The moment I got pregnant, my husband abruptly transformed into a devoted family man. He stopped fighting back when I screamed, stopped retaliating when I lashed out. His VIP black cards at every high-end club in the city were quietly canceled, and his stable of glamorous personal assistants was replaced with a balding, middle-aged accountant. The society tabloids mocked him mercilessly for three days straight, splashing the headline: [Playboy Heir Connor Ward Returns to the Domestic Fold: Has He Been Tamed, or Just Neutered?] The article featured a retrospective gallery of my greatest hits over the past five years: photographs of me holding a lighter to a mistress’s extensions outside a nightclub, and another of me carrying a can of gasoline toward the secluded seaside villa where he kept one of his secret lovers. Within an hour of publication, Connor bought out the rights to the photos and had the story scrubbed from the internet. He brought the printed copies home like an obedient golden retriever offering a prize, setting them ablaze right in front of me on the marble hearth. "Babe, don't stress the baby over garbage like this," he whispered, kneeling by my chair. "From now on, I promise I'll do whatever you say." Until yesterday. A photo leaked online of Connor at an elite private clinic, his arm wrapped around a woman’s waist as he escorted her to an ultrasound. The woman never let him step an inch away from her side, and Connor obeyed every single whisper, hovering over her with breathtaking devotion. The city finally believed the prodigal heir had reformed. Wealthy wives flooded my inbox with messages, asking for my secret formula to taming a rogue billionaire. I stared at the screen in silence for a very long time. I remembered how, just this morning, Connor had dropped me off at the curb of the hospital for my own checkup, his car speeding away before I could even shut the passenger door. He hadn't suddenly learned how to behave. Someone else had simply taken the leash. … When Connor unlocked the front door, the male model’s hand was resting against the curve of my jaw, his thumb brushing slowly across my bottom lip. Connor froze. A split second of suffocating silence passed before he lunged across the living room like a feral animal, kicking the man squarely off the sofa. He hammered punch after punch into the model's face, his knuckles cracking with sickening precision. His hand reached blindly for the brass knuckles resting on the entryway console. "Didn't we agree to an open marriage years ago?" I sat up slowly, my palm resting lightly over my lower abdomen. Connor's jaw worked, teeth grinding together. "When the hell did I ever—" He stopped short. He must have remembered his first public affair, when he laughed into the paparazzi’s cameras and declared that he and his wife lived completely independent lives. Back then, I took an axe to his bedroom door, splintering the mahogany to pieces until he went on camera to retract every word. The fury hadn't drained from his eyes. He drove a brutal kick into the ribs of the cowering man on the rug. "Get the fuck out." The heavy oak door slammed shut with a deafening thud. Connor pulled a linen handkerchief from his pocket and rubbed violently at my left cheek. The abrasive friction left my skin stinging, red and raw. "I’ve spent every waking minute catering to you lately, Corinne! What more do you want? You hired a whore just to humiliate me?!" I met his gaze, the dried salt of old tears pulling tight against my skin. "Did Maren Drake finally give you permission to come home?" The hand gripping my jaw clamped down hard. I could feel the bruises blooming beneath his fingers. "Must be exhausting," I murmured, "playing the devoted saint just for her." "What are you talking about—" "I just wanted to see if another man's touch felt any cleaner. Why don't we make it real this time? You have your life, I'll have mine..." Before I could finish, Connor hoisted me up into his arms. The room spun, and the next second, ice-cold water from the master shower was pelting down on my skull. I looked at him through the cascading sheet of water, through the cold void in his eyes. It was almost laughable. Even in this moment of blind rage, he hadn't thrown me into the porcelain tub. His arm remained locked securely beneath my lower back, terrified of jostling the child in my belly. For one fleeting, pathetic second, I wondered if a fraction of his love for me still existed. But I knew better. It was Maren who demanded he stay clean, so he canceled his club memberships. It was Maren who was prone to jealousy, so he fired every woman on his payroll and reported his whereabouts by the hour. And it was Maren who had gotten pregnant first—leaving me to inherit the phantom of the devoted husband I had begged God for over five agonizing years. A sudden, volcanic rage erupted from my chest. I swung my arm with everything I had and slapped him across the face. My fingernails tore a red