Chapter 1

After I got pregnant, something inside me wouldn't settle.

Every single day I texted Victor Vance to ask whether he loved me.

The first ninety-nine times, he answered me gently.

Until the hundredth time.

That time, out of nowhere, he fired back three lines, irritation dripping off every word.

【Valerie Pruitt, do you have nothing better to do?】

【Now that the morning sickness is over and the kid's stopped wearing you out, you've decided to wear me out instead?】

【If you've got this much free time, go look in a mirror. That face of yours looks like a slab of supermarket pork】

I froze.

The next second the messages were recalled, and a voice note popped up.

"Sorry, my junior assistant sent those by mistake just now. Don't take it to heart."

Whether it was a mistake or not no longer mattered.

All I knew was that our marriage was completely over.

……

I got up and went to the hospital.

When I walked out of the miscarriage room, the baby, more than four months along, was gone.

By the time I got home, the sky had gone fully dark.

The living room light was on. Victor sat on the couch.

Hearing the door, he looked up and frowned.

"Where did you go? Coming back this late, not answering a single text or call?"

I said nothing.

I changed into my slippers and went to pour myself a glass of water.

He watched me, his eyes resting on my face for a few seconds before he finally spoke.

"What happened this afternoon, I already explained it to you. My junior assistant grabbed the wrong phone."

"She's already apologized to me. I gave her an earful too. It won't happen again."

A junior assistant, grabbing her boss's private phone by mistake?

I let out a soft laugh, set down the glass, and looked at him.

Victor was very good-looking.

I'd known that from the first moment I laid eyes on him.

At thirty-three now, he had it over most men his age. Sitting on the couch in his loungewear, he looked like he'd stepped out of a magazine.

I used to love looking at him. I thought I could look at him my whole life and never tire of it.

But today I suddenly realized his beauty had nothing to do with me.

Like a beautiful dress in a shop window. You stand there staring through the glass for a long time, certain it's yours, when in truth you never once held it in your hands.

"Victor,"

I said, my voice calmer than I'd expected. "Your junior assistant, what's her name again?"

He paused.

"Judy Swanson. Why?"

"How long has she been with you?"

"About half a year." After he said it, he added another line. "Why are you asking? Didn't I already tell you it was a misunderstanding? Do you have to keep picking at it? Can't you just pretend you didn't see it?"

Four questions in a row.

I didn't take up his words. I just kept going. "I remember when she first started, you mentioned her to me once. You said the new assistant was useless, nothing like the sharp, get-it-done type you usually liked. After that you never brought her up again. I assumed you'd fired her."

"Turns out not only did you not fire her, but because she came along, I noticed that over these past six months your overtime hours got longer and longer, and your business trips got more and more frequent."

Victor's brow furrowed again.

"Valerie, what exactly are you trying to say?"

I gave a small laugh. "I'm just stating the facts."

His frown deepened, his tone tipping into impatience. "Valerie, I know being pregnant is hard, that your moods swing a lot. I can understand that. But you can't go getting paranoid over a few messages sent by mistake. It's not good for you, and it's not good for the baby."

The baby.

Those two words were like a fine needle, driven with perfect aim straight into my heart.

How long had I been married to him?

Four years, I think.