Chapter 3

Ethan's voice was flat, as if discussing something trivial:

"Last year when you kicked Claire and her mother off the board. She came to me desperate, with nowhere else to turn. You know, your sister looks quite a bit like you, and she's younger. I just couldn't resist."

I snapped my head up to look at him.

My father had built his business using connections from my mother's family. After my grandfather died, my father confessed to my mother that he had another woman on the side, and she'd even given him a daughter.

He was a father, he said, and couldn't bear to leave his child out in the cold.

He made it sound so noble, but it landed my mother in the hospital.

Yet my father acted like nothing happened, actually bringing Claire and her mother home. Before he died, he even left them shares in the company. It took me years to finally drive those two out, and I never imagined that my childhood friend and husband would get involved with that illegitimate daughter at that very moment.

Ethan looked down at me:

"Leah, you can't blame me for this."

"You know I love you. I love you enough to accompany you to abort someone else's child, to confess to you on the day of your divorce. But Leah, I'm a man. Ever since we got married, every time we were intimate, I'd think about how you once carried someone else's child. Every anniversary, I'd remember that you were previously married to someone else."

"Leah, that's not fair."

He delivered his verdict:

"You were married to Victor for three years, so I'll sleep with Claire for three years. That's fair. After two more years, I'll send her away. The position of Mrs. Johnson is reserved for you alone."

I could hardly believe such absurd words were coming out of Ethan's mouth.

I hurled the glass in my hand at him. Ethan didn't move. The warm water splashed on him, and he just smiled helplessly:

"I understand how you feel right now, but Leah, this is fair."

"Have you no shame, Ethan! You were the one who insisted on marrying me!"

Before Ethan could respond, his phone rang with a special ringtone. He glanced at it and answered immediately.

I don't know what the person on the other end said, but he casually grabbed a shirt and started buttoning it as he walked toward the door. As he was about to leave, he hung up the phone and looked back at me:

"Leah, have you no shame? You got involved with Victor when you were eighteen, got pregnant and had an abortion at eighteen. If you had any shame, you wouldn't have slept with Victor at eighteen."

I swayed, nearly unable to stand.

Ethan's voice was ice cold:

"Claire is pregnant. I'm going to check on her."

"Someone like you who's been pregnant twice should know that emotions are most unstable in early pregnancy. Try to be understanding."

After Ethan finished speaking, he opened the door and slammed it shut with a loud bang.

The room was a complete mess. My stomach churned violently, but nothing would come up.

I crumpled the pregnancy test report from my coat pocket and threw it in the trash.

While away on business, I'd felt so terrible that I had no choice but to go to the hospital.

The result: I was pregnant.

I'd wanted to surprise Ethan. Now it seemed this child, like the one before, had come at the wrong time.

Perhaps it was the emotional turmoil, but my stomach hurt badly. I felt blood slowly trickling down my legs.

I pulled out my phone and scheduled a hospital checkup, then looked around and contacted a real estate agent to list the house.

This apartment was what I'd gotten in my divorce from Victor. Ethan had personally handled the case, and with Attorney Johnson on the job, Victor left the marriage with nothing. After we married, since this place was close to both my company and Ethan's law firm, we simply moved in.

Ethan assumed I couldn't live without him.

But he forgot that what Leah never lacked was the courage to start over.