I had to go back to the house that used to be home and clear out my things.
I stepped into the marital home that had been ours, the wedding photo still hanging on the wall.
In the photo I leaned happily against his broad chest, his chin resting against my hair, his eyes full of love.
Everything churning inside me, I walked to the corner of the room where Lewis's very first love letter to me still lay. Back then he was just a poor nobody, and he had bitten his finger open to write me a letter in blood, swearing to give me his life and his love, all of it.
I finally found it under the vanity in the corner, that letter made of blood and love.
My cosmetics, though, had long since been thrown to the floor by Violet like garbage.
Those cosmetics were the ones Lewis had once flown overseas to have custom-made just for me. He'd said my looks were extraordinary, that ordinary cosmetics were beneath me, so he'd spent tens of millions commissioning the lead creators of a luxury brand to make them to fit me alone.
Holding back the tears in my eyes, I picked up that long-sealed letter.
I returned the letter and the wedding photo from the room to Lewis, placing them in his safe.
If the love we once had was gone, then the memories of it should be gone too.
Looking at everything in the bedroom, I called for the maid and told her to take every last thing that belonged to me and burn it completely, including that set of cosmetics no one could buy in any store.
With sighs and confusion, the maid carried it all to the backyard and burned it.
I followed her out and watched with my own eyes as the flames devoured all of it.
The blaze scorched heat into my eyes, and the tears I'd kept pressed down this whole time finally spilled over, beyond my control.
I don't know how long it was before Lewis came and stood beside me.
There was a trace of impatience on his face as he looked at me. "Still throwing a tantrum over the experiment?"
Lewis still thought I was losing my temper over Violet running that experiment on my child.
"I just don't want it anymore." My voice was flat, drained of any feeling.
"How about I arrange a trip to Iceland for you? I'll go with you. It happens to be our tenth wedding anniversary." His voice softened a little.
The old me would have felt happy. Now I simply shook off the hand that had touched Violet.
He stared blankly at the hand I'd flung away.
Soon the maid came up and broke in on us. "Mr. Thomas, ma'am, the baby items have arrived."
The pain inside me was unbearable, but I forced my voice to sound like a machine with no feeling at all. "We don't need them. Send them back."
Lewis, though, told the maid, "Put them in the nursery."
The pain spread through my whole body. I couldn't stop myself from saying, "But... the baby is already gone. What do we need those for?"
Lewis pulled out his phone, glanced at the screen, and a smile immediately spread across his face as he headed for the door.
The next second, he had his arm gently around Violet, and the two of them walked slowly over to me.
"You really don't need them. But my child does." Lewis lowered his eyes to Violet's belly.
"Just this morning, I got my own flesh and blood. A boy, with truly superior genes."
His words went off beside my ear like a bomb.
Pain pulsed through my chest, my throat kept tightening, and I could hardly breathe.
Violet's hand rested on her belly, and though she was smiling, her eyes carried the air of a woman who ran this house.
Lewis's gaze swept over my heaving chest, something like smugness in his eyes. "Violet and I have been trying for a baby for half a year now. Our baby is one in a million, not beneath everyone else like that fetus of yours."
My breath caught, and my whole body was shaking.
Six months ago, the hospital found I was physically unfit to ever carry a child, and Lewis chose IVF. I'd taken the fertility drugs in his arms, half destroyed by the agony of it, and he'd stroked my forehead with reddened eyes, swearing that in this life he only wanted this one baby.
Three months ago, on the day my pregnancy was confirmed, he'd made a grand show of ordering a whole planeload of violets from overseas for me, swearing he'd give me and the baby in my belly the happiest life there was.
My vision went black and I stumbled, nearly fainting on the spot. While I suffered the drugs' side effects day and night, he had been trying for a baby with Violet.
And now he was telling me that half a year ago, he had already been trying for a baby with her.
Through the blur of tears, I stared at Lewis and lashed out. "Did you ever once think about my child, who was just beginning to take shape?"
Lewis looked at me, already streaming with tears, and let out a heavy sigh.
"Nadia, are you done making a scene? Violet's not feeling well in her early pregnancy, so you might as well start taking care of her right now, to atone for what you did." His voice sank, dark.
Tears dropped onto my shoes. In an instant, I forced myself calm.
"Do whatever you want." My face was cold as I fought down the urge to cry.
Lewis, whose face had been contorted with rage, suddenly ran out of steam. He began sizing me up again, as if he hadn't expected me to be this calm.
Violet rose onto her toes and whispered something in Lewis's ear. Lewis immediately shouted at the servants, "Smash the whole nursery and redecorate it."
"Violet doesn't like that style."
The servants went straight to the nursery with their tools.
That nursery was one I had painted by hand over three months. Soft yellow throughout, touched with beige, waiting to welcome my unborn child.
Now it was breaking apart under the servants' hammers.
I looked at the dust-filled nursery and threw myself in front of their hammers. "You can't! This is my child's room! No one touches it without my permission!"
Violet's sobbing rose behind me. "I grew up in an orphanage. My child should grow up in one too."
Lewis's eyes went wide with fury as he grabbed my clothes and dragged me out of the nursery. "Stop making a scene!"
"My child with Violet is a boy. As the heir to Thomas Group, he can't grow up surrounded by a color this cheap!"
Calmly, I took out my phone and filmed the whole thing, Lewis directing the servants to smash the nursery.
"Keep smashing. You're doing well." I looked at Lewis.
"This is the last trace of your own child, and you're destroying it with your own hands. Don't regret it later."
