Chapter 1

The night I was thrown out, there was blood pooling beneath me, and I was rushed to the emergency room.

The doctor said my ectopic pregnancy had ruptured. Surgery was immediate, or I would die.

With trembling hands, I dialed my husband Ryan's number.

But what came through the other end was his mistress Kate's cheerful laughter: "Ryan! Oliver's so happy today!"

Oliver was their two-year-old illegitimate son.

Then I heard Ryan speak in a voice colder than anything I'd ever heard from him:

"Ellie, stop with the theatrics. Besides—"

"You think some half-formed embryo matters more than a living child?"

The line went dead.

Later, I signed the divorce papers, changed every piece of contact information I had, and disappeared completely.

Until one year later, when I ran into him at an industry summit—this time as a partner at a top architectural firm.

He was clutching my medical records, on his knees in front of me, weeping.

…

…

The first year Ryan transferred to the New York headquarters, he video-called me every night until midnight.

The second year, it became once a week.

The third year, the calls stopped entirely. All that remained were texts so short they read like office memos.

I kept telling myself that marriage required trust.

Until that afternoon, when he sent me a single message.

"Ellie, Mom wants you to come back home. She says she needs to talk to you."

I thought his mother Elaine was ill. I took time off work and booked the earliest flight I could find.

But when I walked into Elaine's old house, the person sitting in the living room wasn't a doctor. It was a woman I'd never seen before.

She was young, blonde, wearing a loose beige knit dress, both hands cradling her belly.

"Who is she?" I forced my voice steady, though it still trembled at the edges.

"Ellie, sweetie, you understand." Elaine sat by the fireplace, her voice so gentle it made my blood run cold.

"I'm not asking you to divorce Ryan. I just think you should be generous enough to give Kate a proper place in this family."

"She's been with Ryan in New York all this time. You know how much pressure he's been under these past few years. She's helped him enormously."

For a moment, I felt as though I'd been struck over the head. My entire body went rigid, and I couldn't form words.

Kate. Ryan's secretary. The woman Ryan had sworn he only ever saw at the office.

I shifted my gaze to her.

Kate's eyes were red-rimmed. She kept her head down, her voice as soft as milk diluted with water:

"Ellie, I'm so sorry. I never meant to hurt you."

I looked at her belly.

"So?"

Her voice was light as a feather.

"I'm pregnant. The baby needs a father."

A high-pitched ringing filled my ears.

Elaine was already barreling ahead, as though announcing some perfectly respectable arrangement.

"Ryan is a responsible man. Ellie, you haven't been able to conceive—no one's blaming you entirely. We can find a doctor to help you along. But Kate's baby can't just go without recognition."

I sat on the sofa and suddenly found the room laughably unfamiliar.

"Recognition?"

Elaine nodded.

"You're still Ryan's wife. No one's going to take that away from you. It's just that Kate and the baby deserve a respectable status too."

"Sounds like you've already made the decision for me."

I let out a short laugh.

"Then you should be talking to the man who got her pregnant. Not me."

I stood, grabbed my coat, and walked toward the front door.

Just as I reached it, I heard a car pulling up outside.

A black Bentley stopped in front of the house. Ryan stepped out of the driver's seat. The moment he saw me, the color drained from his face.

The passenger door opened too.

A little boy, maybe two years old, reached out his arms, calling in that high, milky voice: "Daddy! Up!"

I stopped on the steps.

Two years old.

Ten months of pregnancy, plus two years.

That lined up perfectly with Ryan's first year in New York.

The man who had video-called me every night until the small hours, who whispered "I miss you" over and over through the screen, who would order hot soup delivered to my door at midnight just because I mentioned my stomach felt off—during all of that, he had already fathered another woman's child.

Ryan stood frozen beside the car. He clearly hadn't expected to find me walking out.

"Ellie…"

Then Kate rushed out of the house behind me and grabbed my arm.

"Ellie, please don't blame him. It was all my fault. That night—I'd had too much to drink, I threw myself at him. His heart has always been with you…"

I shook her off.

"Don't touch me."

Ryan finally snapped out of it and strode toward me—but instinctively positioned himself in front of Kate.

"Ellie, let me explain."

"Explain what?" I stared at him. "How you fucked her during the day and called me Honey on your phone at night?"

Ryan's face went sheet-white.

He lowered his voice, a plea threading through it.

"Don't do this here. Mom's right there."

I stared at him for two full seconds, then laughed.

"What? You think this is embarrassing? Didn't seem to bother you when you were cheating."

Elaine walked over too, the little boy in her arms, not a trace of guilt on her face.

"Ellie, what's done is done. Oliver is Ryan's son, and Kate's carrying another one. You can't conceive—you can't expect Ryan to have no heir."

I looked at Ryan.

"You didn't tell her?"

Ryan wouldn't meet my eyes.

I stepped closer.

"The year you drank yourself into a stomach hemorrhage trying to close that deal—I quit my project. I stayed in that hospital with you for three months, days and nights blurring together, until my body completely broke down. When my hormones crashed and the doctor told me to stop pulling all-nighters, who kept calling me at two in the morning saying he couldn't cope alone?"

But Elaine only frowned.

"Ellie, don't pin everything on Ryan."

Ryan said quietly: "Ellie, enough."

"It's not enough," I said.

Kate hid behind him, eyes glistening.

"Ellie, I really don't want to hurt you. If you're willing—I don't need a wedding, I don't need a ring, I don't need to be called Mrs. Blackwell. The children can call you Mom. I'll just stay and take care of them. All I want is to be near Ryan."

How touching.

Ryan's gaze softened the moment he looked at her.

When he turned back to me, his voice had already gone cold.

"Kate has already compromised this much. What more do you want?"

I looked at him and almost didn't recognize the man.

"Ellie, if it weren't for Kate helping me in New York these past two years, I'd never have gotten a foothold there. You stayed in Chicago drawing your blueprints. You have no idea how hard things were for me."

I nodded.

"You're right. I don't."

All I knew was that his first round of startup capital came from me selling the house my grandmother left me.

All I knew was that I waited for his weekly text until three in the morning, and that made me a fool.

I reached into my bag and pulled out a black voice recorder.

He'd given it to me before he left for New York. He'd said: "When you miss me, just listen to this."

Ryan's face changed instantly.

"All I know is you said to wait three years, and then you'd bring me out to join you."

I pressed play.

Ryan's voice—young and tender—floated out of the speaker.

"Ellie, give me three years. I'll bring you to New York. I'll give you the home we've always wanted."

"Ellie, I love you. Forever."

The air went dead silent.

Ryan lunged for it.

"Ellie, don't—"

I let go. The recorder clattered onto the stone steps.

Then I lifted my foot and brought it down, hard.

A clean, sharp crack.

I looked at him.

"Ryan, we're done."

I turned and walked away.

His voice came from behind me.

"Ellie!"

But the next second, his footsteps were cut short by Kate's gasp—

"Ryan, my stomach—it hurts so bad…"

Ryan turned instinctively to catch her.

I didn't look back. I flagged down a cab waiting at the curb and pulled the door shut cleanly behind me.

"Airport."