Chapter 1

At a friend's get-together, my professor husband, Ethan Reed, suddenly dropped to his knees in front of me, his voice raw with desperation.

"Claire, Lily's a match for your heart. She can't wait any longer for the surgery."

My throat seized up instantly, though I can't say I was surprised.

I gave a bitter smile. "But a person only has one heart."

Ethan looked up at me. "Don't worry. I'll get in touch with the best cardiac team in New York. They'll fit you with an artificial heart."

I lowered my eyes, my palm resting on my six-month belly.

"I'm due in three months."

He was silent for two seconds.

"The baby... we can always have another one."

The room went terrifyingly quiet.

Then, from nearby, the girl's bright laugh rang out.

"Professor Reed, there was never any match. I was messing with you. I didn't think you'd actually go and beg Mrs. Reed."

The dead silence shattered in an instant.

Our friends let out relieved breaths and started smoothing things over with nervous laughter.

"That joke was brutal. Ethan went white as a sheet."

"If Lily had said she was a match with me, Ethan probably would've wheeled me into the OR himself."

Only I sat perfectly still on the couch. I took out my phone and booked an induced termination for the next day.

Ethan had never truly been angry at Lily.

This frail, sickly student was the research assistant he'd personally mentored for three years. He'd always handled her with kid gloves, like she was something made of glass.

But this time, when he stood up, his expression darkened in a way I'd rarely seen.

The people in the living room finally went quiet, reading the room too late.

Someone whispered a reminder to Lily. "That joke of yours hit Claire. You basically crossed Ethan's line."

"Everyone knows Ethan's famously obsessed with his wife. His first year at Westbridge, a colleague cracked some offhand joke about Claire and Ethan put the guy in the hospital."

Lily froze. Within seconds, her eyes brimmed with tears.

She gingerly tugged at the hem of Ethan's sleeve.

"I'm sorry, Professor Reed. I was just trying to be funny."

Ethan said nothing.

Lily turned to me next, her eyes wet, sniffling.

"Mrs. Reed, I didn't mean it. If you're angry, go ahead and yell at me."

Our friends rushed to mediate.

"Lily just doesn't have a filter. She says things without thinking. You two shouldn't take it to heart."

"Exactly, Ethan. She's the student you've mentored for three years. You put her in the acknowledgments of that paper just recently. You can't freeze her out over one joke."

At that, Ethan's expression finally softened.

He reached out and wiped the tear from the corner of Lily's eye.

"Don't joke about something like that again."

Lily nodded vigorously.

Then Ethan looked at me, a note of apology in his voice.

"Sorry, Claire. I came to you before I'd even verified anything."

Trading away a heart.

Giving up a six-month-old baby.

In his mouth, it was just a casual little "favor."

And this wasn't the first time.

As long as it involved Lily, the normally cool and rational Professor Reed became emotional, reckless, completely without boundaries.

On Christmas Eve, Lily sent a single text saying her period cramps were unbearable, and he drove over a thousand miles to see her in some coastal city.

When people asked, he just shrugged helplessly. "Her health is fragile. I was afraid something might happen to her."

But I was five months pregnant, waiting for him at home all night, and he wasn't afraid something might happen to me.

With me, he was always rational. Like a machine.

"Claire, carrying a child is naturally hard. Once you deliver, it'll be fine."

When I became irritable and fell apart, he chalked it up to pregnancy hormones.

He'd toss out a few words of comfort and disappear into his study.

Every time, I had to choke back the urge to interrupt his work.

Yet the research paper that had consumed five years of his life listed Lily Grant first in the acknowledgments.

An undergraduate with virtually no professional capability whatsoever.

By the time I found out, the story had already been in the news.

In the interview footage, Ethan's expression was calm.

"In five years of teaching, Lily isn't the most gifted student I've encountered. But she is certainly the most resilient."

"I'm grateful she came into my life and gave me the courage to keep going with my research."