My husband kept a young girl on the side. She was fresh, delicate, and completely uninhibited in bed. She gave him experiences he never had before. He reminded her to take her birth control. She pouted, playfully saying she wanted to give him a child. My husband sternly warned her that if she got pregnant, she was getting an abortion and they were breaking up. He said he would only ever allow his legal wife to bear his children. It sounded almost romantic, in a twisted, deeply devoted way. So, I told him: I'm pregnant. But he just stared at me in dead silence. Because we hadn't slept together in five years. 01 "I cheated on you." I thought when I said those words, Carter would remain perfectly calm and ask me, "Was it good?" Instead, his brow furrowed, and he stared at me for a long time without saying a word. Did he not believe me? Oh, right. Five years ago, I had lied to him. Back then, I was consumed by sheer, visceral hatred. But right at the absolute final moment, I snapped back to reality. Destroying my own dignity just to get revenge on him wasn't worth it. So, I pushed Carter's best friend, Ethan, away and got out of his bed. But I still maliciously covered myself in hickeys and bite marks. I went home and told Carter I cheated, demanding a divorce. In an instant, Carter's eyes turned red. But that was the extent of it. When I found out he had cheated, I—the usually poised, elegant wife—completely lost my mind. The hyperventilation triggered respiratory alkalosis. I couldn't breathe, and my fingers cramped into agonizing, rigid claws. I thought I was going to die. Carter calmly found a paper bag to help me regulate my breathing. He calmly explained himself, and calmly made his promises. "Chloe, we've been married for five years. I'm a normal man. Eating the exact same dish every single day gets boring." "The pressure at work is crushing. Sometimes I just need to release the negative energy, but you are my wife. I have to respect you." "Aside from physical fidelity, I can give you absolutely everything else you want." I looked at him through tear-blurred eyes, desperately wanting to ask one question. Do you still love me? But I didn't say a single word. He had already cheated. Whether he loved me or not was entirely irrelevant now. 02 I washed my face, absolutely determined to get a divorce. Carter wasn't surprised. He calmly advised me to cool down and think it through carefully. It was true. Even after I caught him cheating, he remained perfectly emotionally stable, handling the situation with flawless composure. Even after I slapped him with every ounce of strength I had, he just looked at me with those calm, steady eyes, as if he were watching a toddler throw a tantrum. When I raised my arm to slap him again, he caught my wrist effortlessly. The biological difference in strength meant I couldn't break free. Instead, he pulled me tightly into his chest, trapping me in his arms. The embrace that used to bring me so much warmth now sent a freezing chill straight to my bones. He tried to talk me out of it. My parents tried to talk me out of it. Even my best friend told me not to do it. Yes, in the eyes of everyone else—including my own parents—I was no longer worthy of the man Carter had become. The only reason I had him was that I got in early. I stayed by his side during the most agonizing, brutal days of launching his startup. It was like a high-risk venture capital investment, and I hit the absolute jackpot. He achieved massive wealth and status, and I got to sit back and reap the rewards. To divorce him meant losing a massive sunk cost, and I would become the laughingstock of our social circle. A lie repeated often enough becomes the truth. And for a moment... I hesitated. To placate me, Carter truly put in a staggering amount of effort. Expensive gifts flowed into the house like water. Aside from diamonds and jewelry, he bought me a luxury yacht, and a private island in the Caribbean. The island came fully staffed with a villa, infinity pools, and a private estate manager. He even cleared his schedule for two entire weeks to take me on the yacht to vacation on the island. We watched the sunrise over the ocean, ate freshly caught bluefin tuna prepared by a private chef, walked barefoot on the white sand beaches, and watched the brilliant, bleeding sunsets. He treated me better, more attentively, than when we first started dating. And for a second, I felt like maybe I was starting to heal... Until the dead of night. Carter had just showered. His warm body, still radiating the damp heat of the shower, wrapped around me from behind. But my brain couldn't stop flashing back to the chat logs I had seen on his phone. He never responded to the