The Wife He Threw Away for His Brother's Widow1
### Chapter 1
"Dad, I've had enough. Since I'm nothing but a dirty secret, a 'homewrecker,' then I'll step aside and let Dustin Delgado have his sister-in-law."
My knuckles were white around the phone. My voice trembled, but I finally said it.
"I always told you that bastard wasn't worthy of you." A sigh crackled through the speaker, followed by my father's low, steady voice. "It's not too late to leave him. I'll come get you right now."
His words loosened something wound tight inside my chest. I wiped the tears from my face. "Give me a week. I need to wrap things up here."
I hung up and slid down against the headboard until I was sitting on the floor. Every memory I'd fought to bury came flooding back at once.
A year ago, Dustin's older brother died in a car accident. His sister-in-law, Alice Dotson, lost her mind. She clung to Dustin, called him "honey," gripped him like he was the last piece of driftwood in a shipwreck.
Dustin didn't push her away.
"Cecily," he'd said, "she's carrying my brother's child. She can't be upset. Just bear with it for now. Once the baby's born, I'll tell her the truth."
So I bore it.
I bore it when I was moved out of our home and left to hide alone in a hotel. I bore it when they appeared everywhere together, playing the loving "husband and wife" for the whole world. I bore it when sneaking a weekend visit with my own husband made me feel like a criminal.
Until today. Alice found out I was pregnant and came at me like a woman possessed, screaming that I was the whore destroying her family. I clenched my jaw and said nothing.
Until her stiletto heel swung toward my belly, and every drop of humiliation I'd swallowed finally detonated inside my chest.
I shielded my three-month bump and snarled, "I'm not the other woman! Dustin and I have been married for three years, and your husband has been dead—"
The words died in my throat. A large hand clamped around it, squeezing until I couldn't breathe.
Above me, Dustin's face was terrifyingly dark.
"I told you," he said, each word bitten off like a verdict, "she is not to be upset. Under any circumstances."
In that instant, I looked at him and realized I didn't recognize him at all.