### Chapter 2
My friend went quiet for two or three seconds, then her voice went sharp. "You're not joking, are you? Everybody knows you'd give your life loving Austin Yates."
My chest was tight enough to hurt. When I spoke, I'd never been so certain of anything. "I'm leaving him. The sooner the better."
Zoey didn't ask anything else.
"Okay. I'll get the divorce papers ready as fast as I can."
I'd barely hung up when Maya's Instagram update pushed to the top of my feed.
"Turns out playing 'mommy' is so much fun. Thanks to a certain someone for humoring my little 'games.'"
She'd posted a string of videos.
In a luxury delivery room, Maya sat surrounded by specialists, legs spread, hamming up a laboring woman's screams.
Austin waited on her hand and foot, peeling an orange, wiping her forehead, rubbing her feet.
I carried our child for ten months, and he never once brought me so much as a basin of warm water to soak my feet.
I stared at the newest clip. In the water, he held Maya from behind to "help her deliver," coaxing her gently. "Come on, almost there. Just a little more and you won't have to suffer anymore."
I once told him I was scared of the pain and wanted to try a water birth. He'd asked coldly who was going to answer for it if it lowered the baby's IQ.
Something wrenched hard in my chest.
I let out a bitter little laugh.
So it wasn't that he didn't know how much agony childbirth was. He just didn't care about me.
That night, after I'd rocked our daughter to sleep, I picked up the phone to tell my family she'd been born. The room next door suddenly came alive with noise.
"Austin really came through for you. He should've married you from the start, not that knockoff." That was my brother's voice.
He'd once congratulated me on finally marrying Austin, saying it was me all along who'd been promised to Austin since childhood.
My father picked up the thread.
"That cheap little girl stole everything from Maya, and now she gets to be a mother too. My poor Maya only gets to play at it for a bit..."
He'd once knelt in his study to thank me.
Said if I hadn't handed over the billion my adoptive parents gave me, the Fox family would've been finished.
My hands and feet went numb. Step by step, I made my way next door.
Through the crack in the door, my mother stroked Maya's head with such tenderness, then rolled her eyes. "So calculating. Blood daughter or not, so what? Don't think for a second I'd take her side."
She'd once bragged to relatives that she'd staked her own reputation to recommend my brother, and only then had he landed his government post. Said I was the daughter she loved most.
But every kindness from the people I thought were closest to me had been an act.
Behind my back, I was the knockoff, the cheap girl, the scheming slut who stole her sister's fiancé.
Austin sat at the edge of the bed and didn't say half a word in my defense.
"You should focus on Maya. She's been so brave these two days. I'm proud of you."
My heart was already cramping with pain.
Bang! The door slammed open under my hand.
"The two faces on all of you. It's disgusting!"
They all stared when they saw me, eyes wide.
In his panic, my father knocked over the mountain of gifts they'd brought Maya.
I'd had my baby, and not one of them had bought her so much as a little outfit.
"Dorothy, listen to your father..."
I didn't want to watch the fake performance a second longer. I turned and walked out.
I hadn't even cleared the hospital when Austin came charging out of the building and threw an arm across my path.
There was no delight in his eyes at the baby in the stroller.
He didn't ask whether the birth had gone all right.
He clamped down on my wrist, his face cold. "Come home with me."
He gripped hard enough to crush the bone, and I fought against him.
"Home? So you can all keep humiliating me?"
Austin faltered, glanced down at the baby, and eased his grip a little. "You screamed at Maya and scared her into a panic attack. They're still working to stabilize her. Go back and apologize."
"Having a baby doesn't give you the right to be rude."
"Why should I apologize to her? She's the one who stole everything from me. She's the one who was rude, and she's the one all of you crowned with special privileges."
I was furious enough to lose my head, but I was afraid of waking the baby, so I didn't even dare fall apart.
Austin's brow creased.
"Your family only favored her a little because she grew up with no real family to love her, and they slipped and misspoke. Don't be so unreasonable about the bigger picture."
I laughed until my eyes were wet. "Then what exactly do you want from me?"
He reached out, trying to stroke my face and calm me down.
"Admit you were wrong. Make up with Maya."
"She's had a hard few years. She feels like she stole half of your family's love, and the guilt has driven her into depression. But she never owed you anything."
Rain fell from the night sky, and the biting cold seeped into my skin, into my heart, until even my soul was frozen.
I laughed and lowered my head to avoid his touch.
Tears mixed with rain and struck down into the cold night.
"I'll mail you the divorce papers, Austin."
His gaze tightened. Then a distinctive ringtone went off at his waist.
He answered without hesitation.
Maya sobbed something I couldn't make out, and he immediately turned his back to me, his voice going soft. "Don't cry. Dorothy's going to apologize to you. She's just petty, that's all."
