawing attention.

“I’ll sign everything away,” he said. “Call Jennie. Tell her she can have the inheritance, the shares, the houses. Just let my wife walk.”

The kidnapper hesitated.

Greed is a door.

I moved.

One twist of my wrist against the loose rope. One sharp kick. One dive. My fingers closed around cold metal.

“Hey!” the man shouted.

I lifted the gun with both shaking hands.

Steady.

Breathe.

Fire.

The shot hit the hanging chain above him, sending sparks and metal screaming down. He dropped the knife, cursing, and Nathan lunged.

It was over in seconds.

Security flooded in.

Police followed.

Jennie arrived pretending to be horrified and made it ten words into her denial before the kidnapper screamed, “You hired me!”

Michael, pale but standing with a cane near the warehouse entrance, looked at his granddaughter with more sorrow than anger.

“That’s enough,” he said.

Jennie burst into tears.

“Grandpa, I can explain—”

“No,” Michael said. “You can’t.”

Nathan’s voice was colder.

“From this moment, you are no longer part of this family. Trust fund. Houses. Cars. Gone. The lawyers will handle the rest.”

“No!”

Her scream followed us into the night.

I did not look back.

In the ambulance, Nathan held my hand like it was the only thing tethering him to earth.

“You fired a gun,” he said.

“I aimed at a chain.”

“You fired a gun while pregnant.”

“I was under stress.”

“That is not how medical advice works.”

“You were about to sign away a billion dollars.”

“I’d sign away ten.”

I looked at him.

He looked back.

The siren wailed around us.

“You really would,” I said.

“Yes.”

“That’s ridiculous.”

“Yes.”

“I love you.”

His face changed.

It was the softest thing I had ever seen.

“I love you too.”

Halloween night ended not in tragedy, but in the hospital room where our child’s heartbeat filled the monitor, fast and strong.

Michael cried.

My mother knitted aggressively.

My father asked whether “kidnapping” counted as cardio.

Maya threatened to sedate everyone.

Nathan sat beside me, bruised and bandaged, refusing to let go of my hand.

When the doctor finally said the baby was stable, Nathan exhaled like a man returning from underwater.

Then, because Nathan Mormant had no sense of normal timing, he lowered himself carefully to one knee beside the hospital bed.

I stared.

“Nathan.”

He pulled out a ring.

Not the enormous diamond from our contract wedding.

A smaller one.

Delicate.

Warm gold.

A tiny hidden engraving inside.

Soft Bunny & Plumber Solver. No more masks.

“Gillian Willow,” he said, voice unsteady, “will you marry me again? Not for a contract. Not for my grandfather. Not for debt. Not for an inheritance. For the ordinary, impossible, chaotic life you taught me to want.”

My eyes filled.

“You are proposing in a hospital room after a kidnapping.”

“Yes.”

“You are injured.”

“Yes.”

“I am wearing a witch hat.”

“Yes.”

“My parents are watching.”

My father waved.

Nathan smiled.

“I know.”

I looked at the man who had once called me a gold digger, then learned to bake because a stranger online said good husbands made dessert. The man who bought my hospital without asking, then learned to knock. The man who lied because he was afraid, then slept in a tent because he finally understood love could not be forced indoors. The man who had loved me twice and nearly lost me both times.

“Yes,” I said.

“And yes.”

Michael slammed his cane on the floor.

“Finally!”

Months later, we had the wedding I wanted.

Small.

Intimate.

Knitted decor everywhere because my mother insisted and Nathan did not argue. Homemade desserts, including cookies everyone politely avoided. Rainbow lollipops in glass jars. No reporters. No contract. No hidden identities. No Jennie. No Isabel. No debt collector. No cameras.

Michael lived long enough to attend.

He held baby Taylor in the front row, our daughter wrapped in a tiny cream blanket, her dark eyes blinking at the string lights like she had personally approved them.

Nathan wore the ugly blueberry sweater my mother had made.

By choice.

I walked toward him in a simple dress, no half-million-dollar gown, no performance, no role to play. Just me. Gillian Willow Mormant. Nurse. Daughter. Wife. Mother. Former Soft Bunny. Woman who had learned that real love was not always simple, but it had to become honest or it did not deserve to stay.

Nathan took my hands.

Warm.

Steady.

No contract between us now.

Only vows.

When the officiant said he could kiss the bride, Nathan leaned close.

“One-time deal?” he whispered.

I smiled.

“Lifetime contract.”

He laughed.

Then kissed me like the billionaire, the plumber, the boss, the husband, and the ridiculous man I loved had finally become one person.

And for once, nobody had to pretend.