I was seven months pregnant when I started bleeding heavily and was rushed to the hospital by my husband Ralph. I was terrified. The baby was too early. The bleeding wouldn’t stop.
“Ralph,” I sobbed, my nails digging into his palm. “Please… save our baby. Please.”
He looked down at me, his jaw tight, but before he could speak, his phone rang.
Through the haze of my agony, I heard her voice bleeding through the speaker. Kate. The sweet, timid orphan I had taken pity on. The girl I had brought into my home, paid for her tuition, bought her clothes, and treated like a younger sister.
“Ralph, please!” Kate was weeping, her voice breathless and frantic. “Don’t send me abroad! I can’t go. I can’t leave you. I love you, Ralph. I’ve always loved you. If you make me get on that plane, I’ll end it all right now!”
My heart stopped. Ralph froze.
“Kate, wait. Don’t do anything stupid,” he said.
“Ralph?” I gasped, reaching out for him. “Where… where are you going? I’m bleeding!”
He didn’t even look at me. He turned to the doctor, his face completely cold. “I have to go. I don’t care about her right now. Just make sure the baby lives.”
And then he turned his back and walked away. The pain swallowed me whole, and everything went dark.
When I finally woke up days later, the hospital room was dead silent. I laid there staring at the ceiling, feeling absolutely nothing. I was hollowed out. A ghost in my own body.
When Ralph finally showed up two days later, he brought Kate.
I didn’t scream. I didn’t cry. I just looked at him with dead eyes and whispered, “I want a divorce.”
“Fine,” Ralph said flatly. “Sign the papers. But just make sure you never show your face to us again. After all… you couldn’t even take care of our baby. You’re useless to me now.”
Those words shattered whatever was left of my soul.
Three years later, I didn't think I'd ever see them again at a private banquet.
I stood near the balcony, wearing a custom emerald silk gown, sipping sparkling water. I was waiting for my husband.
The man who had found me when I was nothing but broken glass and ashes. The man who had patiently glued my pieces back together, who gave me a new life, a new name, and a love so fierce it terrified me. He was in a brief meeting upstairs, and I was perfectly content waiting for him.
Until a voice sliced through the music like a poisoned blade.
“What are you doing here?”
I turned around slowly, and there she was. Kate. She wasn’t the pitiful, shivering orphan in hand-me-down clothes anymore. She was draped in diamonds, wearing a ridiculously expensive couture gown. And her hand was resting proudly on her swollen, pregnant belly.
Beside her stood Ralph, wearing a tailored tuxedo, looking just as arrogant as the day he left me to die.
“Entice,” he spat my name like it was a curse. “Didn’t we say you shouldn’t ever see us again?” He stepped closer, looking me up and down. “Are you following me? Is this because you no longer have money after the divorce? You blew through the settlement and now you’re stalking us to beg for more?”
“I’m not following you, Ralph,” I said coldly. “This is a private banquet. I was invited.”
“Invited?” Kate scoffed, her voice dripping with fake sweetness. “Please, Entice. Look at you. You don’t belong in a place like this. You’re just trying to ruin my night.”
She suddenly shrank back, clutching Ralph’s arm and pressing her other hand dramatically against her pregnant stomach.
“Ralph, make her leave,” Kate whimpered, her eyes welling with fake tears. “I don’t like seeing her. She might harm me and the baby. Remember what she did when you chose me?”
The words hit me like a physical blow.
A flashback violently ripped through my mind. The day I signed the divorce papers. Kate had cornered me in the hospital hallway while I was packing my meager belongings. She had smiled, leaned in close, and whispered, “It’s a shame your baby had to die for me to take my rightful place. But don't worry... I'll give Ralph the heir you couldn't.”
I had slapped her. Ralph had walked in at that exact moment, shoved me into the wall, and called me a jealous, barren monster.
The memory made my blood boil, but before I could open my mouth to defend myself, Ralph stepped into my personal space. His eyes were cold, dead, and full of absolute contempt.
“Get out of this event,” Ralph ordered, his voice low and threatening. “You are not fit for this. You’re an embarrassment. I won’t let a toxic, unstable woman like you stress out my pregnant wife.”
“I’m not leaving,” I said, lifting my chin. “My husband is coming.”
Ralph burst out laughing. “Your husband? Who would marry a discarded, barren woman like you? Stop lying, Entice. It’s pathetic.”
He reached into the inner pocket of his tuxedo jacket, pulled out a thick stack of hundred-dollar bills, and without a second of hesitation, he threw them directly at my face.
The heavy wad of cash smacked against my cheek, the bills fluttering down to the marble floor around my feet like dirty snow.
“That should shut you up for now,” Ralph sneered, looking down at me like I was garbage. “Pick it up, get out of my sight, and never come near my family again.”
