Chapter 1

Outside the delivery room, Ethan walked out on my emergency C-section to save his first love's baby.

"Nora, Chloe is hemorrhaging. She's dying—she can't survive without me."

"You've always been the strong one. You can pull through without me. You understand, right?"

When I woke up in the ICU, I was hooked up to countless tubes and monitors.

The nurse told me my baby girl didn't make it.

I shook uncontrollably. It felt like someone had carved a gaping hole straight through my chest.

Over two hundred days of pregnancy. Ninety-nine hormone injections. All for the daughter I had prayed for.

The next morning, Chloe strutted into my room, holding her newborn with a smug grin:

"See that, Nora? In his heart, I'll always matter ten times more than you."

"You think marrying him means you won? You're just a placeholder. Even giving birth, you had to step aside for me!"

"I'm the first love he could never get over. The second I show up, he'll drop you and your kid without a second thought."

I watched as Ethan leaned in and gently kissed her baby's forehead. A bitter laugh escaped my lips through my tears.

We were college sweethearts.

I worked three jobs back then just to put that penniless boy through medical school.

During his residency, he pressured me into having three abortions. Every single time, I lay on that cold operating table all alone.

He promised that once he made it, he'd give me the life I deserved.

Eight whole years.

And what did I get in return?

I loved him with my life, but he used my life—and our baby's—as a stepping stone for his pathetic, lingering nostalgia.

This joke of a relationship...

I was done with it.

"I booked a train ticket. I'm moving out the day after tomorrow."

I stood in the entryway, leaning against the wall for support, my voice barely a whisper.

The incision on my lower abdomen was still raw. Every breath burned like a razor blade.

Ethan was at the stove, stirring a pot of soup. At my words, his entire body stiffened.

In eight years, he had never stepped foot in the kitchen.

Even when I was burning up with a 104-degree fever, he had never once made me a simple bowl of soup.

This was the first time.

And it was all for his first love, Chloe.

"Nora, what nonsense are you talking about?" He hurried over. "I made chicken soup to nourish you and Chloe."

"You just had a baby. Why did you discharge yourself and walk home alone?"

I looked at him, bile rising in my throat.

"Ethan, our baby is dead. Didn't you know?"

"What did you say?" The ladle slipped from his hand, shattering on the floor.

"Surprised?" Tears spilled down my cheeks as I laughed bitterly. "You abandoned my emergency surgery to go save Chloe. She had complications, and you made sure both she and her kid survived."

"Meanwhile, our daughter died."

He froze, all color draining from his face.

A heavy silence fell before he mumbled, "Nora, don't be like this. Children... it's about fate. It just means... it wasn't our time yet."

Two hundred days of pregnancy. Ninety-nine shots. Three miscarriages.

And he called it 'not our time.'

"We're still young," he said, pulling me into his arms. "We can always try again."

I shoved him off with everything I had left. He stumbled back two steps, looking hurt.

"Nora—"

"Look, I'm sorry, okay? There's nothing going on between Chloe and me. Her husband abused her, and she was bleeding out on the delivery table. A human life was on the line. As a doctor, I couldn't just walk away."

"A life was on the line?" I glared at him, my voice trembling with rage. "And what about me and our baby? Did our lives not count?"

"You chose her over your own child. That shows exactly who matters to you."

He frowned. "I didn't know your condition was that critical! You've always been tough. I thought you'd pull through!"

"You've always been tough."

Those four words were the cruelest weapon he ever used against me.

"Chloe was just my first love. That's in the past! You're the one I love now."

I took a shuddering breath, deciding to give him one last chance:

"Fine. I'll believe you."

"Call her family right now. Tell them to pick her up, and cut off all contact with her."

His expression shifted immediately:

"No! If her abusive ex finds out where she is, he'll kill her! I need to take care of her and the baby for a while, at least until—"

Until she finalized her divorce and became a single mom?

So he could play daddy to her child?

What was I supposed to be in all this?

A wave of nausea hit me so hard I gagged.

"Ethan," I cut him off. "There are a thousand ways to help someone. But you chose to sacrifice me and our child just to prove your lingering devotion to her. Tell me, what were our lives to you?"

"Nora, can you please grow up?" His voice took on an irritated edge. "Back in college, you were the kindest person I knew. I'm a doctor—was I supposed to stand by and watch a mother and child die?"

"Stop making a scene over nothing. Aren't you fine now? We can have another baby."

"Making a scene?"

I clutched my aching stomach. Memories tore open inside me like my unhealed wound.

I remembered college.

We were both dead broke. He was raised by a single mother who struggled to keep food on the table.

My father was a violent drunk who beat me mercilessly.

We were two bruised souls crawling out of the gutter, clinging to each other for warmth.

Back then, I fell in love with a diamond necklace. It cost ten thousand dollars.

I stared at it through the display glass a hundred times, never daring to buy it.

He scoffed, calling anyone who bought it an idiot. But behind my back, that scrawny boy secretly went to sell his blood again and again until he saved up the money.

The day he fastened that necklace around my neck, his hands were trembling, needle marks still visible on his bruised arms.

He said, "Nora, in this lifetime, you're the only woman I'll ever marry."

I believed him.

I believed him for eight damn years.

Yet now, he had used our baby's life as a stepping stone for his ex.

I squeezed that tarnished necklace tightly in my palm, a single tear dropping onto the back of my hand.

"Ethan, we're—"

An urgent knock on the front door cut me off.