1 In the fifth year of my marriage to Paul, I discovered he was secretly planning to divorce me for another woman. And I, fool that I was, still loved him. So, on the very day he was about to serve me the papers, I beat him to it. I handed him the doctor's confirmation of my pregnancy. That night, Paul stood on the balcony and chain-smoked until dawn. The next day, he broke up with the girl. This fragile peace lasted until I was six months pregnant. That’s when the girl showed up at our front door, a wedding invitation in her hand. “Mr. Crawford,” she said, her voice trembling, “my wedding is tomorrow. If you ask me to stay, just say the word, and I’ll call the whole thing off for you.” With that, she dropped the invitation and fled in a storm of tears. Paul shot up from his chair, ready to chase after her. Watching his back, the back of a man about to abandon me, I clutched my aching belly and my voice cut through the air. “Paul, if you walk out that door today, I’m going to the hospital to have an abortion.” He froze for a heartbeat. But only a heartbeat. Then, he walked out anyway. … I first realized Paul was planning to divorce me when the corporate lawyers started hounding me with paperwork. Changing the company’s legal representative. Switching the corporate bank accounts. He was even trying to offload our properties, selling them at suspiciously low prices. The company's finances told a similar story. An enterprise that had been thriving just six months ago was now bleeding money, month after month. His excuse was a constant stream of business trips, disappearing for weeks at a time. He claimed the company was in crisis, and he was desperately trying to turn things around. I never called him on his lies. I never told him I’d seen the viral clip of them—him and his precious girl—kissing passionately at a sold-out pop concert. It had even made the rounds on a "CEO scandals" trending list. Why did I stay silent? Why did I endure it all? Because I still loved him. Five years of dating, five years of marriage—you don't just sever a decade of your life because of an affair. It’s not that simple. So, I pretended not to notice the love bites on his neck when he came home. I ignored the cloying scent of a perfume favored by younger women clinging to his clothes. I even feigned ignorance when he moved into the study, sleeping in a separate bed, refusing to even touch me. I didn’t want a divorce, but he clearly did. As fate would have it, the lawyer he hired to draft the divorce papers worked for a firm I had secretly invested in. So not only did I know how much he agonized over the decision, how stressed and irritable he’d become, but I even knew the exact day he planned to give me the papers. To save our marriage, I took a desperate step. I went through a round of IVF. The night before he was set to end our life together, I called him, insisting he come home. He was clearly annoyed. The dinner I’d cooked for him had to be reheated three times by our housekeeper before he finally deigned to walk through the door. He didn’t even glance at the food on the table. Seeing me on the sofa, he just gave a cold, dismissive nod and disappeared into his study. Two hours later, after a long shower, he finally emerged. “You said you had something to tell me,” he said, his tone clipped and hard. It was the same voice he used with his employees. “What is it?” I didn’t say a word. I just calmly handed him the papers from the clinic. “I’m pregnant. Two weeks.” Paul’s breath caught in his throat. The veins on the back of the hand gripping the report bulged. I knew why this was such a shock. My mother had died in childbirth with my younger brother, and I had seen enough of women sacrificing everything for a marriage. From the very beginning of our relationship, I’d made it clear: I was child-free by choice. I would never have children. Back then, blinded by love, Paul had agreed without a second thought. But after we married, as the years passed, he started bringing it up more and more. Each time, I refused, even lashing out at him for breaking his promise. And now, here I was, handing him proof of a pregnancy. He took several deep, shuddering breaths, as if trying to reclaim his sanity. “Thank you,” he finally managed to say. “Thank you for being willing to do this… for me.” He stood up so abruptly that his knee slammed into the corner of the coffee table. Clutching the report, he stammered, “Sorry, this is just… it’s a lot to take in. I need a minute to process.” He fled back into his study, the door slamming shut behind him. It was only when the echo of the slam faded that I noticed the fruit fork in my hand. I’d been gripping it so tightly it had broken the skin of my palm, a single drop of blood blooming like a dark flower in my glass of water. 2 That night, the faint smell of smoke crept into my room. It was enough to tell me that Paul had probably been on the balcony all night, chain-smoking. The two rooms were close, but not that close. For the smell to be that strong, he must have gone through pack after pack. The next morning, I received a call from HR. Paul's new secretary had resigned. And just like that, the business deals he was trying to unload were reversed, and the company began to operate normally again. The day I got the news, I lay in bed, my hand resting on my still-flat stomach, and cried until my pillow was soaked. Somehow, against all odds, I had saved our once-beautiful love from ending in a storm of cold calculation and betrayal. After that, Paul slipped back into the role of the loving husband he used to be. He accompanied me to every prenatal check-up. He spent weeks meticulously researching and selecting the best postpartum recovery center. He bought mountains of baby supplies, enough to last until our child was ten. He did everything a father-to-be should do. But he never moved back into our master bedroom. He still slept in the study. And he never, not once, initiated any physical intimacy. I even caught him once, late at night, watching videos and looking at photos of her on his phone while he pleasured himself. The absurdity of it was almost laughable, a bitter, stinging irony. Which brings us to now. To the girl, Jessie, brazenly showing up at our villa. She’d tossed her wedding invitation at me like a gauntlet, spewed some nonsense, and then run off. And Paul’s first instinct wasn’t to explain or reassure me. It was to chase after her. Even when I called out, forbidding him to leave, he just turned on me, his face a mask of pain and frustration. “Ava, I’m already trying to make this work! What more do you want from me?” he roared, his voice cracking. “She’s getting married tomorrow! Can’t I even say goodbye?” I looked at the sharp furrow of his brow, the undisguised disgust in his eyes. I wiped away a tear that had escaped without my permission. “No, Paul, you can’t. If you go after her today, I will abort this child.” His whole body went rigid. He stared at me, his eyes burning into mine. After what felt like an eternity, he exploded in a torrent of frustrated rage. “You are a truly vicious woman, Ava Jiang.” Vicious. The word struck me like a physical blow, leaving me breathless and numb. Was I vicious? For the sake of this marriage, to keep him, I had played blind. I had betrayed my own deepest convictions, enduring a belly bruised black and blue from IVF injections, all to give him the child he wanted. I had fought so, so hard to keep him. And in his eyes, all of that just made me… vicious. Tears streamed down my face like a torrential downpour. But my tears, and the child in my womb, were not enough to hold him back. He kicked the sofa in a fit of raw impatience. “Fine! Go to the hospital! Have your damn abortion! I’m going to her, and nothing you do can stop me!” And with that, he was gone, chasing after her like a reckless twenty-year-old, a desperate, frantic blur leaving my life. Watching him disappear, my fingers trembled as I dialed 911. He had made his choice. Now, it was time for me to make mine. I would abort the child he'd longed for, and then I would burn his entire world to the ground.
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