girl's cutesy good-morning texts or daily selfies. But when she asked him to pick out which lingerie set she should wear... He replied. Even though it was just one word. My heart felt like it was being crushed by a steel claw, tightening inch by inch. "When you sleep with her... do you kiss her?" I asked the question with freezing cold precision. The hand resting on my waist instantly went rigid. I violently ripped his arm off me and sprinted to the bathroom. The exquisite, Michelin-star dinner we had earlier ended up as a disgusting pile of vomit in the toilet bowl. Our two-week romantic getaway ended in exactly two days. 03 After that, I turned into a paranoid detective, obsessively scouring his clothes for any microscopic clue. There were no lipstick stains on his collars. No lingering cheap perfume. They were perfectly, immaculately clean. I found absolutely nothing. But the next time he came home late, the wire that had been twisting tighter and tighter inside me finally snapped. After I threw a hysterical, screaming fit, he started giving me the cold shoulder. When I realized I had turned into a bitter, paranoid, miserable housewife, I panicked. But the ultimate, bitter irony was... I found out I was pregnant. This should have been the greatest, most miraculous surprise in the world. I had wanted a baby for years, but we just couldn't conceive. We went to top fertility specialists. My body was fine. His body was fine. It just wasn't happening. We put IVF on the schedule. I endured hundreds of agonizing hormone injections. I suffered tremendously. When I found out he cheated, the emotional devastation was so severe I actually experienced some spotting, but I was too consumed by grief to care. I never expected that when this little life I had prayed for so desperately finally arrived... I no longer wanted it. I didn't tell Carter. I went to a private clinic and had an abortion. When I woke up from the anesthesia, my soul felt completely hollowed out. I just stared blankly at the ceiling. That was when Carter appeared. His face was ghostly pale, his eyes overflowing with crushing disappointment. "Chloe, is this your way of getting revenge on me? The baby was innocent..." "Exactly. That's why I couldn't let it be born. A child forced to live in a loveless home is a tragedy." "Carter. I want a divorce." I repeated the sentence, my face completely numb. "No. We are not getting divorced." He was even more absolute about it than I was. 04 Five years passed. Today, we are nothing more than strangers living under the same roof. The women by Carter's side had changed. I heard his current favorite was a girl from the local ballet conservatory. She was vibrant, full of life, and had an incredibly flexible dancer's body. He seemed to really favor her; she had lasted over six months without being replaced. The last time I saw him was a few days ago. The scenario was incredibly clichéd. There was a pile-up on the highway, and his car rear-ended mine. He was probably taking the girl to his beach house for the weekend. She was wearing a floral sundress and a wide-brimmed straw hat. She didn't know who I was. The second she stepped out of the car, she was panicking and apologizing profusely. "I am so, so sorry! It's completely my fault! I was trying to feed my boyfriend a snack while he was driving and it distracted him. He has a really bad stomach, and we rushed out this morning before he could eat breakfast..." She bit down nervously on her lip, coated in cherry-pink gloss. A healthy, rosy flush colored her soft, flawless cheeks. She was radiant, youthful, and so captivatingly beautiful you couldn't look away. "It's fine." I looked past her to Carter, giving him a faint smile. "Next Thursday is our ten-year anniversary. Let's get dinner." Carter's gaze remained perfectly calm and unreadable. But the young girl's face instantly went ghost white. She looked at me in horror, then looked desperately at Carter, instinctively pressing her body against his arm for comfort. Like a fragile little bird needing protection. But Carter subtly, seamlessly stepped away, breaking the contact. "I'll have my driver take you home." "No need. I have somewhere to be. I won't ruin your weekend plans." The impact hadn't been severe, but the seatbelt had jerked hard against my stomach. I needed to make sure the baby was okay. I got back into my car. Just as I went to pull the door shut, a heavy hand clamped down on the window frame. A large shadow fell over me. "Chloe, do you really have absolutely nothing else to say to me?" Carter looked down at me, his eyes dark and heavy with suppressed emotion. "Like what?" My tone was dripping with sarcasm. "Did you want me to throw a hysterical