My husband—who had no idea he was congenitally sterile—made a grand public announcement that some college girl was carrying his child, bought her a mansion, and stayed by her side day and night.
As her due date approached, he came home with divorce papers. One dismissive glance in my direction. "Since you can't have children, stop clinging to the title. I'm giving Rowena and the baby a real family."
I looked at him, expression blank, and picked up a pen.
Then I turned and dialed my phone. "Mom. That man you mentioned. I'll meet him."
……
Three years of marriage, and I'd never gotten pregnant. Every test I took came back normal.
I spent a full year begging Clint James to get checked—begging until I'd ground myself into dust. He finally went, dragging his feet the entire way.
The results came back: congenital azoospermia. He was the one who couldn't conceive. I was fine.
So he wouldn't lose his dignity as a man, so his family would never have reason to humiliate him, I buried the truth without a word.
Deleted every baby photo I'd saved. Left every fertility group I'd joined.
Knelt in front of the colleague who ran the lab, crying, and begged her for a falsified report.
Clint glanced at it and tossed it aside. His lip curled. "My family's empire, my bloodline, and I married a woman who can't even give me an heir. What rotten luck."
That was the moment I tasted it—the bitterness of pouring everything into someone and getting nothing back.
My mother sensed some of what I was going through. But she could see how stubbornly I clung to Clint, how nothing would pry me loose, so she didn't dare push for divorce outright. She could only drop hints. So-and-so got remarried after her divorce and had a big healthy boy. So-and-so's daughter is already three…
I understood her. I was her only child, and she wanted a grandchild.
Three months later, I saw Clint in a luxury boutique, arm in arm with a young woman.
The handbag the sales associate had set aside for me, he gave to her.
The girl had clearly seen photos of me before. The second she spotted me, one corner of her mouth twitched up, a smug little glance thrown my way.
Then she leaned forward on purpose, one hand cradling the slight swell of her belly.
She might as well have been measuring my home for new curtains.
I remembered, suddenly, what Clint had said at our wedding. "In sickness and in health, I will love you, cherish you, and be faithful to you. Forever."
Turns out his forever lasted four years.
His promises were just bubbles—the slightest pressure and they burst.
My vision blurred before I even realized it.
The girl's voice was bright with mockery. "If you'd managed to give him a baby, this bag would be yours. Shame you couldn't, isn't it?"
She was saying it to my face: I was infertile, and I couldn't hold on to Clint.
No part of me was willing to stand there and take it.
But I knew slapping her would only feel good for a second and change absolutely nothing.
I looked past her. Locked my eyes on Clint. Kept my voice steady. "Are you even sure the baby she's carrying is yours?"
I didn't expect what came next. He turned on me without a shred of mercy, voice raised for her sake: "Rowena's still a student—she's pure-hearted. She'd never have the kind of filthy mind you do.
"Don't think a few clever words are going to wreck what we have and drag me back to you.
"I stopped wanting a useless woman like you a long time ago."
A chill shot through me.
Looking at him, at the finality in every line of his face, the last light I'd kept burning for him went out.
That same day, the whole thing spread online like wildfire. As if the spectacle weren't big enough, Clint made a public announcement: Rowena Rodriguez was carrying his child. He'd bought her a mansion. He would be by her side day and night.
When my mother found out, she said she would find me a man who was better than him in every way.
True to her word—I'd barely walked out of the divorce office before she had someone lined up.