furrow across his aristocratic cheekbone. "Is this your newest routine?" he hissed. I pushed myself up against the slick tiles, a sharp, twisting cramp in my lower abdomen making me wince. "Yes. So I'm letting you go. Are you happy now?" My soaked silk dress clung to my skin like an icy shroud. I trembled uncontrollably. A dry towel dropped over my shoulders. Connor’s lips curled into an arrogant, dismissive smirk. "Not a single word that comes out of your mouth is ever true." He wasn't entirely wrong. The first time he strayed, I hacked his door to splinters. The second time, I paid a crew to douse his secret villa in three rings of gasoline. The third time, I climbed to the ledge of our penthouse rooftop and threatened to jump. When he tried to hand me shares in his family’s conglomerate as a payoff, I tore the certificates to shreds. Divorce was impossible. I would have died before I let him go. I had wanted to understand what made infidelity so intoxicating. How a man who had once loved me with terrifying devotion could become so hopelessly addicted to betraying me. It was only yesterday that the private investigator handed me the final file: across all those years, across all those different women, there had only ever been one person. Every mistress was simply a facsimile, a body double chosen for an angle of her jaw or the tone of her laugh. Connor had never been a wandering playboy. He had simply fallen in love with someone else. The boy I had pulled out of the freezing ocean, the boy who once held my calloused hands and swore to love me for the rest of his life—he had stopped loving me a long time ago. I clutched the towel around myself and staggered to my feet. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw his hand twitch forward, as if to steady me. He didn't move. I walked into the bedroom, pulled open the nightstand drawer, and retrieved the divorce settlement he had signed three years ago. His elegant signature was already there, dark and permanent. I had kept it tucked away, clinging to the pathetic, childish delusion that he might change. I uncapped a pen, signed my name below his, and held the papers out to him. "Go to Maren." The crisp sound of tearing paper echoed in the quiet room. Connor tore the document in half, then into quarters, letting the confetti drift to the floor. "This means nothing. My father made me swear on his deathbed that I would never abandon the Ward family's savior." I didn't answer. I didn't look at him. I only remembered that the late Mr. Ward had also whispered to his son, with his dying breath, to treat me kindly. The phone in Connor’s pocket buzzed. It was that exclusive, customized chime that rang every single day. He answered. Maren’s breathy, terrified voice drifted through the speaker. "Connor... why did the power go out in the building? Someone cut the main lines, and there's someone banging on my front door... I'm so scared..." Connor’s voice softened instantly into a tone he hadn't used on me in half a decade. "Don't be scared, sweetheart. I'm on my way." He hung up, his eyes hardening as he turned back to me. The familiar look of contempt washed over his features—the look one gives a pathetic, transparent joke. "You arranged that, didn't you." It wasn't a question. It was an absolute conviction. He didn't even leave room for a breath of defense. He turned on his heel and walked out, leaving behind the faint trail of his cedarwood cologne—the exact niche fragrance Maren ordered in bulk from luxury boutiques. My phone vibrated with a stream of incoming texts from the private investigator: [Mrs. Ward, Mr. Ward just drove into the underground garage at Clearwater Cove.] [He stopped along the way to pick up two orders of artisan pastries. I think he might have spotted my car.] I typed back with numb fingers: [Stop following him. I'm going over myself.] A sharp memory surfaced—the doctor's grave warning last month that the pregnancy was severely threatened and that I was on the verge of a miscarriage. I closed my eyes, shook three progesterone pills into my palm, and swallowed them dry. I changed into dry clothes and stepped out into the pouring rain. The hem of my skirt was instantly soaked, heavy fabric clinging uncomfortably to my calves. Years ago, whenever it rained, Connor would lift me in his arms and carry me across the pavement so my shoes wouldn't touch a puddle. Today, there wasn't even an umbrella left in the entryway stand. The private investigator, Jonah, met me near the entrance of the complex, handing me a thick folder. His eyes held an unmistakable flick of pity. "We confirmed that the luxury penthouse at Clearwater Cove was purchased by Mr. Ward at a private auction last month. Prime location, panoramic views. It came with a smaller studio apartment directly across the courtyard." Jonah hesitated. "They also bought a century-old heirloom jewelry collection at that same auction. The leftover ruby from the setting was fashioned into a standalone