Chapter 2

Three years. I gave him three years of my life.

I met David Chen when he was nothing. He had a brilliant idea for a tech startup but no money, no connections. I was a rising star in a PR firm. I believed in him. I quit my job to help him, using my savings to fund his dream and my network to get him in front of the right people.

We got married in a small courthouse ceremony. We couldn' t afford a real wedding. He promised me that one day, he would give me the world. I told him he was my world.

How could I have been so stupid?

The questions pounded in my head. How long? How could I not have seen it? The late nights at the office, the business trips he insisted I didn't need to come on. It was all a lie.

I had to see it for myself. I needed the final, brutal proof to kill the last bit of hope still flickering in my heart.

The drive home from my friend Mark' s place, where I' d fled after the call, was a blur. My hands were slick with sweat on the steering wheel. The house looked the same as I' d left it that morning. Our perfect suburban home, the one we' d bought after his company finally took off. It looked like a lie now.

The front door was unlocked. I pushed it open and stepped inside. The house was quiet. Too quiet.

A knot of dread tightened in my stomach. I walked slowly up the stairs, each step a lifetime. Our bedroom door was slightly ajar.

I pushed it open.

And there they were. In our bed. The bed I had shared with my husband for three years.

David and Emily White. The sheets were tangled around them. The air was thick with the smell of their sex.

The sight didn't just break my heart. It shattered my reality. My vision tunneled, and a wave of nausea rose in my throat.

David shot up, his eyes wide with shock, not guilt.

"Sarah? What are you doing here?" he asked, his voice cold, as if I were the one intruding.

Emily pulled the sheet up to her chin, a smirk playing on her lips. She looked me up and down, her eyes lingering on my simple dress, a look of pure contempt on her face. She was the head of marketing at his company. A woman I had considered a friend, someone I' d had lunch with just last week.

"I live here," I said, my voice barely a whisper. "Or did you forget?"

I looked at David, the man I loved, the man I thought I knew. His face was a mask of irritation. There was no remorse, no shame. Just annoyance that his perfect plan had been disrupted.

"We need to talk," I said, my voice shaking.

"There' s nothing to talk about," he snapped, getting out of bed without even trying to cover himself. He stood there, naked and defiant. "You heard the call. It' s over."

The sight of him, so casual in his betrayal, made something inside me snap. The years of trust, of love, of sacrifice, crumbled into dust.

A wave of dizziness washed over me, and I stumbled, catching myself on the doorframe. My body was reacting to the shock, to the baby inside me that he didn't know about.

David' s eyes narrowed. He grabbed my arm, his grip hard and painful.

"Don' t you dare cause a scene, Sarah."

His touch felt like a brand. I tried to pull away, but his grip tightened.

"A scene?" I choked out, a bitter laugh escaping my lips. "You bring your mistress into our bed, and you' re worried about me causing a scene?"

I looked past him, at Emily, who was now sitting up, the sheet draped over her lap.

"And you," I said, my voice dripping with the disgust I felt. "How could you?"

Emily just smiled, a cruel, satisfied smile.

"He loves me, Sarah," she said, her voice sickly sweet. She placed a hand protectively on her own stomach. "And he loves our baby."

The words hit me like a physical blow. Our baby. The one he' d mentioned on the phone. The one he wanted.

Not my baby.

I felt the last bit of strength leave me. I wrenched my arm from David' s grasp and slapped him across the face.

The sound echoed in the silent room.

His head snapped to the side. For a moment, there was just stunned silence. Then he turned back to look at me, and his eyes were filled with a rage I had never seen before.

He grabbed me by the shoulders and shoved me hard against the wall. My head hit the plaster with a sickening thud. Stars exploded behind my eyes.

"You will not touch me," he hissed, his face inches from mine. "And you will not touch her. You are nothing. Do you understand? Nothing."

The pain in my head was nothing compared to the pain in my heart. The man who had sworn to protect me was now the one hurting me.

He let me go, and I slid down the wall, landing in a heap on the floor.

He turned his back on me, as if I were a piece of trash he' d just discarded. He went to Emily, his voice softening as he spoke to her.

"Are you okay, honey?"

It was the final, devastating blow. He chose her. He protected her.

I was nothing.