That night, I didn’t scream. I didn’t throw anything. I didn’t storm into Valentina’s room or rip the sheets off the bed or pour bleach over the clothes Jacob left in our closet.
I went back to my room. Quietly. Like a ghost returning to her grave.
I shut the door behind me and collapsed onto the floor.
The sobs didn’t come right away. I was too numb for that. I just sat there, staring at the wall. Hearing their voices echo in my head. “You’re mine.” “She’s nothing.” “three years.”
three years.
They had been together longer than most people stay married. And I had been sleeping beside him, making him breakfast, praying for a baby—with my whole heart—while he gave everything I wanted to someone else.
Eventually, I reached for my phone.
There was only one person I could trust. One person who wouldn’t feed me lies.
I dialed.
“Maurice?” Dr. Elira’s voice was groggy. I must’ve woken her. “What’s wrong? Are you hurt?”
I swallowed hard. “I need your help.”
“What happened?”
“I need a DNA test run on the surrogate. Quietly. And fast. Please… can you do that?”
There was a pause. “Are you okay?”
“No,” I said. “But I need to know the truth before I fall apart.”
Elira didn’t ask questions. She just said, “I’ll make some calls.”
The next morning, she called back.
“I pulled Valentina’s file.”
I was in the garden when I answered, pretending to water the roses. Jacob was inside, having breakfast with her.
“What did you find?” I asked, heart pounding.
Elira’s voice dropped to a whisper. “Maurice… there’s no IVF record. No egg retrieval. No implantation. No surrogate contract signed under your name. Nothing.”
I gripped the edge of the stone bench. “What does that mean?”
“She was never your surrogate, G,” she said gently. “She’s not carrying your baby. The egg isn’t yours.”
I didn’t speak.
“She and Jacob… they conceived naturally.”
Everything stopped.
The breeze. The birds. The pulse in my wrist.
“Maurice?” she asked again. “Are you—”
I hung up. I couldn’t breathe.
I had nothing left.
I didn’t wait for him to come to me.
That night, after Valentina went upstairs—after he kissed her cheek and rubbed her belly and called her “his queen”—I met him in his office.
He looked surprised. “You’re still up?”
I shut the door behind me. “I spoke to Elira.”
His eyes darkened.
“She checked Valentina’s medical files.”
Silence.
“No embryo transfer. No hormone protocols. No signed papers. Nothing.”
He sighed, slow. “So?”
“So you lied.”
“I protected you.”
“No,” I said, voice rising. “You used me. You made me think SHE WAS CARRYING MY CHILD!”
He didn’t blink. “I needed a strong Ricci heir. Your body couldn’t deliver. Hers could.”
There it was.
Just like that. Cold. Unapologetic.
“Do you even hear yourself?”
“I did what I had to do.”
“You stole four years from me. You made me think I was broken. That I was failing you.”
His jaw tightened. “You were never strong enough to be a mother.”
I slapped him.
The sound echoed in the room. But he didn’t react.
“I gave you everything,” I whispered. “My love. My loyalty. My body. My soul. And you… you gave me lies.”
“You have a roof over your head,” he said. “A name. You’re a Ricci. That should be enough.”
“It’s not.”
He stepped forward. “You’re upset. I get it. But let’s not ruin everything now. The baby’s almost here. Let’s just—”
I stepped back.
“No more,” I said. “No more pretending. I want out.”
He narrowed his eyes. “Out?”
“I want a divorce.”
He laughed once, low and dangerous. “You’re not going anywhere.”
“You can’t stop me.”
“Oh, I can,” he said. “And I will. For your safety, of course.”
And just like that, my house became a cage.
Guards at the gate. My phone monitored. My calls traced. I wasn’t allowed to drive. My credit cards froze. He told the staff I was having a mental episode.
“Just until she’s better,” he told them. “She’s under a lot of stress.”
And every night, he came into my room, acting like nothing happened. Like we were still husband and wife.
But I didn’t speak. I didn’t look at him.
I was already gone.
Only my body remained.
But my mind? My heart?
They were planning an escape.
And I swore to myself…
If he thought I was broken before—he hadn’t seen anything yet.
There had been a hollow sort of ache that no amount of sleep could fix. I woke up with it lodged in my chest like a stone—cold, unmoving, cruel. The bed had been colder too. Jacob hadn’t touched that room in days. I didn’t blame him. He was probably too busy comforting Valentina and her precious trophy of a pregnancy.
Every corner of that house used to hold pieces of me. Now it felt like I was trespassing in a museum of my own life. The staff—once loyal, once warm—had begun giving me cautious glances, like I might shatter at any moment. One of them even had the audacity to call her "Mrs. Ricci" the day before.
I hadn’t corrected it. What was the point?
Valentina walked those halls like she owned the ground they were built on. She floated in my silk robes, sipped my imported tea, and smirked with every pass like she’d already won.
And maybe she had.
I found her in the kitchen that morning, lounging like a cat in the sunniest spot of the window. She wore one of my sweaters—tight over her bump—and sipped my imported tea like it had always belonged to her.
She didn’t even blink when I walked in. Just glanced up, smirked, and said,
“Did you enjoy the show the other night?”
My heart stuttered. “What?”
She tilted her head, all faux innocence. “Me and Jacob. Upstairs. The sounds. The headboard. Come on, Maurice. You were watching, weren’t you? Pathetic.”
I couldn’t breathe.
