Chapter 2

Amelia froze for a moment before assuming I was joking.

"Cut it out."

"I'm serious. Let's get a divorce," I insisted.

Her smile finally faded when she saw the determination in my eyes.

"William, you may be a man, but you've spent years as a stay-at-home dad. How do you think you'll survive after a divorce?

"Joey goes to the best preschool in the city, and you don't even have to work. I come home a little late, and you're making a scene over it again?"

She let out a scornful laugh. "This is what happens when I treat you too well. I've spoiled you rotten."

Despite the discomfort of my fever, I met her gaze coldly.

"For our son's sake, I've been willing to let a lot of things slide. But have you ever stopped to think about how what you and Sebastian are doing is affecting Joey?"

This was probably the first time I'd ever openly challenged her, and a flicker of shock crossed her face.

Although we'd kept our voices low, Joey had still overheard us. He came running out in tears, his little face crumpling as he cried, "Mommy, Daddy, I won't try to be like Mr. Hayes anymore! I won't be a homewrecker! Please stop fighting because of me!"

Amelia froze, her expression darkening instantly.

"So this is what you've been teaching our son at home? Filling his head with all this ridiculous nonsense?

"Sebastian's had a hard life. I've helped him out a few times, and now you're smearing his name? I'm nice to him because he reminds me of you when we first met. Do you really have to blow everything out of proportion?

"Now that you're not working anymore, have you forgotten how your old bosses used to give you a hard time?"

Her words sent my anger surging.

I remembered my birthday the previous year, when she'd claimed she had to work late but had actually gone to the beach with Sebastian.

She'd never once attended Joey's parent-teacher conferences, always choosing to spend that time with him instead. Even when I'd come down with acute gastroenteritis and ended up in the hospital, she'd told me she was meeting a client when she'd actually gone to pick Sebastian up from the airport.

Everything I'd kept bottled up threatened to spill out at once, every accusation rising to the tip of my tongue.

But the moment I looked down at my son, I fell silent.

I couldn't bring myself to say those things in front of him. At the very least, I wanted to preserve what little dignity our family had left in his eyes.

When she saw me fall silent, she assumed I'd backed down again, just as I always had.

"Your life has gotten too comfortable. That's why you spend all your time imagining things. Besides, Joey's still so young. Can you really bear to let people say he has no mother?

"If you insist on making a fuss, Joey will be the one who gets hurt in the end. Think carefully about what you're doing."

With that, she turned and walked away.

The moment the door slammed shut, my vision went black.

My fever still hadn't broken. My forehead was burning, and a persistent ringing filled my ears as I struggled to stay conscious.

Joey helped me to bed.

As my consciousness began to fade, I felt something cool against my face. It was Joey, gently wiping my forehead with a damp washcloth to bring my fever down.

My heart ached at the sight, and I struggled to sit up.

"Joey, who taught you how to do that?"

He smiled at me.

"Daddy, remember when you went to the hospital to take care of Grandma? Mommy picked me up from preschool that day and brought Mr. Hayes home because he had a cold. Mommy took care of him just like this. She wiped his face and helped him drink water.

"Mommy even gave Mr. Hayes the blanket Granny left behind when she died. Then she fed him the fruit you'd cut up for me."

I froze.

When Amelia's mother had been hospitalized, we'd hired a caregiver to look after her. But Amelia had said she was worried about her mother and couldn't stop thinking about her, so I'd ended up running back and forth between the hospital and home every day, barely finding time to eat.

I'd personally cared for her mother, only for Amelia to take a keepsake from my own late mother and use it to comfort another man.

So this was what her love for me amounted to.

I was about to say something when Joey suddenly looked up at me and asked, "Daddy, if being a homewrecker is wrong, why does Mommy take such good care of Mr. Hayes?"

I froze, my throat tightening as if something were lodged in it.

Before I could figure out how to answer, Joey's smartwatch rang. Amelia was calling.

"Joey, I can't get through to your dad's phone. I'm working late tonight, so I won't be home. Don't wait for me.

"And don't eat too much candy tonight. Your dad hasn't been feeling well lately, so make sure he gets to bed early, too. Take good care of yourself."

Joey quietly replied, "Okay."

But Amelia forgot to hang up, and a moment later, Sebastian's gentle voice came through the speaker.

"Amelia, you're really not going home? Didn't you say William was angry at you earlier? Shouldn't you go back and smooth things over with him?"

Amelia laughed, sounding utterly confident.

"Relax. He's put up with all this for years because of Joey. There's no way he'd actually divorce me.

"I'll buy him a tie in a few days, and he'll get over it. You know him. He'd never willingly give up this family."

I let out a cold laugh and ended the call.

If she no longer wanted this family, then neither did I.