When I found out—again—that the IVF baby in my womb was actually the embryo of my husband and his mistress, I didn't lose my mind like before.
I didn't claw at my own stomach. I didn't scream until my throat bled. I didn't let the rage tear through me until there was nothing left to carry.
This time, I was good.
I ate what they told me to eat. I took my vitamins. I went to every appointment with a smile stitched onto my face.
I carried that child to term, and I gave birth to him.
And just like that, I became the most talked-about woman in high society. Gossip outlets couldn't get enough of me. Cheating billionaires wished their wives were as "understanding." Mistresses lit incense and prayed they'd land a husband with a spouse like me. The old-money wives? They looked at me like I was something they'd scraped off their Louboutins.
Ten months of whispers. Ten months of pitying stares and cruel laughter hidden behind champagne flutes.
Then the baby came.
When they wheeled me out of the delivery room, Percival Stephens leaned down and pressed a kiss to my forehead. Gentle. Tender. The way he always did when people were watching.
"Rose is too fragile for pregnancy," he murmured against my skin. "And you can't have children of your own anymore. This worked out perfectly—you got to help us bring our baby into the world."
His thumb brushed my cheek.
"Don't worry. She only wants to be a mother. She'd never try to take your place. You're still Mrs. Stephens." His voice dropped, intimate and warm. "You know you're the one I love."
Everyone believed I did this because I loved him too much to leave. That I couldn't compete with the other woman, so I surrendered. Joined them. Became their willing incubator.
They were wrong.
The truth was simpler. Colder.
Evelyn Stephens—the family matriarch—had called in a debt. A life for a life. Years ago, I'd saved her grandson, and now she'd collected her due.
Carry this child, she'd said, and I'll give you your divorce.
The Stephens family's firstborn son had arrived.
My freedom was supposed to follow.
——
The anesthesia wore off in waves.
First came the heaviness, like my body was filled with wet sand. Then the throbbing started—low and deep, radiating from the incision site until it consumed everything.
I forced my eyes open.
Percival was standing by the window, cradling the baby with an expression I hadn't seen in years. Pure, unguarded joy. The kind he used to save for me.
"Hey, you're awake." He turned, still beaming. "Grandma already picked out a name for our son. Just sign here and we can register the birth certificate."
He held out the document.
I blinked at it, vision still blurry. Then the characters came into focus.
Louis Stephens.
Remember the beginning.
The room tilted.
That name. That name.
It was the one I'd chosen for my own son. The one I'd whispered to my belly during those precious weeks before everything went wrong. It was supposed to represent our love story—the beginning we'd promised to never forget.
It was also the name reserved for the firstborn son in the Stephens family line. Thirteen generations of tradition, all pointing to those two characters.
And now they wanted to give it to this child. This baby that wasn't mine. This baby that belonged to the woman who'd stolen my husband in our own bed.
My mind flashed back.
The kidnapping, three years ago. Percival bound and bleeding, a gun to his head. Me, throwing myself in front of the blade meant for him. The searing pain as it tore through my abdomen. The surgeon's voice afterward, clinical and final: "The damage to her uterus is irreversible. Natural conception is no longer possible."
I'd given up my body to save him.
And then the first IVF attempt. Our miracle. A boy, already formed, already real. I'd been picking out names when I came home early and found them—Percival and Rose Henson, my half-sister born from my father's affair—tangled together in our sheets.
I couldn't breathe. I couldn't think. I must have made a sound, because Percival's head snapped toward me, and in one careless motion, he shoved me aside.
I hit the corner of the dresser. The blood came fast and wouldn't stop.
They had to take my son from me in pieces.
I'd planned to bury him properly once I recovered. Give him a place in the ancestral cemetery. But the fortune teller said the timing was inauspicious—he hadn't reached full term, hadn't taken a single breath. We needed to wait.
We'd been waiting for over a year.
During my pregnancy with Rose's baby, Percival had begged me countless times to give this child the name I'd chosen for my son. "It's perfect," he kept saying. "Don't you think it's perfect?"
I'd refused. Every single time.
But now, looking at his expectant face, all I felt was disgust.
The tears I'd once shed for him seemed pathetic now. Wasted on a man who'd never deserved them.
I knew Grandma Evelyn hadn't chosen this name. She had too much pride for that.
No—this was Rose. Rose, who'd spent her whole life taking what was mine. She must have cooed it into Percival's ear, and he'd swallowed it whole without a second thought.
Fine. Let them have it. The divorce was as good as final. Why would I want my dead son sharing a name with the child of the man who'd killed him?
"Whatever." My voice came out flat. "Call him what you want."
Percival's smile widened.
"But I have one condition." I met his eyes. "Don't list me as the mother. My son's spirit wouldn't like sharing his name with a stranger's baby. He'd be upset."
Something flickered across Percival's face. Guilt, maybe. Or its imitation.
"Aria Henson, listen—" He stepped closer, voice dropping. "You know I'm only using Rose for her genetics. She shares your bloodline, so the baby will still look like—I never actually wanted her. She and I, we haven't—"
A crash from the hallway cut him off.
"You shameless little tramp!" A woman's voice, shrill and furious. "Who told you you could come here?!"
Through the open door, I saw Rose crumpled on the floor, cowering beneath Grandma Evelyn's cane.
"I just—" Rose's voice trembled, tears already streaming. "I just wanted to see the baby—"
"Get out!"
The cane struck the floor inches from Rose's hand.
Percival's reaction was instantaneous.
He didn't hand the baby to the nurse. Didn't even look for a safe place to set him down. He just—dropped him. Onto me. Onto my freshly sutured abdomen.
Then he ran.
The weight hit my incision like a hammer.
I heard something tear—felt the wet heat of blood seeping through the bandages. A scream ripped from my throat before I could stop it.
The pain was blinding. White-hot. All-consuming.
But Percival was already gone.
He hadn't even turned around.
