CHAPTER ONE

Ava’s POV

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"I hate you to the bone, do you know that?"

His voice hit me before I even had a chance to fully process what was happening. I had been standing by the living room entrance when Adrian came in, and I had made the mistake — the same mistake I made every single day — of hoping that today would be different.

"You are nothing but a malicious, manipulative bitch who ruined my life, and you dare to stand there looking at me like I owe you something. Like I should feel sorry for you."

I raised my hands quickly, shaking my head, trying to sign that he had it wrong. “No, that is not it. All I wanted was…” 

"Get out of my sight." His voice dropped to something quieter and far more dangerous than the yelling. "I mean it, Ava. I am tired of seeing your stupid face every single day. Just get out of my sight."

He brushed past me so hard that my shoulder jerked backward, and then he was gone — storming out of the living room, his footsteps heavy on the marble floor until the sound of them faded completely down the hall.

I stood there for a moment, blinking hard. Once. Twice. Refusing to let the tears spill over.

This was how it had been for ten months.

Ten months since the night that changed everything. 

Ten months since I became Mrs. Adrian Cole. Ten months of learning, slowly and painfully, what it meant to live inside a marriage built entirely on obligation and contempt. 

I ran my fingers through my hair and lowered myself carefully onto the nearest chair because my knees had started to ache like they always did thesecdays whenever i stayed on my feet for too long. 

My baby kicked.

It was one firm kick, right in the center of my stomach, and despite everything — despite the tears still threatening to spill and the dull throb in my chest that never fully went away anymore — I smiled. I pressed my palm flat against my belly and held it there, feeling the warmth of her against my hand.

She had been the only light in my life through all of this. The only reason I found a way to get up every morning and survive every night. The only thing that made enduring Adrian's cruelty feel like something I could carry rather than something that would eventually crush me completely.

What choice did I have, anyway, but to hold on?

I had brought this on myself. That was the truth I returned to every time I thought about leaving, every time the weight of this marriage became so suffocating that I could barely draw a full breath. I could not leave. 

Because Adrian was right. 

Because the thing that had destroyed his life had started with me, even if I had not known what I was doing at the time.

It had all begun at a business party my brother had dragged me along to, hoping I could help him make connections for our struggling company. I remembered it clearly — the noise, the crowd, the way a group of men had cornered me near the bar. They were drunk and grabby and terrifying, and I had tried to push them away and tried to scream, but no sound ever came out of my throat. It never did.

And then Adrian appeared.

He had pulled those men off me with a fury that left no room for argument, his eyes blazing with a kind of protective rage that made my heart do something embarrassing and completely inconvenient.

 Afterward, he had been kind. Genuinely kind. 

He had asked if I was okay and stayed close until he was sure I was safe, and I had been so overwhelmed with gratitude that I had spent the rest of the evening working up the courage to bring him a drink as a thank you. Just a simple, quiet gesture from a girl who had no voice to offer her thanks out loud.

I did not know that Daniel had gotten to that drink first.

I did not know that my brother, drowning in the weight of our family's failing company and the mounting pressure of debts our father had left behind when he died three years ago, had decided to take matters into his own hands in the most unforgivable way imaginable. 

He had drugged Adrian's drink and positioned me to deliver it, calculating — coldly, deliberately — that if something happened between us, it might force a connection between the Cole family and ours.

I had woken up in Adrian's hotel room the next morning, alone and confused, and convinced myself that I had simply drunk too much. It was only when I got home that Daniel came in wearing that expression he always wore when he thought he had won something — that smug, self-satisfied look that made my skin crawl — and told me everything. 

He told me about the drug. He told me what he had planned. He told me that with any luck, I would end up pregnant.

I had stared at him for a long time after that, struggling to process the fact that my brother, the only family I had left, had used me like a chess piece without a second thought.

He had insisted it was for both of us. 

That it was for the business, for our survival, for everything our father had left behind. 

Daniel had taken over managing the company and the household after our father's suicide, and the pressure of it had clearly stripped away whatever moral boundaries he once had. One month later, his gamble paid off. I was pregnant, and the Cole family, unwilling to stomach the scandal of an illegitimate child, had no choice but to arrange a marriage.

And so here I was.

I had not planned any of it. 

I had not wanted any of it. 

But in Adrian's eyes, I was the one who had engineered the whole thing, and nothing I had ever done in ten months of trying — learning his preferences, keeping his space exactly the way he liked it, staying out of his way, staying quiet even when his words cut deep enough to leave marks — had ever come close to changing his mind about who he believed I was.

A sharp pain shot through my lower abdomen and I winced, pressing my hand harder against my stomach and forcing myself to breathe through it. The baby's due date was still a week away, so this was most likely early contractions. My body preparing itself. I exhaled slowly, waiting for it to pass.

Then I heard and opened my eyes to see Adrian coming back into the living room, dressed now in his coat and jacket, car keys already in his hand, spinning them around one finger.

I stood immediately, my hands moving before I had even fully straightened.

“Where are you going? It is late, Adrian. I think the baby might be—”

"Work." He cut me off without even glancing at my hands. "It is called work. I know that is probably a foreign concept to you since the only thing you have ever been good at is finding ways to attach yourself to men who want nothing to do with you."

I signed again, more urgently this time. “Adrian please,. I am in pain. The baby—”

"Vivian needs me for something important." He said. "Did you actually expect me to abandon her and sit here all evening staring at your face? Is that what you want?"

My shoulders dropped.

Vivian Stone. The woman Adrian's mother had been pushing him toward for years, the woman who worked alongside him in his company, the woman who occupied all the space in his life that I was never allowed anywhere near.

“Adrian, I am really in pain. Please—”

"You heard her name and now suddenly you are in agony." His voice dripped with contempt. "You are jealous and you are dramatic and I genuinely do not care. Do you want to know what a real woman looks like, Ava? Look at Vivian. She is intelligent. She is successful. She built something with her life. She walks into a room and people respect her." He tilted his head, his eyes moving over me with a disgusted expression. "And then there is you. A woman who knows nothing — nothing — beyond how to manipulate her way into a man's life and then stand around looking pitiful when it does not work out the way she planned."

He turned and walked toward the door.

The pain hit me again — harder this time, sharp enough that a sound tore out of my throat before I could stop it. I looked down.

My water had broken.

Oh God.

I was in labour.