Chapter 3

The man who had once vowed to be my partner, my rock, was now a ghost, lost in the labyrinth of his own desires. My heart ached—not just for the baby I had lost, but for the love I had thought we shared, now reduced to a mere shadow of what could have been.

His lips curved into a familiar smile—the kind I hadn’t seen directed at me in years. It was warm, inviting, and utterly deceptive, like sunlight breaking through a storm cloud.

Without a second thought, he turned away, completely forgetting I even existed in the room.

As soon as he was out of sight, I unlocked my phone and opened my secret social media account, a portal to the world he thought I couldn’t access. My heart pounded in my chest like a war drum.

I scrolled through his feed, each post a dagger that twisted deeper into my heart. Pictures of him laughing, carefree, his arm draped around a woman . She looked vibrant, alive—everything I felt I had lost.

With each photo, I felt the walls closing in, the room around me fading into darkness. My fingers trembled as I navigated through the snapshots of his life, a life I had once shared but was now an outsider to.

And there it was, a new post.

"I shouldn’t have let my love wait."

The words blurred as my vision narrowed, the bright screen becoming a twisted reflection of my reality.

He could spare his assistant an apology for a dinner delay, but not a single ounce of regret for the child we had just lost.

The notification from Mr. Janathan buzzed on my phone almost simultaneously as Milton walked into the room, a cruel twist of fate.

The contract. I clicked the link and signed it without a second thought, sealing my decision to leave this life behind, as if closing the door on a nightmare.

The next morning, Milton woke up earlier than usual, which caught me off guard. His routine had been predictable, his presence almost like a ghost haunting the remnants of our home. But today felt different.

He returned with pastries, their sweet aroma wafting through the air, an unsettling contrast to the storm brewing inside me.

He placed the bag on the table, and as I reached to open it, his hand shot out, slapping mine away with an unexpected force that took my breath away.

"You like blueberry butter cookies, right?" he said, his voice unnervingly casual, the kind of nonchalance that stung like a slap. "I got one just for you."

For a moment, time froze. I stared at him, disbelief washing over me. Blueberry butter cookies? For me?

They weren’t for me. They were for his precious Alice Winson.

"Seven years, Milton," I said, my voice trembling with restrained fury, each word dripping with the weight of my pain. "Seven years, and you still don’t know I’m allergic to blueberry?"

I could see the flicker of surprise in his eyes, quickly masked by a defensive shrug. "It’s just a cookie, Sara. —"

He froze, his hand suspended midway to his cup of coffee, caught in a moment that felt like a lifetime. I could feel the weight of his annoyance pressing down on me.

Without a moment’s hesitation, he stood abruptly, the chair scraping against the floor with a sound that echoed my turmoil. His voice was cold and biting, cutting through the air like glass.

"Stop making a fuss."