I ignored the pair of lovebirds flirting shamelessly and marched straight into the doctor’s office.

Dr. Liu already knew I was pregnant.

Before he could offer his congratulations, I handed him the papers in my hand.

“I want to terminate the pregnancy.”

Dr. Liu froze, his expression stunned.

After glancing over my medical records, his face grew even more grave.

“Mrs. Winters, are you absolutely sure about this?”

“The fetus is perfectly healthy. You’ve been trying to conceive for years—this baby is a miracle.”

My first miscarriage had happened when I was twenty.

Back then, we’d just moved to this inland city, dirt poor and struggling to make ends meet.

We’d squeezed into a shabby apartment in Cedar Falls, too broke to afford a decent winter coat.

I’d grown up in the mild climate of the East Coast, completely unprepared for the brutal cold here.

On my way to bring Robert his lunch, I’d collapsed from hypothermia.

When I woke up, the baby was gone.

My body had never fully recovered from the trauma.

I was young back then—with proper care, I could have healed completely.

But we’d been too poor, too focused on scraping by to pay for the treatment I needed.

By the time our business finally took off, I’d been too busy catching Robert cheating, too busy fending off the women he brought into our lives, to take care of myself.

In the beginning, when Robert had been nothing but a penniless nobody, he’d knelt at my bedside and promised me the world.

“Lillian, I swear I’ll make it big someday. I’ll make up for every single hardship you’ve endured for me.”

Later, when he’d become a wealthy, successful man, he’d held another woman in his arms and looked me in the eye.

“Lillian, I know everything you’ve done for me.”

“I promise you—no other woman will ever take your place, and no other woman will ever have my child before you do.”

“Everything I have will go to our baby.”

Now…

I stared out the window at Robert and Scarlett, wrapped up in each other’s embrace, and shook my head with a bitter laugh.

“Just schedule the surgery. I’m moving back to the East Coast soon, and I can’t take a baby with me.”

“Besides, Robert smokes and drinks nonstop, and his personal life is a complete mess.”

“How could a baby conceived in these circumstances ever be healthy?”

My father had also built his empire on my mother’s family connections.

Once he’d made it big, he’d surrounded himself with mistresses, just like Robert had.

That’s why I’d craved true love so badly—why I’d thought Robert was different.

But the first time I’d caught him cheating, he hadn’t shown an ounce of remorse. Instead, he’d looked at me with that same arrogant sneer.

“Lillian, what’s wrong with you? It’s not like your father’s a saint.”

“He’s got a dozen women on the side, and you never said a word about it.”

“Think about how your mother handled it!”

“You grew up watching her—why can’t you learn to be a proper trophy wife?”

He’d taken my deepest, most painful secret and twisted it into a weapon to hurt me.

In that moment, I’d known our love was dead.

But because of our ten-year agreement, I couldn’t leave Robert.

I’d had to stand by and watch as he trampled my dignity into the dirt, as he turned my love into a joke.

The marriage I’d fought so hard to have had become a prison.

The love that had once consumed me had become a blade Robert used to cut me open again and again.

I’d tasted every bit of pain that came with family and love.

I wasn’t going to let this child suffer the same fate I had.

When I woke up again, the surgery was over.

The baby I’d waited so many years for, along with the remains of our love, had been flushed down the drain like so much waste.

I stared out at the city, swallowed up by the twilight, and couldn’t help but wonder.

How had Robert and I ended up here?

Was it because of Scarlett?

Or was it because of that one thing—

It didn’t matter anymore.

No matter what the reason, the betrayal and the pain were undeniable facts.

I hailed a taxi, planning to go home and pack my bags.

As I waited at the crosswalk, I saw Robert and Scarlett walking hand in hand through the bustling street.

They looked so happy, so in love—like a pair of teenagers on their first date.

Scarlett leaned up and kissed Robert’s cheek, her voice giddy with excitement.

“I went to the doctor today, and the baby’s doing great!”

“The doctor said it’s a boy—you’re going to be a father in five months!”

Robert smiled, taking off his coat and draping it over Scarlett’s shoulders with gentle care.

“You silly girl. You’re pregnant—you should be taking better care of yourself.”

“I bought a villa in the South for you. Let’s move there together.”

“The winters here are too cold. I don’t want you to suffer.”

He rambled on, chattering about prenatal care and postnatal recovery.

About how he’d protect this baby with his life.

His words cut through the frigid winter wind, slicing my heart into a thousand pieces.

Finally, Robert took Scarlett’s hand and hung a lucky charm around her neck—the same lucky charm I’d begged for on my knees, step by step, at every temple in the city.

“I’ve already picked out a name for our son. We’ll call him Mike.”

Mike…

That was the name I’d chosen for our first baby—the one I’d lost all those years ago.

It was the name that haunted my dreams, the name that represented the greatest pain of my life.

Back then, I’d been consumed by guilt over the miscarriage, drowning in my own grief.

Robert had taken me to the church, and together we’d prayed for our lost child. We’d picked the name Mike, promising we’d never forget him.

Promising we’d never forget that we’d once loved each other with everything we had.

But now, Robert had given that name to another woman’s child.

He was making up for the baby he’d lost with me by showering his mistress and her bastard son with love.

How absurd. How tragic.

I took a deep breath, forcing myself to look indifferent.

But Scarlett’s sharp eyes had already spotted me.

“Robert, look—your wife’s here to spy on us again.”

“Honestly, some people just can’t stand not being the center of attention, can they?”

She twirled the lucky charm between her fingers, her voice dripping with malice.

“Your poor, dead baby doesn’t stand a chance against my son.”

“If she’s got time to mope around here, she should go home and rest. She’s not getting any younger.”

“Even if she did manage to get pregnant again at her age, there’s no guarantee she’d carry the baby to term.”

“If she loses this one, Robert won’t even spare her a second glance!”

She was trying to provoke me—hoping I’d lose my temper and miscarry, just like I had all those years ago.

But what she didn’t know was that the baby was already gone.

And I didn’t need Robert’s love anymore.

By dawn, I’d be gone from this city for good.

When that happened, Robert and I would both return to the lives we were meant to live.

He’d go back to being the penniless nobody he’d always been.

I took one last look at Robert, my heart completely devoid of any lingering affection.

“Robert, you’re going to regret this.”

“Because you’ve forgotten who gave you everything you have.”

Robert opened his mouth to say something, but Scarlett cut him off, clinging to his arm tighter.

He stared at me for a long moment, then turned away, and didn’t follow.

The moonlight fell like water, painting the streets in silver.

I dragged my exhausted body back to the empty house.

In my final hours there, I settled the housekeeper’s wages and asked her to dispose of all the things that reminded me of Robert.

Then I went to the airport alone, waiting for the sun to rise.

As the first rays of dawn peeked over the horizon, a private jet landed in front of me.

A steward stepped forward, bowing respectfully.

“Miss Winters, welcome home.”

The plane soared above the city, leaving everything behind.

From now on, Robert and I would live in two separate worlds, never to cross paths again.