Chapter 1
I had spent seven years with my fiancé, Zachary Terrell, but he was always in love with my stepsister, Maisy Doyle. To force me to break off our engagement, he had someone edit explicit photos of me and spread them all over the city.
That same day, my mother, Christine Baldwin, was so devastated that she got into a car accident and ended up in the hospital.
At my lowest point, my childhood friend, Bradley Sharp, rushed to my side. He frantically arranged the best doctors for Mom and stayed up all night watching over her.
But a week later, Mom still passed away.
After her funeral, Bradley pulled out a diamond ring and proposed. He promised to protect me for the rest of my life in Mom’s place. Moved, I said yes.
Three years later, everyone said he adored me. We were happy, blissful even, and I was eight months pregnant.
One day, when I had just finished my prenatal checkup, I saw Bradley in a fistfight with Zachary.
“Zachary! What right do you have to stop me from seeing Maisy?
“Don’t forget, when Maisy was dying of heart disease, I was the one who had Alice’s mom run over. I was the one who made sure her heart was secretly transplanted into Maisy so she could survive.
“And I was the one who sacrificed my own happiness by marrying Alice so you and Maisy could finally be together!”
As he finished speaking, he swung another punch.
Zachary staggered back, wincing in pain, but still refused to back down. “Bradley, you are one sick bastard. You killed Christine just to save Maisy. I have to give it to you. You’re truly insane.
“But Maisy is my wife now. She has a fever, and I’ll be the one taking care of her. You have no business being here!”
The two of them went back and forth, locked in a heated argument, neither willing to back down. Neither of them noticed me standing just a few steps away, frozen in place.
I couldn’t believe what I had just heard. So that was the truth?
My mind spun, and a crushing wave of despair surged from the depths of my heart. I felt like I was plummeting off a cliff in a nightmare.
Fragments of memories played out in my mind, one after another. I desperately searched for signs of Bradley’s hidden love for Maisy that I overlooked.
Maybe it had always been there. Every year, no matter how busy he was, he insisted on taking me to Maisy’s birthday party and always picked out the perfect gift for her.
Whenever she got sick, he panicked more than anyone else, even leaving me behind to take her to the hospital.
He loved my waist-length hair and white dresses, so I had never cut my hair and never changed my style. But I had failed to realize that Maisy had always been the one with that innocent, pure look.
I had never doubted his love for me. So I dismissed these little things, thinking he was simply too devoted to me, that he cared about Maisy only because she was my stepsister.
But now I knew—I had been nothing but a joke.
It turned out that Mom’s car accident all those years ago had been his doing.
It turned out that the nights he spent by her hospital bed were just so he could make sure her heart would go to his beloved Maisy.
It turned out that his heartfelt proposal and his act of loving me was all just to keep me from standing in the way of Maisy’s happiness!
We had grown up together, slept in the same bed for three years, and I was carrying his child.
He had been my safe haven. And yet, he had destroyed me with his own hands. The cruelest part was that I didn’t even know when he had fallen in love with Maisy.
A sharp, unbearable pain spread through my chest, making it hard to breathe. My whole body trembled as a bone-deep coldness seeped into me.
A man like him didn’t deserve to be my child’s father.
I didn’t know how long I stood there. But eventually, I wiped away my tears and staggered back toward the obstetrics department.
“Doctor, I want to terminate my pregnancy.”
The doctor was stunned. After all, my baby was already eight months along, nearly full-term.
She tried to talk me out of it, but I was firm in my decision. In the end, she had no choice but to take me into surgery.
When I came out of the operating room, my face was deathly pale. Blood kept trickling down my legs, and pain wracked my entire body as if I had been torn apart.
The doctor advised me to stay in the hospital for observation. But I clenched my teeth and signed myself out.
As soon as I left, I went to a gift shop and bought a large, elegant gift box. Then, I carefully placed my blood-covered, fully-formed child inside.
After that, I bought a fake pregnancy belly and slipped it under my clothes.
That night, Bradley came home drunk. As always, he pulled me into his arms and pressed soft kisses against my forehead.
“I love you, Alice Campbell. I love you so much.”
Then, he leaned down and rested his ear against my stomach to listen for our baby’s heartbeat.
I wasn’t sure if he was too drunk or if he simply wasn’t paying attention, but even though there was no movement at all, he didn’t seem to notice.
I gently pushed him away and asked, “Did something happen? You drank a lot.”
His cheeks were flushed, and his eyes were unfocused. “I’m just… happy.”
Happy? I let out a quiet, bitter laugh. More like miserable—miserable that Maisy now belonged to another man and that he couldn’t even visit her when she was sick.
But Bradley didn’t seem to notice the shift in me. He simply stroked my belly. “Alice, just one more month until our baby arrives, right? I’ve prepared a special surprise for you both. You’re going to love it.”
I curled my lips into a faint smile, but my eyes glistened with unshed tears.
“Really? That’s funny. Because I have a gift for you, too.”
With that, I placed the beautifully wrapped gift box into his hands.
