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I stared at that pregnancy test result and, for a long moment, couldn't get a word out.
Althea seemed pleased with my reaction.
She looped her arm through Philip's and deliberately pressed her belly against him.
"Amber, don't be angry."
"I've never thought about taking Mrs. Weiss's place."
"But you shouldn't be so controlling either. My child is going to need to see his father often from now on."
Philip didn't push her away.
Instead he bent his head and murmured to her gently, "The doctor told you not to stand so much. Go sit on the sofa."
He steadied Althea as she sat, then had someone take away all the pepper water on the table.
Only once he'd confirmed there was nothing in the room that could hurt her did he turn back to me.
His tone was as calm as if he were discussing some minor piece of business.
"One of the times I went with you to a prenatal checkup, Althea was young and playful and insisted on making a bet with me."
"She bet on whether you'd catch us kissing in the hospital corridor. One thing led to another, and I couldn't help myself."
"But I never intended to divorce you, and I won't let her threaten your position as Mrs. Weiss."
When he finished, he even walked over and pulled my coat closed around me.
The gesture was as gentle as it had always been.
But the words out of his mouth were cold enough to make him a stranger.
"Amber, we both grew up steeped in this world."
"What household out there doesn't keep a few women on the side?"
"Keeping an obedient little bird around for a bit of amusement, isn't that perfectly normal?"
"You were raised from childhood to be a high-society wife. You should know which things are worth making a scene over, and which things you turn a blind eye to."
I looked at him, and suddenly I remembered something from many years ago.
The thing Philip had hated most was exactly these so-called high-society rules.
His father had kept countless women outside the marriage.
His mother spent her whole life guarding her position as Mrs. Weiss, and in the end didn't even get to see her husband one last time.
The day she died, eighteen-year-old Philip knelt in the memorial hall all night with red-rimmed eyes.
The next day, he took my hand and said:
"Amber, I will never become a man like my father."
At twenty-two, the Weiss family picked out a marriage match for him.
But Philip flipped over the tea table in front of the elders of both families and walked out of the old Weiss estate holding my hand.
Behind him, dozens of elders shouted their fury, and outside a whole row of luxury cars sat waiting.
He didn't even look back.
That night, the Weiss family froze his cards and took back every property in his name.
He had only a few hundred dollars left to his name, yet he still smiled and said:
"What's there to be afraid of?"
"Even without the Weiss family, I can still give you the best life there is."
Later, he actually did it.
To propose to me, he booked out a private island.
Hundreds of drones spelled out my name over the sea.
The pink diamond on that wedding ring was one he'd bid a nine-figure sum for at the Geneva auction.
The night before the wedding, in the Weiss family chapel, in front of all the elders, he signed a loyalty agreement.
The agreement spelled it out clearly.
If he was ever unfaithful during the marriage, or had a child with another woman,
his Weiss shares, the funds in his name, and his overseas assets would all be transferred to me.
Everyone urged him not to sign it back then.
But Philip handed the pen to me, grinning, full of high spirits.
"Sign it."
"In this life, I'm never going to give you a reason to use it anyway."
I really believed him.
So when the Weiss Group's cash flow broke, I convinced the Donaldsons to put up the money to cover the gap.
When the board came after him, I handed him every vote the Donaldsons controlled.
The day Philip secured his place as heir, he held me and said:
"Everything I have now, you gave me."
"In this life, I will only ever have one wife, and that's you."
Now he still has the Weiss family.
And he's finally become the very man he despised most.