ring." Last month, on our anniversary, I had collapsed with a burning fever and started bleeding heavily. The emergency doctor told me the fetus was in grave danger and demanded to speak to my immediate family. I had dialed Connor’s number without a shred of hope. He had answered. Four hours later, he rushed into the hospital room, taking my ice-cold hand in his. He handed me the deed to a quaint little studio in Clearwater Cove and slipped a delicate ruby ring onto my finger. "Corinne, I’ve come to my senses," he had murmured that night, his eyes shining with sincerity. "From now on, I'll listen to you. We're going to build a real life together." His eyes back then had looked just as they did when he stood beside me in front of his dying father—earnest, profound, full of reverence. I had been too cowardly to search for the cracks in his story. I just wanted him back. But there are some lies you cannot sustain forever. A sudden, stabbing pain tore through my lower abdomen, followed by a warm, sickening trickle between my thighs. Jonah stared at the dark red stain blooming on the leather seat and gasped. "Mrs... Mrs. Ward..." I drew a ragged breath, pulled a handkerchief from my bag, and pressed it down. The linen was embroidered with a delicate 'W'—an expensive gift I usually couldn't bear to soil. Then I remembered the twin handkerchief, the one embroidered with my own initial, which Connor had used last week to catch Maren’s morning sickness vomit in the back of his limousine. It didn't matter anymore. None of it did. I threw my coat over my shoulders and walked up to the studio apartment directly opposite Connor’s penthouse. A spotting scope sat mounted on a tripod by the bay window. I leaned down and pressed my eye to the lens. When the interior of the penthouse came into sharp focus, the air fled my lungs. It wasn't the gaudy, gilded birdcage I had envisioned. It was warm, grounded, filled with soft linen and cluttered bookshelves—the quiet, ordinary domestic haven I had spent five years begging him to give me. The room around me seemed to run out of oxygen. Jonah reached out, his hand hovering near my trembling shoulder. "Mrs. Ward, maybe we should—" "Don't call me Mrs. Ward," I cut him off, my voice barely a whisper against the glass. "My name is Corinne Holt." I wanted to be Corinne again. I leaned back toward the lens. On their panoramic window, a red paper cutout was taped unevenly against the glass—a childish, slightly crooked little rabbit silhouette. I used to make those paper cuts during our first holidays together. Connor had ripped them down, calling them cheap, asking who in the modern world stuck tacky folk art on custom glass. He tore them down because he hated them. Because they came from me. Inside the golden light of the apartment, Maren wore soft pink silk pajamas, curling herself deeply into Connor’s chest. Her glossy lips moved. Five years of tracking his lovers had taught me how to read lips with effortless precision. "Connor... I don't want you to leave, but I'm so scared. What if your wife tries something? You said she's unhinged... What if her medication doesn't work? What if she tries to hurt our baby?" She trembled like a wounded sparrow. Connor stroked her hair with agonizing tenderness. "Don't be afraid. She wouldn't dare. She's carrying a child of her own. If she laid a finger on you..." Maren looked up, her voice visible in the movement of her throat. "Would her baby... still be allowed to survive?" Connor didn't answer. He simply closed his eyes. A bone-deep chill crept upward from the soles of my feet, freezing the blood in my veins. I stared through the lens, burning his silhouette into the dark corners of my memory. I sat by the drafty window, watching them through the glass until the horizon turned the pale gray of dawn. I had sent Jonah away hours ago, leaving behind only a paper cup of lukewarm water. I watched Connor cradle Maren to sleep. I watched him wrap his arms around her with profound contentment. I watched him slip quietly out of bed at sunrise and step into the kitchen. Connor Ward, an heir who had never touched a kitchen utensil in his privileged life, had only ever learned to cook for one person. He had learned it for me. He used to hold me until I fell asleep. He used to wake up before dawn just to kiss my eyelids before the sun came up. He had whispered to me on the docks: "Who says a fisherman's daughter has to spend her life scaling fish? From now on, I'll take care of you." "Corinne, no one will ever say you aren't good enough for me. You dragged me out of the sea. You are the woman I will protect for the rest of my life." And now, the man who left me to sleep alone in an empty bed, the man who left me waking up in cold sweats to hollow rooms, the man who reduced my existence to ashes—was Connor Ward. He was the one who made a dock girl into Mrs. Ward. And he was the one who stripped away my name until I was nothing at all. Suddenly, Maren sat bolt upright