fit and beat up your mistress on the side of the highway?" I let out a soft laugh. "Don't insult my intelligence. The millions of dollars you transfer to my accounts every year are more than enough to buy my silence." "We'll talk on Thursday." Carter kept his arm braced against the door, staring at me with intense, swirling aggression hidden just beneath the surface. I met his gaze with absolute, chilling calm. Finally, he withdrew his hand. I hit the gas, merged back onto the highway, and changed lanes. Once I cleared the bottleneck of the accident, the road ahead was wide open and blindingly bright. I was married to Carter for five years, enduring hundreds of agonizing IVF injections, and couldn't get pregnant. But the second I swapped out the biological father, getting pregnant became the easiest thing in the world. It seemed Carter and I truly had no destiny together. We were fated to walk completely different paths. 05 Because I gave him a heads-up, Carter arrived at the restaurant early. He even brought a gift. A meticulously selected ruby necklace. Top-tier, flawless pigeon-blood red. During our five years of unofficial separation, even though we rarely saw each other, the luxury gifts never stopped, and they were always obscenely expensive. By any superficial, materialistic metric, I had absolutely won this marriage. "I want a divorce." After dropping the bomb that I cheated and was pregnant with another man's child, I pulled the divorce papers out of my designer bag. I didn't want to drag this out in a messy, protracted legal battle, so I was incredibly generous with the asset division. However, even after hearing that I was voluntarily surrendering all my equity shares in his company, Carter's face remained perfectly blank as he asked: "Is Ethan the father?" Before I could even answer, he let out a harsh, mocking sneer. "You're divorcing me so you can marry Ethan and have his kid?" "And then what?" "Are you actually delusional enough to believe Ethan won't cheat on you?" I stayed silent. Carter's words grew increasingly vicious. "Do you honestly believe in those fairy tales about the ultimate playboy suddenly reforming for true love?" "He's slept with more women than I could even count. Aren't you terrified of catching something?" Unlike Carter, who built his empire from nothing, Ethan was born into old, untouchable wealth. He was a notorious, unapologetic playboy in our social circles. But despite his chaotic personal life, his business instincts were lethal. He was Carter's very first angel investor. Since they were around the same age, their purely transactional relationship slowly evolved into a genuine, ironclad brotherhood. Back in the day, whenever we ran into each other, Ethan would enthusiastically call me "Sister-in-Law." I had no shortage of wealthy suitors before I got married, so I knew exactly what a man's eyes looked like when he wanted you. Ethan's eyes when he looked at me were never innocent. That was exactly why, when I wanted revenge, I chose him. I don't know if it was because I rejected him at the absolute last second, but Ethan actually became obsessed with me after that night. The baby wasn't Ethan's, but I felt absolutely zero obligation to explain that to Carter. "Carter, you aren't getting any younger. Didn't you always desperately want a child? Once we divorce..." I deflected his interrogation, gently advising him to look toward his own future. But Carter's lips were pressed into a tight, hard line. His eyes dropped to my stomach. His gaze turned terrifyingly dangerous, making every nerve in my body snap to high alert. "Chloe. You are going to have my child." He spoke slowly, enunciating every single syllable. His voice was as cold and sharp as a scalpel. Five years ago, Carter had absolutely, categorically refused to divorce me. He threatened and bribed my divorce attorneys. He used his corporate influence to blacklist me across the entire legal industry, ensuring no reputable lawyer would take my case. He was willing to use the most ruthless, sociopathic methods to force our shattered marriage to stay intact. "Carter, I don't want this to turn into an ugly, public spectacle. If you refuse to sign, I'll go straight to the media." "Let's just end this with some shred of dignity, okay?" But he refused to budge. A crushing, suffocating wave of exhaustion washed over me. I raised my hand to rub my temples. Suddenly, he violently grabbed my wrist. His voice was hoarse and broken. "Abort the baby. Tell me whatever you want—money, property, shares—I will give you everything. We are not getting divorced." "From now on... we will live a good, perfect life together."
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