Chapter 2

The sound of the door lock turning came on the third morning of our scheduled Maldives trip.

Ella pushed the door open, took off her coat, and held a delicate paper bag in her hand. The gold foil logo on the bag was glaringly conspicuous—it was from the French bakery downstairs from Lucas's apartment building, open only to VIPs.

She froze when she saw me sitting on the sofa, flipping through a book.

"You didn't go to Maldives?" She hesitated for a second, a flicker of panic crossing her eyes, quickly replaced by a matter-of-fact calm. "I thought you were angry enough to trash the place."

I closed the book I hadn't read a single page of. The veins on the back of my hand trembled slightly from tension, but I kept my hand in the shadows.

"No." My voice came out as flat as still water. "Are you hungry? I made omelets and hot milk."

I repeated the mantra in my head: Ten years of love. It shouldn't be this hard to get through. Once the baby is born, the debt to the Grays will be settled. We can start over.

But that cold breakfast officially marked the beginning of a slow, creeping torment.

In the days that followed, my life became an hourly schedule. Ella had to go to the fertility clinic three times a week for ovulation monitoring and endometrial conditioning.

I drove her there and back every time.

The clinic's waiting area was filled with husbands carefully accompanying their wives for prenatal checkups. Some massaged their wives' backs; others quietly reviewed pregnancy reports.

I sat in the corner, clutching a report on someone else's endometrial thickness.

"Family of Ella Summers? Mr. Gray? Is Mr. Gray here?" A nurse called out through the hallway.

My body reacted before my brain did—I shot to my feet. Several expectant fathers turned to look at me.

The nurse looked at me, checked her tablet: "Are you Mr. Gray? Your wife's follicles are developing well—"

"I'm not." I cut her off, my throat dry as sand. "I'm... her driver."

Because on that registration form, Ella's marital status was marked "Unmarried." In this place where new life was created, I—her lawful husband—was a ghost whose name didn't even appear.

I sank back onto the plastic chair, watching Ella walk into the ultrasound room alone, feeling like a piece of my chest had been carved out.

But the humiliation at the clinic was only the first knife. The real torture was at our dining table.

Lucas now came to our place for dinner three times a week. They sat openly around the walnut dining table I'd bought, discussing the best dates for embryo transfer and imported nutritional plans.

I was like an invisible servant, lowering my head as I set the seared steak on the table.

"This brand of folic acid is a must—my mother ordered it specially from Switzerland." Lucas had downed half a bottle of my prized red wine, his cheeks flushed.

He suddenly reached across the table, past the white roses I'd arranged that morning, and placed his hand flat against Ella's stomach.

"Hey there, little one," Lucas murmured, his thumb stroking Ella's silk loungewear, his gaze dreamy as he stared at her. "This is where my baby is going to live."

My breath stopped. I stared at that hand, waiting for Ella to slap it away like she used to when anyone touched her without permission.

But she didn't.

Ella let out a coquettish laugh and lightly tapped the back of Lucas's hand, but her body didn't flinch away even half an inch. "Stop it—it's just an embryo right now."

"Screech—"

My knife scraped across the bone china plate, letting out a teeth-grating shriek.

They both turned to look at me. The air went still.

"Sorry." I lowered my head, continuing to cut into the steak still seeping with blood, chewing mechanically. "The knife slipped."

The meat went down, filling my mouth with the metallic taste of blood.

If the daytime torture required pretending, then the bedroom at night was the slaughterhouse where my last shred of dignity was ground to dust.

At 11 PM, I lay on the bed with my back to Ella. She came out of the bathroom, carrying the cedarwood scent of Lucas's premium body wash, slipped under the covers beside me.

In the darkness, a harsh, cold light suddenly lit up.

I opened my eyes. The blue glow of her phone screen clearly illuminated Ella's profile. She was holding up her phone, angling an ovulation test strip to take a photo.

A soft click. The photo was sent.

"Lucas, the doctor was right—the levels are highest tonight. Tomorrow is the perfect day for the hospital." She pressed the voice key, her voice as tender as if she were coaxing a lover to sleep.

She didn't even bother to hide it from me. On our wedding bed, my wife was reporting her most intimate ovulation cycle to another man.

That cold phone light was like a blade, stabbing straight into my heart and twisting.

I didn't speak. I didn't turn over. I just slowly, slowly pulled the blanket over my head.

In that suffocating darkness, I bit down hard on the back of my hand until I tasted the salt of tears and the warmth of blood, all mixed together.