Chapter 3

Two weeks later, a sharp cheer tore through the morning silence.

"Ah—! We did it!"

Coffee beans scattered across the floor as I rushed out of the kitchen. The sight before me hit my chest like a sledgehammer.

In the middle of the living room, Ella was clinging to Lucas's neck like a teenager who'd just aced an exam, her legs even wrapped around his waist in excitement. Lucas held her just as tightly, the two of them spinning in circles like conjoined twins who'd been saved from certain death.

"There's a heartbeat! Ella, the doctor said that if the embryo implants successfully, there's a heartbeat!" Lucas's voice trembled, tears even falling onto my Persian rug.

Ella spun around, her face flushed, waving at me with a brightness in her eyes I hadn't seen in a long time: "Liam, come here! Come listen to the fetal heart monitor!"

I froze at the kitchen doorway, staring at her flat stomach, acid rising in my throat.

"You haven't even had an ultrasound yet," I heard myself say in a dead voice. "What heartbeat?"

The air went cold. Ella's smile was scraped off her face like a blade had cut it away, replaced by impatient harshness.

"A successful implantation means there's life, and life has a heartbeat!" She jumped down from Lucas and glared at me. "If you don't understand medicine, don't talk nonsense. Do you have to ruin the mood right now?"

That question slapped me across the face like an open hand. Before I could swallow the taste of blood in my mouth, the doorbell rang.

The real invasion had begun.

The door opened, and several enormous suitcases rolled straight over the doormat I'd picked out. Lucas's mother, supported by a caregiver, stepped into my home as if she owned it.

Ella shoved me aside at the entrance, rushing to take the old woman's arm.

"Mrs. Gray, don't worry," Ella's voice dripped with sweetness, echoing through the narrow hallway. "This is your home now. Stay as long as you like."

This was my home. The house I'd bought with my own down payment, earned through countless sleepless nights writing songs. Now my wife was giving it away to the mother of the man who was using her womb.

I stood in the shadows, watching their three silhouettes recede into the living room. The moment I retreated to the master bedroom and closed the door, I gripped the handle so hard my knuckles went white, my entire arm trembling uncontrollably.

The aftershock of that humiliation lingered until the next afternoon—until it was shattered by an even crueler joke.

I walked out of the kitchen with lunch, and a familiar guitar chord drifted into my ears. My own voice.

Ella was lounging on the sofa, pressing a pair of expensive noise-canceling headphones against her stomach. Her phone screen glowed, looping an old demo I'd recorded.

When she saw me, she pulled off one earpiece, her expression oddly sincere: "Liam, these songs you wrote before are actually pretty good. How come I never noticed?"

She was complimenting me. Genuinely.

But my heart felt like an invisible hand was squeezing it tight, each breath laced with pain.

I set down the tray, wiping the cold sweat from my fingers on my apron, and asked hoarsely: "What made you dig them up?"

"Oh, Mrs. Gray said fetal music education shouldn't be too loud." She tucked her hair behind her ear matter-of-factly. "I couldn't be bothered to find classical pieces, so I searched my phone's playlist and stumbled on your old files. They work well as background noise."

Background noise.

Soothing background noise for Lucas's child.

I stared at her delicate face, my voice barely holding together: "Do you remember when I wrote the song that's playing right now?"

Ella paused, frowning as she tried to recall.

"Last year... or the year before?" She shrugged carelessly. "You've written so many random songs—how could I remember all of them?"

My mind went blank.

She didn't remember at all.

That song was a gift I'd spent three months on, revising it over fifty times for our third anniversary. The day I played it for her, she cried and said it was the most beautiful love confession she'd ever heard.

Now, she couldn't even remember the title.

I watched the serene maternal smile on her lips, and my throat felt stuffed with cotton soaked in sulfuric acid—I couldn't swallow, couldn't spit it out.

Because this wasn't my child. The life absorbing her nutrients carried the Gray surname, not White.

"Ding—"

My grip went slack; the knife clattered onto the plate.

Ella didn't even look up. Because Lucas had just walked in, holding a thick baby supply catalog.

I sat across the table like a desperate prisoner forced to watch.

Lucas naturally sat down beside Ella, his fingers casually resting on the back of her hand over her belly. Their heads touched as they browsed the catalog intimately.

"This walnut crib is nice," Ella said, her voice soft and sweet.

"Alright, let's order two." Lucas's breath nearly touched Ella's earlobe. "One for the nursery... and the other for our bedroom."

Our bedroom.

He meant the master bedroom Ella and I shared.

"Screech—"

I shoved my chair back, the legs scraping a harsh scream across the floor.

They finally looked up, staring at me like I was a stranger who'd suddenly gone mad.

I didn't speak. I turned and walked mechanically to the bedroom, locking the door behind me.

Through the thick wooden door, Ella's carefree, bright laughter drifted in again—muffled, yet sharp, like a blunt saw cutting through my nerves.

I slid down against the door, burying my face deep in my knees.

"Just a few more months," I lied to myself over and over, biting the back of my hand until I tasted blood. "Once she gives birth, the debt to the Grays will be repaid. Then I'll take her away from New York... start over."

It was the only way I could lie to myself, because if I didn't, I was afraid I'd die right there in that room.