Chapter 1

After the seventh call went unanswered and finally disconnected, I looked at the doctor calmly and said, "I’ll sign the consent myself. I’m not keeping the baby."

The words had barely left my mouth before the doctor hesitated.

"Are you sure, ma’am? It wasn't easy for you to conceive. Even if you don’t want to continue, shouldn’t you at least talk it over with your husband first?"

"Oh? Can you reach him right now?" I asked. "Or should I just keep bleeding out while we wait for him to call back?"

A bitter smile tugged at the corner of my lips.

Speechless, the doctor stumbled over their words, unsure how to respond.

I already knew where Michael was—comforting Lily Clement after she fell into the water. Of course, he wasn’t thinking about me. If he had, he wouldn’t have pushed me off the yacht in the first place.

I remembered the photo of them huddled together on her Instagram, the picture looking so intimate it almost made me, his actual wife, feel jealous.

"Just do what I said," I told the doctor. "Besides, a child born without love is only brought into the world to suffer."

That was what I said.

However, when they wheeled me into the operating room, I felt it. Piece by piece, the life inside me slipped away. My stomach flattened, and my body was hollowed out. The hatred I had for Michael reached its peak.

I used to imagine our future together, countless times. A happy marriage. One or two kids. A boy like him, a girl like me. He’d teach our son to protect his mom and little sister while I’d teach our daughter how to be Daddy’s little girl.

Sadly, reality was as cold and sharp as a scalpel. I couldn’t even hold onto one child.

Deep down, I’d always known Michael never loved me.

The day we got married was the same day Lily returned to the country. The ever-punctual Michael showed up late at our wedding.

The host on stage kept urging him to appear, but he never did.

I happened to walk past a private room at the hotel… and heard his voice. And hers.

"Michael, you promised you'd wait for me. Why did you break that promise and marry her?"

"Lily, I’m sorry."

"But you love me, not her!"

"I know… but I didn’t have a choice."

I buried those words deep inside me. Even after realizing he didn’t love me, I loved him harder.

When his company was struggling, I begged my family for money to help. He suffered constant stomach issues from stress, so I studied holistic medicine to prepare him healing meals.

Then, several months ago, I found out I was pregnant.

Michael dropped a multi-million dollar contract and flew back overnight. He showed up at our door with dark circles under his eyes and a handful of my favorite camellias.

In that moment, I thought that maybe everything I had done, all the years I gave him, had finally paid off. I thought I’d finally warmed his heart.

"The surgery went well. Take her to recovery and monitor her closely," I heard the doctor say.

As the anesthesia wore off, pain surged through the wound in my lower abdomen, dragging me back to reality.

He didn't really care. He just showed me the version of him I wanted to see.