Chapter 2

“Move Mr. Carter’s things to the guest room, too. We wouldn’t want him and Lucy having a long-distance relationship while living under the same roof.”

Lucy’s eyes widened. Before she could complain to Arthur, I looked at him with a smile.

“Darling, you’re the father. It’s better for the mother’s health and stress levels if you’re close by during the pregnancy. You can’t possibly expect to stay in the master bedroom with me. Think how heartbroken she’d be.”

Lucy immediately bit her lip. Arthur glanced at her and wrapped an arm around her waist to console her softly.

“I’ll be right here with you and the baby. Come on, let’s go upstairs and get settled.”

Arm in arm, they intimately walked up the stairs while leaning against each other.

In the past, jealousy, resentment, and rage would have consumed me.

I calmly returned to the master bedroom. Then, I dialed a number I had never, in my wildest dreams, wanted to call.

“Let’s make a deal. Make me the majority shareholder of your conglomerate and help me burn the Carter family to the ground.”

...

That evening, I slid a document across the table to Arthur.

“I’ve had a marital agreement drawn up. Give it a look.”

Arthur was annoyed. “You’re discussing money with me?”

My eyes welled up with tears, but I stubbornly held them back.

“I endured so many injections, suffered through all those treatments, and swallowed my pride. Now, my health is ruined, and I even have to care for the woman carrying your child.

“I haven’t uttered a single complaint. All I’m asking for is the freedom to use your supplementary card for some shopping. Is that really too much to ask?”

Arthur looked at me with a complicated expression.

“As long as you know your place, you can use my money. Go on, spend it.”

I watched him sign the agreement with a beaming smile. Even so, my gaze remained cold.

He would never know the weight of his signature. His finances had fallen under my complete control. I would have sole and full discretion over his money.

That afternoon, I dressed in my finest and met my best friend, Claire Reed, for a shopping trip.

In the past, my foolish obsession with love made me revolve solely around Arthur. I had drifted apart from all my friends. Claire had tried to intervene and scolded me several times. She eventually gave up on me.

By the time I died, I was utterly alone and helpless.

When I stood before her, she was astonished.

“Cadence, I can’t believe you actually managed to put Arthur aside and focus on shopping with me!

“I heard Lucy is pregnant and has moved right in. I figured you’d either be home sobbing your eyes out or coming at her with a knife. You do look a little rough, but you seem... oddly calm.”

I looked at my reflection in the mirror. I looked young, yet exhausted.

In the past, Arthur often used his family to pressure me. He had insisted I must have a child, or he would divorce me.

I loved him, so I desperately underwent IVF treatments. For two years, I wore myself down to a shadow.

Yet the truth had been far more sinister. The issue had not been with my womb, nor his loins. He had been slipping me birth control pills after every single time we were intimate.

He had watched me suffer in complete indifference. He even gaslit me into believing I was not trying hard enough and called me utterly worthless.

It was utterly ridiculous.

Ironically, for the sake of such a devious man, I had abandoned my friends, ruined my health, and distorted my own life.

I sighed. “I’m twenty-seven years old, not some lovestruck seventeen-year-old teenager. If he’d been head-over-heels in love with me, I might have fought for it. But a cheater like him isn’t worth my energy.”

Claire stared at me in disbelief for a long moment, then hugged me with relief.

“It’s about time you came to your senses, you idiot! You once gave up everything for him. You were constantly at the hospital for shots or chasing after some miracle cure. You didn’t even realize how much you were running yourself ragged until you looked so worn out.

“Do you remember how painful IVF is? You put yourself through it 100 times. Your body’s a mess from all the injections. Wasn’t that just borderline insanity?!”