Chapter 1

“Emma, remove the pregnancy announcement from the schedule and send me the revised version before you leave.”

Chloe placed the wedding timeline in front of me and crossed out one of the sections.

“The magazine editor is here to see the wedding design. No one wants to hear how many months along you are.”

I picked up my pen.

“Fine.”

She still didn't seem satisfied. A moment later, she pushed another document toward me.

“Make sure you remove your name from the original design, too. Nathan said this is my first major public project. We can't have people thinking you're the lead designer.”

“Got it.”

Satisfied, she walked away.

My coworkers watched in awkward silence. No one said a word.

Everyone knew this was my wedding.

Everyone knew I had spent three months designing it from start to finish.

Nathan and I had run a wedding-planning company together for five years. We had planned weddings for countless couples. Six months ago, we had finally begun planning our own.

Three months ago, after I found out I was pregnant, Nathan had sworn to make me the happiest bride in the world.

But two weeks earlier, he had handed the entire design over to his assistant, Chloe. He had even arranged for her to be interviewed by the magazine covering the wedding.

When I asked to keep my name on the design, he accused me of being petty.

“She needs a chance to make a name for herself,” he had said. “You already have me. What exactly are you fighting her for?”

I had backed down.

All I wanted was to keep the lace from my mother’s wedding dress and the announcement telling our guests that we were expecting a baby.

But Chloe’s eyes had immediately filled with tears.

“There’s Emma’s name all over this. Who would believe it was my work?”

Nathan had closed the design folder.

“Then the wedding is on hold. Emma, once you learn to respect her, we can discuss the date again.”

He hadn't canceled the venue or the vendors. The magazine shoot would go ahead as planned.

Whether I actually married him that day depended entirely on how well I behaved.

I reminded him that the invitations had already been sent—and that I was carrying his child.

“That’s exactly why you should know better,” he had replied. “Are you going to use the baby to force me to give in every time we argue after we’re married?”

Footsteps sounded outside the office.

Nathan was carrying Chloe’s coat. When he heard her tell him that I had agreed to make the changes, he finally turned to me.

“See? If you’d just cooperated from the start, none of this would have happened. Chloe’s been upset for days. You owe her an apology.”

“I’m sorry.”

The tension visibly left his shoulders, and his voice softened.

“It’s not that I don’t want to marry you. But some habits can’t follow us into marriage.”

This had happened more times than I could count.

At first, I had asked why he talked to Chloe every night before bed.

He had called me paranoid. Then he started bringing her to private gatherings, forcing me to accept their “perfectly normal friendship.”

I didn't want her wearing my slippers, so he brought her home again and again, insisting that I needed to learn how to be a better host.

The more hurt I became, the colder he grew.

Whenever I lowered my head and apologized, he refused to forgive me immediately. He made me explain exactly what I had done wrong.

For a long time, I truly believed our relationship was falling apart because I wasn't generous enough.

Now he was using our wedding to teach me obedience.

“Our child needs an emotionally stable mother, too.”

Nathan reached out and touched my head.

I moved away and lowered my eyes to the schedule.

He didn't seem to notice.

“Chloe and I are meeting with the editor. Finish everything here, and I’ll reconsider the wedding.”

Chloe slipped her arm through his as they walked away.

“I told you she’d come around.”

Nathan laughed.

“She’s carrying my child. Where would she go? Give her a few days to cool off, and she’ll come to her senses.”

I kept my head down.

He had turned my love for him and our child into tools he could use to control me.

I wanted a family.

He only wanted a wife who obeyed.

I deleted the pregnancy announcement and continued filling out the handover checklist.

The final rehearsal was in three days.

It would also be my last day there.

Nathan didn't know that on the third day of our silent treatment, I had gone to the hospital alone.

The baby was gone.

That night, while he was ignoring my calls and waiting for me to learn my lesson, I had already stopped wanting to marry him.