in bed, clutching her ears in terror. "Connor! I had a nightmare... I dreamed she found me! She said she was going to kill me, kill our baby! I'm so scared..." "Do you think she's watching us right now? What if she's plotting right outside?!" Connor’s head snapped toward the window, his eyes scanning the courtyard. He pulled her tightly against his chest. I braced my hands against the sill, struggling to stand, determined to slip away before they noticed the empty apartment across the way. Footsteps thundered behind me. "Don't move!" A heavy blow struck the back of my knee. I crashed violently against the hardwood floor, a massive weight pinning my shoulders down. A gruff voice sounded above me. "Easy, man, she's pregnant!" The guard holding me didn't ease up an inch. "Who gives a shit? Look at how the boss treats her. They'll be divorced by Tuesday anyway." "Let me go!" I gritted out, the sharp, tearing pain in my belly flaring into a white-hot agony. Rough hemp rope bound my wrists behind my back, cutting into the bone. They hauled me across the skybridge and threw me into Connor’s penthouse. Maren let out a theatrical gasp. A pair of leather shoes stopped in front of me. Fingers hooked under my chin, wrenching my face upward. Connor’s eyes were dark, swirling with cruel satisfaction. "Maren was right. You were lurking right across the courtyard. I knew all that talk about letting me go was just another one of your pathetic games." I bit down on my lip until copper flooded my mouth. Maren stepped forward, placing a gentle hand over Connor’s knuckles. "Connor, please, let it go. Mrs. Ward didn't actually do anything. She's pregnant, too... let's just untie her." She knelt beside me, her fingers fumbling with the knot behind my back. The moment the rope loosened, Maren let out a piercing shriek and collapsed backward onto the floor. A gleaming switchblade clattered onto the hardwood between us. "Don't kill me! Please, don't kill my baby!" Maren sobbed, scrambling backward until her spine hit Connor’s shins. "Corinne Holt!" Connor kicked the blade across the room, his glare absolute zero. "Maren has severe trauma from the crazy shit you've pulled over the years! She was trying to help you, and you bring a knife into this house?! Are you completely heartless?!" His voice cracked with panic as he spotted a tiny, fingernail-sized scratch on Maren’s forearm. He pressed his thumb desperately over the mark, bellowing at the guards by the door: "Get the car! Right now!" I picked up the knife. The blade was spotless. Not a speck of blood. I opened my mouth to speak, but the dead, furious certainty in Connor’s eyes snuffed out the last ember in my chest. "Maren has a blood-clotting disorder!" Connor roared, his veins bulging against his neck. "If anything happens to her or this baby, I will destroy you!" I raised the knife and dragged the sharp edge down my own forearm. The shouting stopped. A thick, dark line of crimson welled up instantly, spilling over my wrist and dripping heavily onto the pristine white rug. "That," I said quietly, my lips pale in the hall mirror, "is what a bleeding disorder looks like." Connor’s chest heaved. His jaw locked, and he scooped Maren into his arms without another glance. "Keep performing, Corinne. You've had five years of practice, haven't you?" He sneered, stepping toward the door. "I know the truth now. You weren't the one who pulled me out of the storm five years ago. You took advantage of Maren being sick in the clinic to steal her place in my life!" My vision blurred, the room tilting violently, but my mind suddenly snapped into terrifying clarity. "So that's what this is..." I narrowed my eyes at Maren over his shoulder. The soft, delicate features I had looked at through the scope suddenly rearranged themselves in my memory. "It was you," I whispered. "It was you all along." A flicker of raw terror flashed through Maren’s eyes. She pinched her own thigh under the blanket, tears spilling fresh over her cheeks. "Connor... my stomach hurts so bad... the baby..." Connor didn't waste another second. He kicked open the door and sprinted down the hall. If he had turned back for just one heartbeat, he would have seen the skirt of my dress completely drenched in dark red, heavy blood running down my bare legs. The room spun into darkness. I collapsed onto the floor. ... When my eyes opened again, all I saw was a glaring white ceiling and the sharp, chemical sting of hospital antiseptic. Jonah was sitting beside the bed. He had never left the building; after Connor’s entourage rushed out, he crept up the stairs and found me lying unconscious in a pool of my own blood. I blinked my dry, burning eyes and slowly laid a trembling hand over my stomach. The hollow emptiness inside me confirmed what I already knew. The baby I had fought so hard to keep was gone. Jonah’s eyes reddened. He looked away, his voice cracking. "Miss Holt... the doctor said the fetal heartbeat had stopped hours before the