Chapter 1

On the way to my prenatal checkup, I fished a pair of stockings out of the gap beside the passenger seat. They weren't mine.

Inside the windshield there were two smeared footprints, a woman's.

Picturing what they'd done in here, I shoved the door open, stumbled out, and threw up until I couldn't see straight.

That was when Lucas Harding's phone rang.

The car's Bluetooth picked up automatically, and his friend's voice came through:

"You and Bianca Larson are this blatant about it now? You're not scared Pearl Henson actually leaves you?"

Lucas answered like it was nothing.

"Last time she forgave me even over the hotel room records."

"And she's carrying my kid now. She needs me more than ever."

At some point tears had blurred everything in front of me.

I suddenly thought of the year I was twenty-one.

When the man with the knife came at me, Lucas had thrown himself in front of me and taken three of the blows meant for me.

Those three scars became three get-out-of-death-free passes he'd left in my heart.

The first time I found the flirty messages between him and Bianca, I remembered the scar on his shoulder, and I forgave him.

The second time I saw the hotel room records, I remembered the scar on his stomach, and I backed down again.

Now it was the third time.

I didn't go back to confront him. I walked into the hospital alone, but I didn't go to the prenatal department.

I turned and went down to the other end of the hall, to the pregnancy termination clinic.

Three rounds of forgiveness hadn't saved the ten years between me and Lucas.

So this unfaithful marriage should end here too.

1

The doctor scheduled the termination for nine o'clock the morning after next.

When I came out of the hospital, Lucas was leaning against the car, on the phone.

Whatever Bianca said, it made him laugh low in his throat.

"Behave, don't fuss."

"I'll drop her home first, then come over and stay with you tonight. Remember to have your stockings on and wait for me."

He saw me and hung up fast, unscrewed the thermos, and lifted it to my lips.

Two slices of lemon in the water, just enough to cut the nausea after the morning sickness.

"How'd the checkup go?"

His concern didn't look faked. As if the stockings in the gap by the passenger seat and the footprints on the windshield didn't exist.

"The doctor wants me to come back the day after tomorrow."

I didn't tell him that the next time I walked into that hospital, this baby wouldn't be coming back out with me.

Lucas visibly relaxed.

"I'll come with you the day after tomorrow."

I looked at his lowered eyes, and then I said it.

"The stockings in the passenger seat. They're Bianca's, aren't they?"

Lucas didn't play dumb, and he didn't deny it. His tone just went slightly off.

"Since you found them, I won't lie to you."

"Bianca and I really haven't ended things."

That light, easy line crushed the last shred of hope I'd been holding.

The last time I found the hotel records, Lucas hadn't been like this.

He'd knelt out in the pouring rain the whole night, forehead against the door, begging me over and over to open it.

"Pearl, I was wrong."

"You can hit me, curse me, punish me however you want."

"Just please don't leave me. I really can't live without you."

He deleted every one of Bianca's contact methods right in front of me, then smashed the phone to pieces.

"I promise, this is the last time."

"If I ever touch her again, let me die a miserable death."

I watched him kneel until his knees bled, and in the end I thought of that scar on his stomach again, and I opened the door for him.

But now, only half a year later, the man who once knelt and begged me not to go could tell me calmly that he and Bianca had never really ended at all.

Lucas looked up at me, his voice still gentle.

"But this doesn't affect our marriage."

"Pearl, we have ten years together. You should understand me better than she does."

He folded my hand into his palm and coaxed me, patient.

"You have a marriage, a child, a whole family."

"All Bianca gets is my company now and then."

"You already have so much. Don't hold this against her."

So the ten years we'd walked through together hadn't made him treasure me more.

They'd become his bargaining chip to make me tolerate his betrayal.

Lucas's gaze dropped to my belly.

"Once the baby's born, I'll gradually shift my focus back to the family."

"Just give me a little more time. We're husband and wife. You should be a little more understanding of me."

He said it like it was the most natural thing in the world. As if coming back to his family were a gift he was granting me. As if the baby and I only had to survive these few months, and I'd be handed a whole husband as the reward.

On my phone screen, the hospital's reminder popped up.

【Pregnancy termination surgery: nine a.m. the day after tomorrow.】

I pressed the screen dark and gave a small nod.

"Okay."

Lucas thought I'd accepted his explanation once again.

He bent and kissed my forehead, certain we'd make up like the last two times.

But he didn't know. By the time he was finally willing to come back to this family, there would be no one left in it waiting for him.