Chapter 1

My husband's precious first love got into an argument with me while she was pregnant, and out of nowhere she lost the baby.

Marcus Sherwood screamed for my life in return.

My mother threw herself in front of me.

"If a life has to pay for this, then take mine."

Not long after, she swallowed a bottle of pills and died in the bathroom.

I was destroyed with grief.

And from that day on, Marcus settled down too, never once mentioning his first love again.

But things between my husband and me didn't get better because of it.

If anything, we were falling apart, headed straight for divorce.

A year later, sunk in severe depression, I went abroad without telling him, just to clear my head.

And there, by accident, I ran into my mother, the one who was supposed to be dead, holding a baby, out for a stroll with his first love.

Standing in front of her was Marcus, the man who'd told me he was away on business.

"You've had a hard year. Divorce Bella Gilbert soon, and go live a happy life with Yasmine Aldridge."

Marcus was quiet. "But Mom, isn't this too unfair to Bella?"

My mother sighed. "One hand or the other, they're both my own flesh. What can I do, when Yasmine is the illegitimate daughter I left out in the world."

"Bella's already gotten more than enough. Since Yasmine loves you and is carrying your child—"

"—she's the one who should step aside a little."

Only then did I understand. A year ago the miscarriage was fake. She'd slipped off abroad and delivered the baby without a hitch.

And my mother trading her life for a life.

That was nothing more than a lie the three of them had cooked up together to break me.

1

Hearing this, Yasmine nestled against my mother, deeply moved.

"Mom, I know you love me most."

"All I said was that I wanted to be with Marcus forever, and you came up with a scheme this perfect. That idiot Bella actually believed it!"

In the corner they couldn't see.

I stood pressed against the wall, shaking all over, unable to stop.

In this whole life, the one person I'd never doubted was my mother.

And she was the one who'd woven the biggest lie of all around me.

Right now she was stroking Yasmine, her whole face soft with love.

"Silly girl, Mom wronged you before, made you live all these years as an illegitimate child."

"Of course I have to make it up to you now, whatever it takes."

"If you hadn't lost the baby last year while pretending to fight with Bella, then used the chance to go abroad and give birth, how would Bella ever have let you go?"

Back when I first found out this precious first love existed.

I really did fight her to the death.

More than once I put her in the hospital.

I threw a check in her face and forced her to leave Marcus.

I tried the gentle way and the hard way.

But she clung on like something I couldn't peel off, planted right between Marcus and me.

"Bella, Marcus just loves my face. I'm not leaving. What are you going to do about it?"

She was baiting me on purpose, and I couldn't stand it, so I slapped her.

Yasmine went down to the floor, and suddenly she was bleeding.

Marcus got there in time and rushed her to the hospital. When they told me she'd miscarried, I was standing there in a daze.

"Miscarried? I only slapped her once. How could she miscarry?"

But Marcus was in a rage.

"Bella, that was a human life!"

He made a scene, insisting on calling the police to have me arrested.

"I told you, I'm not the one who made her lose that baby."

I dug my heels in, refusing to back down.

"If you've got the nerve, let them take me away. A life for a life."

In the end Marcus really did call the police, and they hauled me into the station.

Three days later, they let me out.

And I came home to my mother's suicide note.

"If a life truly has to repay this, then let it be mine."

"Marcus, let my daughter go, and build a good life with Bella."

I clutched that note and cried until I couldn't breathe, asking Marcus where my mother was.

"She's already been cremated."

He held me in silence. "This ends here."

After that storm, we had a brief stretch of peace.

Yasmine, they said, had gone abroad heartbroken after the miscarriage.

Marcus cut off contact with her too.

But a life stood between us now.

However deep our love had once been, we could never go back.

I couldn't even accept my mother's death, and little by little I sank into severe depression.

But never in my life did I imagine this.

My mother, who'd faked her own death, had gone abroad to care for Yasmine's baby, this illegitimate daughter's child, cooking for her, tending to her every need.

Right now my mother's hand rested on the back of that newborn, patting, again and again.

Just the way she used to soothe me to sleep when I was small.

"There, sweet baby, you like it when Grandma holds you, don't you?"

I bit down hard on my wrist, not daring to make a sound, until the skin broke and bled.

I got depression over people like this.

Countless nights lying awake, countless times tearing myself apart.

For what?

The three of them were still laughing and chatting together.

And I couldn't watch anymore. I turned and fled without thinking.

Clearing my head no longer mattered. I bought a ticket and hurried straight back home.