Chapter 3

Julian came to a halt.

"Serena, your only job right now is keeping this baby safe."

"Leave everything else to me."

On the drive back, his phone rang.

The incoming number had no contact name.

The moment the person on the other end spoke, his reflex was to turn down the volume.

"I can't talk right now."

"Did you take the medicine yet?"

A woman’s voice leaked faintly through the speaker.

I couldn't catch the rest, except for the tender way she called him, "Julian."

Nobody at his corporate firm dared address him by his first name like that.

Julian hung up abruptly.

I kept my eyes glued to the window, pretending I hadn't heard a single thing.

Once home, he methodically sorted the pills from the clinic into a weekly organizer.

Morning and night compartments, neatly labeled with times.

He did it with practiced precision.

"I have some business tonight. Martha will stay here and make sure you take your medicine on time."

"Company business?"

"Yeah."

"Who was that on the phone earlier?"

His hands paused briefly over the organizer.

"A project manager."

"A woman?"

"Serena."

He snapped the pill organizer shut. "Don't start suspecting everyone just because of that damn lock."

I offered a small smile.

"I only asked a question."

Seeming to realize he had overreacted, he leaned down and pressed a soft kiss to my forehead.

"I’m sorry. I’ve just been exhausted lately."

"Once this busy stretch blows over, I’ll take time off to be with you."

At ten that evening, he received another call and left in a hurry.

Before walking out the door, he poured me a glass of warm water and placed the evening pill into my palm.

"Take this, then get some sleep."

The moment the front door clicked shut, I sat there in silence, motionless.

The pill resting in my palm was pale yellow.

Yet the progesterone tablets the doctor showed me this morning were undeniably white.

I slid the yellow tablet under my tongue, lifted the glass of water, and mimed swallowing.

Only after Julian watched me 'swallow' it did he grab his car keys and leave.

The second his footsteps faded down the hall toward the elevator, I dashed into the bathroom and spat the tablet onto a tissue.

Soaked in saliva, the edges had already begun to dissolve, releasing a faint, metallic bitterness.

I walked over and tore open the original, sealed packaging from the clinic.

Every single pill inside was stark white.

Then I flipped open Julian’s sorted weekly pill box.

The morning slots contained white pills, but every single evening slot was filled with pale yellow tablets.

My hands began to shake uncontrollably.

This wasn't a mix-up of a single pill.

Someone had deliberately swapped out my evening medication.

And since we returned from the clinic today, the only person who had touched that pill organizer was Julian.

Staring at that row of yellow pills, my breath caught in my throat.

Two years ago, during my first pregnancy, he was the one in charge of sorting my daily vitamins and meds.

I suffered from severe morning sickness back then, and every night, he lovingly handed me my pills with a glass of water.

During my second pregnancy, I was so terrified of another loss that I barely stepped outside our apartment.

He personally packed every single prenatal pill into the organizer, watching me swallow them every single day.

I used to think that was the purest form of love.

Now, that tender devotion felt like invisible hands wrapping around my neck, squeezing the life out of me.

I pulled out my phone and messaged my college friend, Chloe.

She worked as a senior researcher at a private pharmaceutical testing lab.

I snapped a clear photo of the yellow pill and asked if she could run an analysis for me.

Chloe called me back within seconds.

"I can't identify it just from a photo."

"Bring the physical sample to my lab tomorrow. I’ll run a mass spectrometry test myself."

She paused, her tone dropping into dead seriousness.

"Serena, you’re pregnant. Do not put any unverified pills into your body."

"And whatever you do, don't mention this to anyone yet."