Chapter 1

My daughter was diagnosed with leukemia. To get my husband to match for her bone marrow transplant, I agreed to sign over my entire equity stake to him.

Yet the moment he got the money, he turned around and gave it to his first love, Vivienne, as a grand gift.

On the day of my daughter's funeral, debt collectors swarmed the funeral home, blocking every exit.

At my lowest, most desperate moment, my childhood friend Ethan appeared.

He paid off all my debts and proposed to me in front of everyone.

I thought my misery had finally come to an end.

Until today. While getting a birthday gift ready for him, I dug up an old voice recorder from the bottom of a storage box.

"That bone marrow match... you tampered with it, didn't you?"

Ethan's voice was chillingly calm. "What if I did?"

"Vivienne's kid... his condition wasn't even that critical! Do you have any idea that Lemon's daughter could have—"

"Critical or not doesn't matter," he interrupted softly. "Vivienne was crying her eyes out. How could I not help her?"

After a brief silence, I heard the man who once swore to protect me for the rest of my life let out a quiet chuckle.

"As for Lemon's daughter... she wouldn't have lived long anyway."

I froze where I stood, feeling ice flood my veins.

I hit the play button again, my fingertips freezing cold.

The voice on the other end sighed, thick with guilt. "Lemon's daughter could have survived..."

"Enough."

Ethan's voice cut him off.

It was the voice I had listened to for seven years, yet right now it sounded completely alien, muffled beneath a thick layer of frost.

"Don't bring this up again. I'll compensate her."

"Compensate? By giving her a baby?"

A long stretch of silence followed.

His voice turned low and raspy, yet it sliced through my flesh like a dull knife. "I will never let her carry my child."

"Still, I'll take care of her," he scoffed. "She's like a stray cat. Giving her a warm meal is enough."

The recording snapped off.

So that was the truth.

All this time, I thought something was wrong with my body.

I had drunk endless supplements and endured round after round of IVF. The egg-retrieval needles had made me tremble in agony.

Yet I had endured it all, thinking I just needed to give him a child of his own.

Just this afternoon, when I picked up the ultrasound report from the OB-GYN, the sheer joy in my chest had almost burst out—

Only for it to turn out to be a cruel joke.

My phone began buzzing right then.

"Lemon." His voice carried that familiar, intoxicating gentleness. "Something came up at the last minute. Don't wait up for me, okay?"

"Are you still at the office?" I asked, my voice flat and distant, sounding like a stranger's even to myself.

"Yeah, working overtime."

He chuckled softly. In the background, I could faintly hear a woman's sweet, breathy voice humming a birthday song. "Be good. Go to sleep early."

Just as he went to hang up, that same voice came through crystal clear: "Ethan, my foot hurts so bad, can you take a look for me..."

The call abruptly disconnected.

I stood in the dining room, staring at the cold dishes on the table—everything he loved to eat. Suddenly, I wanted to laugh.

Seven years.

Every time an important date came around, an emergency suddenly pulled him away.

Now, finally, I saw it clearly. He was simply spending those nights with someone else.

I ripped the ultrasound report into pieces. That faint little dot on the scan fluttered into the trash can alongside the shredded paper.

The phone buzzed once more. A text popped up from Ethan: Go to sleep first, sweetie. Love you.

I stared at those words, but my mind drifted back to the pale, fragile smile on my daughter's face near the end.

"Mommy, I'm going to get better, right?"

Three days later, Ethan had stood before me with bloodshot eyes, saying, "Lemon, I'm so sorry. I did everything I could."

When I collapsed onto the floor, he pulled me tight into his arms, repeating over and over, "Let me take care of you from now on. Let me love you in her place."

A year later, he married me.

At the wedding, everyone whispered how lucky I was.

Yeah, so lucky.

Lucky enough to have been secretly fed birth control pills by him for seven years. Lucky enough to drown in agonizing self-blame day after day.

Lucky enough that, when I finally got pregnant, he was in bed with another woman.

Lying on this mattress I had shared with him for seven years, I deleted that last text message.

Dawn was breaking outside.

It was time to wake up from this nightmare.