Chapter 2

“There has to be another way besides sleeping with someone’s wife to pay off a debt.” Amara’s voice came out hoarse and desperate as she tried to reach the conscience of the man in front of her.

“If there’s a more humane way to raise half a million dollars overnight, please tell me right now, Mrs. Pratama.” Adrian answered in a cold voice, stepping forward to close the distance between them.

“My clinic will be seized next month, and my father will be killed if I turn down your mother’s offer.”

Amara fell silent. She knew all too well how cruel the men were who had lent money to Adrian’s father.

“But you’re wrecking my life and my marriage to save your own.”

“Wrecking?” Adrian fixed a sharp look on Amara, who dropped her gaze at once, because those painful words were true. “We’re both trapped in your mother’s dirty game. There’s no way out except to obey her.”

“I hate you for taking this insane deal without a single thought for my feelings.”

“Hate me as much as you like. I deserve it, if it saves my family.”

But disappointed beyond words, Amara walked past Adrian without saying anything more.

Adrian’s attention shifted to Amara as she went down the stairs with a pitiful, shuffling gait. She broke into a short run and threw herself into Doni’s arms, wrapping her arms tight around her husband’s neck as if he were the only life raft in a raging storm.

Adrian could see with perfect clarity how her expensive makeup streaked down her pretty face, leaving black tear tracks against her smooth white skin.

Doni looked annoyed at his wife’s sudden arrival, but he quickly rearranged his face into a mask of concern that looked completely fake to Adrian.

“Hey, babe, what’s wrong? Why are you crying so hard your makeup’s all gone?” Doni asked, making his voice as gentle as he could.

Up on the second floor, Adrian let out a quiet snort, because he could hear the laziness hiding under that soft voice. It wasn’t the worry of a husband watching his wife fall apart. It was the tone of a man irritated that his downtime had been taken from him.

“Doni, we have to leave right now. Mom has completely lost it, and she’s making an insane decision!” Amara blurted out, burying her face in her husband’s broad chest. “She hired someone to sleep with me, so I’ll get pregnant by another man!”

As a fellow man, Adrian knew that a man’s most basic instinct was to beat down anyone who dared go after his woman, whether it was his own mother-in-law or a street thug. Adrian remembered what his boyhood idol, a soccer legend, once said: a real man never abandons his woman, no matter what.

But Doni’s reaction down there was beyond anything Adrian’s common sense could grasp.

Slowly, Doni loosened Amara’s arms from around his neck and lowered them to her lap, as if her embrace were a heavy burden to be put down. He put on a fake sad face, exactly like a cheap soap opera actor crying for the camera to win the audience’s sympathy.

“Babe, please listen to me first and use your head. If we turn down what Mom wants today, how are we supposed to live from now on?”

“We can work, Doni! We can live simply as long as we’re together!” Amara shot back, her voice trembling.

“Work doing what, Amara? My position as manager at that company is because of your mother. The fancy car, the unlimited credit card, even this house, it all belongs to your mom,” Doni said, starting to use the fear of poverty as his main weapon to paralyze his wife. “Are you ready to be poor and ride a hot, crowded minibus and eat on the side of the road?”

Amara went silent at once. Her tongue felt too thick to argue with that bitter truth.

On the second floor, Adrian narrowed his eyes, watching high-level manipulation work with remarkable smoothness.

“Besides, you know my condition. Dr. Adrian already told us my sperm quality is low and it’s hard for us to have a baby naturally,” Doni added, gesturing toward his own crotch with a look of fake despair. “Maybe this is God’s way, through Mom, of securing our position, babe. It’s our last option, so just think of it as a regular medical procedure. Close your eyes and imagine it’s me.”

Adrian felt disgusted and triumphant at the same time. The diagnosis he’d given two years ago was now being used by that coward to hand his own wife’s body to another man. Adrian finally understood that Doni wasn’t a real man at all, just a parasite hiding behind his mother-in-law’s skirts for the sake of comfort.

The drama below ended tragically when Amara finally nodded in surrender, lips trembling and heart in pieces, agreeing to the insane plan.

Doni broke into a wide, victorious smile and pulled Amara into another tight hug. He even promised to take her on a month-long vacation to Europe with the inheritance they’d get from selling her womb.

Adrian straightened up, because the nauseating domestic drama had reached its final act. The unwritten agreement was settled among everyone involved. A mother obsessed with wealth, a cowardly husband, and a wife blinded by love.

Honestly, Adrian was more convinced than ever that Ratih had hated Doni down to the bone, because the man couldn’t produce a grandchild for the Subagja family. But Ratih refused to officially end the marriage, because she didn’t want her respected family’s image stained by the news of a divorce and the scandal of firing her own son-in-law.

Deciding it was time to make his presence known, Adrian walked down the marble staircase, deliberately letting his footsteps ring out.

The knock of Adrian’s cheap loafers against the marble floor made Doni and Amara break apart at once. Doni glanced up at Adrian with an appraising look, his eyes scanning Adrian’s plain appearance, the slightly worn shirt and cheap shoes, a long way from luxurious.

Doni smiled with contempt when he realized that the man hired by his mother-in-law was just their own personal doctor, the one they had been consulting for the past two years. In Doni’s mind, he felt incredibly lucky and backed his mother-in-law’s decision even more, for four logical reasons that flashed through his head.

First, Doni knew Adrian’s stiff, professional character well, so he could be sure the family fortune wouldn’t change hands once full custody of the child was his.

Second, Doni knew Adrian was choking on money problems and needed cash fast to pay his gambling-addict father’s debt, so there was no way Adrian would dare fight them or blackmail the family later.

Third, as his patient, Doni knew for a fact that Adrian had a clean, healthy, powerful build, a guarantee of quality that his seed would produce a perfect child.

And last, though they didn’t fully realize it, Doni’s and Adrian’s facial bone structure was nearly identical, which convinced Doni that no one would suspect the baby came from another man.

“Oh, so you’re the one Mom is paying to do the dirty work, Doctor?” Doni asked in an arrogant tone, without bothering to get up from his plush sofa.

“That’s right, Mr. Pratama. I’m the one,” Adrian answered in a calm baritone that carried a hint of danger.

“Fine. My wife has agreed to do it with you. Do your job quickly, don’t make any unnecessary drama, and don’t ever think you can have her. You’re only here as a tool, understand?” Doni warned, trying to act powerful for his own amusement, because he wasn’t going to lose a single asset of the Subagja family after all.

“Of course, Mr. Pratama. I understand exactly where I stand in this transaction. I’ll make sure your wife gets the best and most intensive care until she’s pregnant, and then I’ll leave right away, as agreed,” Adrian replied in a very polite tone, though what he really wanted was to beat a husband like Doni senseless.