Chapter 3

I remained there, completely stunned.

Meanwhile, Lexie suddenly wrapped her arms around Mitch's neck and beamed from ear to ear.

"So, this was your surprise for me! Thank you so much, Mitchie!"

I felt a chill run down my back. My lips trembled as I asked bewilderedly, "What is the meaning of this?"

Mitch replied, "The baby is Lexie's. She wanted another girl, but she hurt her womb three years ago after giving birth to our son."

He said it so calmly as though he were just describing something as uninteresting as the weather.

I shuddered hard as tears fell from my eyes.

Three years ago? It was the year I'd had to be hospitalized 32 times. But he cut himself 32 times and begged me to pull through each time—while Lexie was already pregnant and giving birth to his son.

Despair and madness surged through me. I immediately slammed my fist into my lower abdomen multiple times. The intense pain immediately began to spread.

Mitch's face fell at once.

"Are you out of your mind?" he screamed in a broken voice, grabbing me from my bed and rushing me out of the ward immediately.

I never thought that the first time he rushed me to the gynaecology department would be when I was pregnant with another woman's child.

"You can still be the mother once you've given birth to the baby. It's your baby too."

I shook my head profusely. It wasn't the same at all. How could it possibly be the same?

He knew better than me how many needle marks I had in my body, how I'd taken the most bitter medicine, how I'd received the most painful injections, and how I'd suffered sleepless nights just for the IVF baby.

A random comment from a passer-by saying, "You'll have a baby soon," would be enough to send me over the moon in joy.

Mitch glared at me and smacked me harshly on the cheeks. Then, he smiled cruelly at me and said, "If you want your mother to die, then go ahead and do whatever you want to the baby. I will make you beg me to let you keep this baby."

Then, he ignored my protests and made a call, stopping the payment for all of Mom's medical costs. With every passing hour, her medications were stopped, her needles were removed, and her tubes were pulled out.

I felt my mind explode. All of my strength drained away.

In the darkest period of my life, I thought of ending things because I didn't want to be a burden to him anymore. But he quickly realized what I was planning to do and stopped going to the office and abandoned his shares. Instead, he built a hospital especially for Mom.

He used to tell me, "Don't leave me, Justine. Don't do it. If you really can't hold on anymore, just think about our future kids."

He looked utterly broken as he looked at me, his face covered in stubble. I knew that he was using Mom and our future children together to motivate me to stay alive.

So, I tried my best to control my urges, desperately fighting to recover.

But now, he was using Mom's life to threaten me instead, blackmailing me into keeping my enemy's baby inside my womb.

Just as Mom's ventilator was being removed, my defences collapsed completely. I sprawled on the ground and begged in a broken voice, "I'll keep the baby… Please don't stop my mother's medication…"

Mitch looked at me with a smug satisfaction in his eyes. Then, he brought me back to the villa.

In the middle of the night, I was woken up by the loud clanging of piano keys in the music room. I couldn't stop myself from hobbling over to see what was going on.

"Mitchie… Ah… Not so hard… I-I can't hold it anymore…"

Mitch had Lexie bent over the piano keys as he railed her from the back. Every thrust he made caused the piano keys to clang loudly in the room, piercing my eardrums.

I'd never seen him look so passionate, even when the both of us were at the height of our relationship.

I felt a wave of nausea surging in my stomach. Suddenly, it all stopped.

I wanted to rush back upstairs, but my legs felt like lead. I finally hobbled all the way back to my room like a thief in the night and cried myself into a puddle.

A long while later, there was a knock on my door.

Lexie walked in with an awkward gait.

"Did you enjoy listening to us? You've actually been this close to us having sex many times in the past. Did you know that?

"There was even once when he railed me so hard that I developed a fever, and you kept me company the whole night long. But he was actually hiding in my bathroom sniffing my lace panties—"

She saw the soulless look on my face and suddenly flew into a rage. Her eyes gleamed with malice as she suddenly forced a mouthful of water down my throat, catching me completely off guard.

I felt a bitter, astringent numbness tingling on my tongue.

"What the hell was that!"

Lexie then screamed loudly and pried my mouth wide open, sticking her fingers down my throat. She screamed, "Justine! How could you take abortion pills? You're trying to destroy my dream of having a daughter, aren't you?"

My gag reflex acted up violently. But before I could even fight back, she suddenly fell backward.

"Lexie!"

Mitch heard the commotion and rushed over before giving me a tight slap. Then, he dragged me all the way to the bathroom and glared at me with red eyes.

"What the hell did you just swallow? Spot it out at once! Are you trying to kill the baby?"