Chapter 1

Charlotte Norman’s face burned as she sat up and put her underwear back on.

“Dr. Jenkins, can I keep the baby?”

She looked nervously at the tall figure standing by the sink.

Zac Jenkins was bent slightly over the basin, washing his hands beneath the running water. His long fingers were sharply defined, and the veins along the exposed stretch of his forearm stood out faintly as he moved.

It was hard not to let her imagination wander.

Zac glanced at her. His dark eyes were unreadable, his expression openly indifferent.

“Your sex life with your husband isn’t good?”

Charlotte’s face turned bright red.

She bit her lip and gave a tiny, embarrassed nod.

“Yeah. We’ve only done it once.”

“Once?”

“Is... is something wrong with that?”

Charlotte twisted the hem of her clothes between her fingers, silently reminding herself over and over that doctors didn’t see patients that way.

But the moment her gaze fell on his long, well-defined fingers, images from the examination flashed through her mind.

Her breathing immediately went haywire.

Desperate for a distraction, she looked away and focused on the chart beneath Zac’s hand.

His handwriting was clean and elegant, nothing like the illegible scrawl she associated with doctors. Every line was neat and precise.

“You’re in pretty weak condition, and you’re showing signs of preterm labor. If you want to keep the pregnancy going, I’d like to admit you for observation. You should call your husband or another family member right away.”

Charlotte went pale.

She had been extremely careful throughout the pregnancy. She had even been getting injections to help maintain it.

Lately, she hadn’t been feeling well, which was why she had pulled some strings to get an appointment with a specialist.

She had never expected to hear that she might lose the baby.

Her fingers tightened around her skirt.

“Doctor, I’ll do anything. As long as I can keep my baby, I’ll do whatever it takes.”

She and Bruce Ford had been married for three years.

He had told her he didn’t like children, and from the day they got married until now, he had never once touched her.

That night had been an accident after he got drunk.

Charlotte had been terrified Bruce wouldn’t want the baby.

So for the first time in their marriage, she had gone against him.

While Bruce was away in Merika on a six-month business trip, she had secretly started getting injections to help sustain the pregnancy. She had even forced down traditional herbal remedies until they made her stomach bleed.

She had gone through all of that just to make it to seven months.

As long as they had a child together, maybe there was still a chance to save their fading marriage.

“Whether you decide to continue the pregnancy or not, a family member will need to sign the paperwork.”

Zac’s cool voice pulled her out of her thoughts.

Charlotte froze.

His words brought her back to reality.

She bit her lip, then finally made up her mind.

“Okay. I’ll call him now.”

As she left, the next pregnant patient entered the exam room.

It was an upscale private hospital, so there weren’t many patients around. Charlotte found a quiet spot in the hallway and called Bruce.

No answer the first time.

No answer the second time either.

It wasn’t until her third call that someone finally picked up.

But the voice on the other end wasn’t Bruce’s.

It was a little girl.

“Daddy’s kissing Mommy. Why do you keep bothering him?”

Charlotte froze.

Before she could demand an explanation, Bruce’s familiar voice came through the phone.

But his tone was so gentle, so indulgent, that she barely recognized it.

“Be good, Kiki. Give Daddy the phone.”

“Daddy, weren’t you kissing Mommy on the balcony? How come you came back so fast?”

“Kiki, stop teasing him.”

A woman’s soft voice followed, affectionate and lightly scolding.

“Bruce, you spoil her way too much. You’re going to ruin her.”

Bruce chuckled.

“Our Kiki is already four. When are you finally going to marry me?”

“Don’t say things like that. You already have a family.”

“You know perfectly well I only married her because I was angry that you pushed me away back then.”

Bruce’s voice turned cold, his disgust impossible to miss.

“Charlotte is nothing but a pretty face. She’s useless. I’ve been married to her for three years, and the thought of touching her makes me sick. She probably still thinks I was the one she slept with that night.”

Charlotte went completely still.

The color drained from her face.

If Bruce hadn’t been the man she slept with that night...

Then who had she slept with?

Her stomach turned, and a sharp cramp twisted through her lower abdomen.

But she barely noticed.

Her mind had already gone back to that night seven months ago, replaying every detail over and over.

Seven months earlier.

Out of nowhere, Bruce had asked Charlotte to accompany him to a business dinner.

They had been married for three years, but he almost never took her anywhere with him. They hadn’t even had a wedding. Only their parents knew they had gotten legally married.

So Charlotte had been thrilled that night.

She had fallen for Bruce at the first sight of him.

For six years, she had stayed quietly by his side, loving him without asking for anything in return.

Then one day, Bruce finally seemed to notice her.

Not long after that, they got married in a whirlwind.

That night, Charlotte somehow ended up drinking far more than usual.

When she woke the next morning, she was alone and naked in a hotel bed.

Bruce had already left for a business trip to Merika.

All this time, she had believed Bruce was the man she had slept with that night.

Her phone suddenly began buzzing nonstop with messages from her best friend, a reporter named Summer Shaw.

Several clear photos came through with them.

“Lottie, what the hell is going on? Why is your husband with your sister?”

In the photos, Bruce wore a black trench coat. He held a little girl in a pink princess dress in one arm while holding hands with a woman in sunglasses.

Only the woman’s profile was visible.

But Charlotte recognized her instantly.

It was her own sister, Xena Norman.

In another photo, Bruce was carefully adjusting Xena’s scarf for her.

The tenderness in his expression was something Charlotte had never once received from him.

Something warm suddenly trickled between her legs.

At the same time, the cramping in her abdomen became much worse.

She and Bruce had only been married for three years.

Yet the child he shared with her sister was already four.

The photos in front of her seemed to mock everything she had believed in.

Six years of loving him.

Three years of marriage.

It had all been a joke.

Charlotte laughed.

So Bruce was that determined to make a fool of himself?

Fine.

She’d give him exactly what he wanted.

Charlotte went back into the exam room.

When she spoke, her voice was eerily calm.

“My husband’s cheating on me. I’ll sign the paperwork for the procedure myself.”

Zac paused, pen hovering over her chart.

He looked up.

Charlotte’s eyes were bloodshot, but there was no hesitation left on her face.

Then his expression changed.

His pupils contracted.

He shot to his feet and rushed toward her.

The moment Charlotte’s knees gave out, he caught her and swept her into his arms.

Blood from between her legs soaked into Zac’s white coat, but he didn’t even glance down.

He carried her down the hall toward the ER as fast as he could.

“She’s hemorrhaging. Get an OR ready now!”

*

In Merika, Bruce took his phone back from Kiki.

The moment he saw Charlotte’s name in the call history, he froze.

A strange irritation rose in his chest.

Had she heard everything they’d just said?

Bruce had never liked Charlotte.

Years ago, Charlotte had used a study-abroad opportunity to force Xena to leave the country while she was pregnant and struggle on her own.

That was why Bruce had treated Charlotte so coldly throughout their three years of marriage.

Still, he couldn’t deny that she had been a good wife.

And now that she might have heard everything, the thought of their marriage falling apart left him with a strange reluctance he couldn’t explain.

A pair of slender arms wrapped around his waist from behind.

Xena rested against his back and sighed softly.

“Bruce, maybe you should go back to Lottie.

“If she finds out the baby she’s carrying isn’t yours, and then finds out Mom and Dad adopted her from an orphanage too, at least she’ll still have you.

“Otherwise, she’ll be completely devastated.”

“She deserves it.”

Bruce let out a cold laugh.

“She’s going to give up her place as Mrs. Ford, and she won’t get a penny from the divorce.

“I’m going to make her suffer the way you did back then.”