Chapter 1

On a summer night, the master bedroom was dimly lit, the mattress sagging under their weight.

White moonlight drifted through the curtains, rising and falling with the night breeze. Their breaths mingled. Shadows swayed across the room.

He had been drinking.

He wasn’t gentle. If anything, there was something punishing in the way he touched her.

Sabrina Chatsworth kept her eyes shut and said nothing, letting him do as he pleased.

“Sabrina. Open your eyes and look at me.”

His hand suddenly closed around her chin. The sharp sting of pain made her flinch, and above her came his low, husky voice, edged with irritation.

Sabrina slowly opened her eyes.

A streak of moonlight fell across his sharply defined profile.

For a second, she felt dazed.

A month ago, they had left the cemetery on bad terms.

That day had been the anniversary of their twins’ death. All he had said was, “I’m busy. I don’t have time for this,” before turning and walking away. He hadn’t come home once in the month since.

A sudden pain at her collarbone snapped her back to the present.

She looked up and met his dark, unreadable eyes.

“Focus,” he said hoarsely, his tone even colder than before.

Sabrina’s lashes trembled, and her nose started to burn.

“Luther…”

She lifted a hand and brushed her cool fingertips over the slight crease between his brows. Her voice caught as she spoke.

“Let’s have another baby.”

He paused and stared at her, his dark eyes still heavy with desire.

“Sabrina, are you serious?”

She didn’t answer.

She slipped her arms around his neck and tilted her face up to kiss him.

His eyes narrowed. One hand slid into her hair and locked around the back of her head.

The moment her lips touched his, he parted them slightly. His breath was hot, but his voice was cold enough to freeze her in place.

“Sabrina Chatsworth, when was the last time you looked at yourself in the mirror?”

She went still and opened her eyes.

In the reflection of his dark pupils, she saw her own face. Thin. Sallow. Lifeless.

He pulled away without warning, got out of bed, and shrugged on a robe from the chair nearby. With his back to her, he tied the belt loosely around his waist.

“In your condition, forget having a baby. You’d be lucky just to get pregnant.”

Sabrina stopped breathing for a second, staring at him in silence.

Broad shoulders. Narrow waist. A hard, emotionless profile.

“Even if you did get pregnant,” he went on, never turning around, “with the way you are now, I don’t think you’d be much of a mother.”

Each word hit like a knife, chopping apart the little courage she had just managed to gather.

Before she could react, Luther William walked into the bathroom.

The door shut, and soon the soft rush of running water filled the room.

Sabrina lay there without moving, as if someone had hollowed her out and left behind an empty shell.

She stared at the ceiling, her eyes vacant.

A little while later, the water stopped.

The bathroom door opened, and he came out with a towel around his waist.

He didn’t spare her a single glance. He went straight into the closet, changed, and walked out without looking back.

A car engine started downstairs.

Luther had left again.

Silence filled the room.

Sabrina pulled the sheet over her thin body.

She turned onto her side. Moonlight spilled across her back, tracing the sharp lines of her spine. Bone after bone pressed against her skin. It was the body of someone who could barely care for herself, let alone carry a child.

For five years she had lived with endless nightmares. She depended on medication to sleep. Most days she threw up more food than she managed to keep down. At five foot seven, she weighed barely eighty pounds.

Sabrina slowly pushed herself upright and slipped out of bed. She walked into the walk-in closet and stopped in front of the full-length mirror.

The smallest size of loungewear hung loose on her frame. Her skin was sallow. Her cheeks hollow. Her eyes empty.

Her trembling fingers brushed through her dry, dull hair.

Luther used to say he loved her long hair. The shampoo and conditioner she used had been custom made overseas, something he had personally arranged.

Back then, all their friends envied her. They joked that even the strands of her hair looked elegant.

But after the twins died before they were born, every bit of that happiness shattered.

Her shaking hand moved to her sunken cheek.

Sabrina slowly crouched down and wrapped her arms around her frail body. The sobs finally burst out, uncontrollable.

That night she suddenly came down with a high fever.

In her dream, she saw her children again.

The twins had died in her womb after a kidnapping incident just one week before they were due.

In her dreams, they slowly grew older year after year, until they were five.

The boy looked just like Luther. The girl looked more like her.

In the dream, the two children looked at her and said softly, “Mom, you have to get better. We’re still waiting to be your children again.”

When Sabrina woke up, she found herself in a hospital.

The housekeeper, Mrs. Watson, had discovered her burning with fever and rushed her there.

She stayed in the hospital for a week.

Luther never came.

She thought about what the children had said in her dream.

After leaving the hospital, she went to the cemetery one more time.

She said what she believed would be her final goodbye.

Over the next half month, Luther never contacted her first. He rarely came home either.

He answered only one call from her each day.

And even when he did, the reply was always the same few cold words.

“I’m busy.”

“Not coming back tonight.”

She knew he was avoiding her on purpose.

But this time, she stopped arguing.

She quit the sleeping pills and followed the doctor’s advice. She started practicing yoga to slowly rebuild her health.

She cleared out the children’s room.

She burned the twins’ prenatal reports.

She stopped mentioning them altogether.

Little by little, her body began to change.

Her appetite slowly returned. The nausea eased. Her weight began to climb again.

Luther noticed she was serious about changing. He even took her to see a reputable doctor to help her recover.

After two months of treatment, Sabrina’s weight rose to ninety pounds.

The lifeless emptiness in her eyes slowly faded. She was still pale and thin, but compared to before, it was real progress.

Life gradually returned to normal.

Just like before, she accommodated him in everything. She loved him quietly and without complaint.

And Luther, as her husband, treated her with calm patience and responded whenever she needed something.

Three months later, her period was late.

Luther was still abroad on a business trip.

So Sabrina went to the hospital alone to get checked.

…

“Congratulations, Mrs. William. The report shows you’re seven weeks and four days pregnant. The baby looks healthy, and the ultrasound already shows a heartbeat.”

When Sabrina walked out of the doctor’s office, she held the report in one hand.

With the other, she pulled out her phone.

As she opened her contacts, her fingers trembled slightly.

She dialed his number and instinctively held her breath.

A familiar ringtone sounded behind her.

Sabrina froze.

The next second, the call connected. Luther’s voice came through.

“I’m busy. Whatever it is, we’ll talk when I get back.”

The same voice reached her ears from two places at once. From her phone. And from somewhere around the corner behind her.

His tone was distant.

Before Sabrina could say another word, the call ended.

She stood there, stunned.

His cold indifference left her dazed, as if the past three months of quiet warmth had all been a dream.

“Callum, how about Daddy takes you to get your shot first, okay?”

The same familiar voice continued from around the corner, but now it sounded gentle. Nothing like the cold voice on the phone.

Sabrina tightened her grip on the phone.

Her body stiff, she slowly turned and walked toward the corner.

The husband who was supposed to be on a business trip overseas was sitting on a waiting bench by the corridor.

His back faced her.

And in his arms was a little boy with a fever patch stuck to his forehead.