It was our third wedding anniversary, and I was planning to deliver the news of my pregnancy to Alexander “Alex” Maxwell as a surprise. But a sudden, reckless impulse led me to check his phone first. That’s when I saw the photograph. The woman in the picture bore an unsettling resemblance to me, but the child in her arms—a toddler—had a shadow of Alex’s features. I heard the click of the bathroom lock turning. I looked up, meeting Alex’s eyes as he stepped out. His gaze dropped to the phone in my hand. His face darkened instantly. The shift was chilling. “Why were you going through my phone?” he demanded, his voice low and cold. 1 I almost laughed. The lock screen password was my birthday. Was he genuinely so arrogant, so trusting, that he believed I’d never look? I remained silent. He strode forward and snatched the phone away. When he saw the photograph himself, he froze. A wave of complicated, churning emotion flashed in his eyes before he masked it. It took him a moment. He finally lifted his head to look at me, his expression hardened with displeasure. “You shouldn’t have looked.” In all the years I’d known Alex, this was the first time he’d turned that dark look on me. It was the frantic fury of a secret exposed. I lowered my eyes, clenching my fists, fighting to keep the tremor from my voice. “Who are they?” His silence was the only answer, a suffocating blanket in the air. I risked a glance at him. He ran a hand through his hair, a gesture of rare, genuine frustration. A sliver of guilt finally seemed to penetrate his annoyance. “The child is mine. And she…” He trailed off, his hesitant gaze lingering on my face for a long time. “She’s my ex-girlfriend.” My eyes stung with a sudden, hot burn. Alex watched, completely lost. He fumbled, gently wiping a tear from my cheek. “Mia, it’s not what you think. I broke up with her right after you came back from overseas. She was pregnant but didn’t tell me. She had the baby and only contacted me about a year ago.” The explanation was paper-thin, transparent. He had successfully hidden the existence of this “ex” from the beginning. During the three years I was away for school, we’d lost touch. When I returned, I was met with Alex, the devoted, patiently waiting fiancé. It was all a facade. While I was gone, someone else had been by his side. I stared straight into his eyes, demanding the truth. “If she had told you about the pregnancy back then, what would you have chosen?” His gaze flickered. He frowned, his impatience returning. “Don’t make useless hypotheticals.” Faced with a devastating choice, Alex chose to dodge. But I had already seen the hesitation, the quiet conflict, in his eyes. I took a shaky breath, forcing a small, brittle smile onto my face. “Alex, do you want a divorce?” 2 Alex rejected the suggestion immediately. He scrambled into his clothes and slammed the door behind him, leaving without a second glance. The third night, he came back smelling strongly of liquor. He grabbed me roughly, pinning me beneath him on the bed. His kiss was scalding, a desperate, suffocating pressure that gave me no chance to breathe. The heavy scent of alcohol filled my nostrils, but beneath it, I caught a faint, sweet, and distinctly feminine perfume. Finally, just as I felt myself starting to panic, he released me. His eyes were bloodshot, shimmering with unshed tears. “Amelia,” he whispered, his voice trembling with a strange, wounded fury. “You have no right to ask me for a divorce.” The tremor in his voice carried a hint of self-pity, as if I were the one who had committed the unforgivable act. I pushed him away and sat up, my gaze cold and flat. “Did you change cologne?” The lingering scent on his skin was definitely a woman’s sweet fragrance. Where he’d spent the last two days was painfully clear. He offered no explanation. Instead, he grinned, a flash of undeniable mockery in his eyes. “Do you think I’m too much, Mia? Because you’re worse. You settled for me, but your heart was still hung up on Spencer Elliott, wasn’t it?” It took me a full three seconds to process the name. Spencer Elliott. I saw the look on Alex’s face—a sick satisfaction, the triumph of achieved revenge. It hit me. He still resented me for chasing Spencer overseas years ago. His next words were calculated, stabbing right at my deepest vulnerability. “If you truly want a divorce, why don’t you go ask the Owens what they think first?” Immediately, the stern, judging faces of my adoptive parents flashed in my mind, followed by the familiar, cutting stream of blame and admonishment. I squeezed my hands into fists. My fingertips felt ice cold. Alex’s smile widened, becoming outright cruel. In that instant, everything clicked into place. “Alex, this is about revenge, isn’t it?” He didn’t flinch. He admitted it brazenly, even promising that this was only the beginning. “You don’t love me, so I’ll make you miserable.” With that, he got up and walked out of the room. I reached for my stomach, then pulled out the sonogram I’d planned to give him as a surprise. Slowly, I tore the paper into small, jagged pieces.
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