Chapter 1

The third time Ethan Holt burst through the door to catch me slept with a strange, I didn't scramble to pull on my clothes or fumble for excuses the way I had the first two times.

His company's attorney, Vivienne Walsh, stood at the front of the group.

"Ms. Calloway, this is the third instance of marital infidelity."

"Per the prenuptial agreement, you will leave this marriage with nothing, and you forfeit all custodial rights to the child."

Ethan had long since run out of patience. The look in his eyes when they landed on me was pure contempt.

He threw the divorce papers down in front of me:

"The first time, you said you didn't even know the man."

"The second time, you said you had no idea how you ended up at that hotel."

"Third time's the charm — so what's your excuse this time?"

He assumed I'd pull out another pathetic story.

But I said nothing.

I simply picked up the pen and signed my name on the divorce papers.

Then I disappeared from his world.

Only — why was it that the moment I finally gave him what he wanted, agreed to walk away with nothing and give up our child, he lost his mind?

……

Vivienne immediately snatched the signed papers from the table. As though terrified I might change my mind, she turned to Ethan and said, "Mr. Holt, it's signed."

Ethan stared at me, his brow deeply furrowed.

Most likely because he hadn't gotten what he'd expected the way he had the previous two times — me ripping up the divorce papers, then pressing my forehead to the floor until it bled, sobbing as I begged him: "For the sake of our child, please believe me just this once!"

……

I capped the pen and set it back on the table.

"I'll clear out my things as soon as possible. As for visitation rights for the child —"

"You have no right to call yourself a mother." His voice was low and heavy as he cut me off. "You're never to see the child again."

I didn't look up. I only smiled faintly. "That's exactly what I was going to say — I don't want visitation rights either!"

The coldness in Ethan's eyes didn't waver.

He just looked at me a moment longer.

As though he couldn't quite read my sudden decisiveness.

For the past four years, he and our child had been my entire world.

I used to be upset for half a day whenever the little one called out "Auntie Viv" one too many times.

And now I was letting go without a second glance. That wasn't like me.

"Shameless," he said with a cold laugh, as though he'd finally found a reasonable explanation for my change of behavior. "You'd throw away your own flesh and blood for some man on the outside."

"Then what would you call what you did — going out of your way to get into my bed and getting pregnant to trap me?"

I listened to him and felt not even the faintest urge to defend myself.

The first time he'd caught me "in bed with someone" at a hotel, I'd been completely blindsided.

I had begged him to listen, insisting I had done nothing to betray him.

He had always been certain I couldn't live without him.

And because the man supposedly caught with me had long since fled — leaving only a blurry shadow on the hotel security footage — Ethan had grudgingly believed me.

But he'd still taken our son from my side.

Monthly visits had to be scheduled a week in advance through Vivienne.

When I came to see him, she followed me around the entire time as a so-called "escort."

Even holding him a little longer required reading her mood.

Every toy, every outfit I bought for the child had to be cleared with Vivienne first.

Otherwise it would never reach him.

The ordeal wrecked me mentally, and then came the accusations of a second affair.

At the time, I'd taken a job to keep myself occupied.

But on a business trip one day I somehow ended up at a hotel, dizzy and disoriented.

When I woke, a heavyset man was lying beside me, snoring and drooling in my direction.

I called the police. A female officer examined me and said I hadn't been assaulted.

The facts were right there, but Ethan still refused to believe I'd simply been set up before I could "commit the crime."

After that, I wasn't even allowed to attend parent-teacher nights at the kindergarten.

Whenever the school had something, Ethan sent Vivienne instead.

He told me to stay home and "stop embarrassing everyone."

When our son pointed at me and called me a "bad woman," Ethan stood right there and said nothing.

And then came the third time I was "caught"...

I was done playing this game. I was setting them free.

And now he had the nerve to ask me why I was giving up even my own child?