fall. The baby... the baby didn't suffer." I stared out the window. The sky over the city was a thick, suffocating gray, shrouded in heavy mist. My phone rang on the bedside table. It was the caretaker from the coastal memorial park. "Miss Holt! You have to talk to Mr. Ward right now! He paid a construction crew with bulldozers... they're tearing down your family's cemetery plots! They're saying they're clearing the land for a luxury pet resort!" A physical blow seemed to slam into my chest. Copper flooded my throat, and a violent cough brought up a spatter of blood onto the white sheets. The only people buried in that private coastal plot were my father, my mother, and my little sister. Connor was leveling their resting place to settle a score for Maren. Ignoring the nurses' frantic protests, I ripped the IV from the back of my hand, staggered to my feet, and dragged my broken body up the stairwell to the VIP suites on the seventh floor. The seventh floor was an alternate reality—warm amber lighting, fresh hydrangeas, and the scent of expensive room diffusers. Two nurses were gossiping near the nurse's station: "Mr. Ward is finally divorcing that psycho at home. Good riddance. Who could stay married to a violent maniac like that?" "I heard Miss Drake was the real angel who saved his life years ago, and the crazy wife just stole her identity..." I pushed open the door to the luxury suite. Connor was sitting by the bed, patiently blowing on a spoon of warm broth to feed Maren. His private security guards moved to intercept me, but froze when they saw the switchblade clutched tightly in my right hand. I looked straight at Connor, my voice dead and hollow. "I will sign whatever you want. I will give you your divorce, and I will let you have Maren. Just call off the bulldozers at the cemetery, and I swear to God I will vanish from your life forever." Maren reached out and delicately tugged at Connor’s sleeve. Connor gently pulled his arm away and turned to look at me, cold amusement dancing in his eyes. "Fine. Drive that knife into your own arm right now. Consider it your punishment for stealing Maren’s place for five years." He sneered. "Though someone like you would never actually—" The sound cut off. The blade sank two inches into the flesh of my left bicep. I didn't blink. "...Is that enough?" Connor shot out of his chair so fast the porcelain bowl shattered on the floor. "Are you out of your fucking mind?! Can't you just swallow your pride for once?!" He crossed the room in two strides, stripping off his cashmere sweater to press it against my bleeding arm. "You're pregnant, damn it! What does it cost you to just apologize?! Even if you lied about saving me, I never said—" A loud mechanical roar erupted from the tablet resting on Maren’s lap. A construction foreman’s voice came over the speaker: "Miss Drake, are you sure we're leveling this whole section? These are marked family graves... the locals say it's terrible luck." Maren glanced up at Connor with wide, innocent eyes. "I don't really know anything about superstition..." The foreman took the cue. The heavy engine revved. "CRASH." The sound of crushing marble and falling headstones tore through the speaker like thunder. "Maren Drake!!!" A surge of terrifying strength possessed me. I shoved Connor backward with such force he stumbled, lunging across the bed and wrapping my bloody fingers around Maren’s throat. "It was you! You orchestrated every single second of this!" A massive force slammed into my back, ripping me away. I hit the floor hard, the air driven from my lungs as three burly bodyguards pinned my limbs to the tile. My cheek pressed against the ice-cold floor. I rolled my eyes upward. Connor stood over me, his gaze dripping with profound disappointment and disgust. "Maren saved my life. For that alone, I will never let you lay a finger on her." Hot, bitter tears finally spilled over my lashes. "Connor Ward, are you completely blind?! My father and I pulled you out of that storm! My entire family died because we dragged your pathetic carcass onto our boat—" "And how do I know that's not just another one of your lies?" he interrupted, his voice devoid of warmth. "Your father had plenty of enemies on those docks." In that moment, a hysterical laugh bubbled up in my chest. If Connor ever found out who Maren really was... would he survive the truth? I laughed until I couldn't breathe, my body shaking so violently that the guards involuntarily loosened their grip. Connor turned his back. "Throw her out of the hospital." They dragged me into the concrete stairwell and left me in a heap on the landing. I lay there for a long time, staring at the gray steps, unable to summon the strength to stand. A shadow fell over me. A hand reached down into my field of vision. I forced my head up, looking at the sharp, familiar jawline of the man standing above me. Only two words escaped my cracked lips: "It's you?"
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