Chapter 1

Maya’s POV

“She is two months pregnant.”

“I can’t believe it,” Mason’s voice carried through the cracked boardroom door, low and reverent, the way he used to speak to me only in our earliest days before the miscarriages, before the silence grew between us like frost on glass.

 “Two months?”

My fingers tightened on the door handle until my knuckles bleached white. I’d come to drop off the revised merger documents myself instead of sending my assistant. A small gesture. A wife’s gesture. Now I couldn’t move

Dr. Hargrove answered, calm and clinical as always. “Yes, Mr. Mason. The hCG levels and ultrasound are conclusive. She’s eight weeks pregnant.”

A soft exhale, almost a laugh slipped from Selina.

 My Selina. My best friend since college, the one who’d held my hair back while I vomited through fertility drugs, who’d brought lavender candles to the hospital after each D&C, who’d whispered “next time” like a prayer every time my body failed me again.

Silence stretched, thick and intimate

Then the unmistakable sound: lips against skin. Slow. Tender. Celebratory.

My knees nearly buckled.

I slid sideways, pressing my back to the marble wall beside the double doors, hidden by the tall fiddle-leaf fig that Mason insisted on keeping in every executive space because “it looks expensive.” My silk blouse stuck to my spine with sudden sweat.

“How do you feel, love?” Mason asked her, his voice dropping to that velvet register he reserved for boardroom victories and bedroom promises he no longer kept with me.

“Terrified,” Selina admitted, a tremor beneath her usual confidence. “But happy. So happy. We’ve waited so long for this”

Waited….

The word sliced clean through me.

Mason My husband has been having an affair with my bestfriend….

Mason chuckled softly, indulgent, the sound I hadn’t heard directed at me in years. “Every time she lost one, I told myself maybe we weren’t meant to have children together. But you…” His voice lowered further, almost worshipful. “You were always the one”

I clamped my hand over my mouth so hard my teeth bit into my palm.

Almost Eight years.

Eight years of basal body thermometers at 5 a.m., of scheduled sex that felt like clinical appointments, of negative pregnancy tests that landed like verdicts. Eight years of watching his jaw tighten with every doctor’s “I’m sorry.” Eight years of believing, if I just tried harder, sacrificed more, loved deeper…. he would finally look at me the way he once promised he would

And through every loss, Selina had been my rock

She’d sat with me on cold bathroom tiles at 3 a.m., rubbing my back while I sobbed that my body hated me. She’d fielded calls from nosy relatives so I wouldn’t have to explain another failure. She’d told me Mason adored me, that men just didn’t know how to show it when they were hurting too…

Lies.

All of it

I remembered the night I introduced them, my twenty-third birthday, rooftop bar overlooking the harbor. Selina had arrived in a crimson dress that clung like sin, hair tumbling loose, skin glowing under the string lights. Mason’s gaze had snagged on her and stayed. I’d laughed, looped my arm through hers, said, “Isn’t she stunning?” like a fool proud of her beautiful friend.

He’d never denied it

Not once.

Our marriage had never been about romance. Our fathers…. best friends since boarding school, had engineered it when both family empires teetered on collapse. Mason’s shipping conglomerate needed my father’s logistics network and capital. My father needed Mason’s ruthless expansion strategy to survive. Together they became untouchable

I became the bride in white lace who smiled for the cameras and signed the prenup without complaint.

I told myself convenience could grow into love. That if I poured enough of myself into the company, learning the routes, memorizing the ledgers, charming the Chinese investors at 2 a.m. conference calls…..he would see my devotion and choose me anyway.

He never did.

He looked at me with polite tolerance at best, quiet disdain at worst.

And all the while, he looked at her.

Then thr boardroom door opened

I shrank deeper into the shadow of the plant, heart slamming against my ribs.

“I’ll walk you down,” Mason said. “We have to be discreet. No one can know yet.”

“Of course.” Selina’s voice was soft, conspiratorial.

The word landed like a guillotine.

Their footsteps approached, his measured, commanding; hers lighter, confident. They passed within arm’s reach. I smelled her jasmine perfume tangled with his cedar-and-bergamot cologne, the same scent that used to cling to his shirts when he came home after “late meetings.”

They didn’t glance my way….

Why would they? I’d spent years making myself small enough to disappear.

As their voices faded toward the private elevator, I stayed frozen, breath shallow.

My phone vibrated, my assistant, probably wondering why I hadn’t appeared for the branding presentation. I ignored it.

Tears burned tracks down my cheeks, but I didn’t sob. Not here. Not where someone might hear or see me.

I waited until the corridor was silent, then slipped away, tiptoeing like a thief in my own husband’s empire.

The service elevator carried me to the underground garage. No one used it except the maintenance staff. No cameras. No witnesses.

In the dim fluorescent light, I leaned against the cold concrete wall and finally let the sobs come out ugly, wrenching, soundless gasps that shook my whole body.

Almost eight years of loyalty to a marriage not built on love but hope.

Ten years of friendship to Selina.

Both of them thrown away like yesterday’s financials.

I thought of the pale-yellow nursery I’d painted in secret after our second pregnancy, the crib still boxed in storage because I’d been too afraid to assemble it after the third loss.

I thought of every time Selina hugged me and promised, “You’ll have your miracle”

She’d been planning her own, to snatch my husband…

The elevator dinged at the garage level. I stepped out, heels echoing in the empty space.

I needed silence. I needed air. I needed to think.

Because this wasn’t the end of my story.

This was the moment their fairy tale cracked open.