No reply came. I closed my phone.

I stood up and started packing, planning to check into a hotel first thing in the morning.

For the next three days, I didn't want to see Kevin Sanchez.

It was almost midnight by the time I was nearly finished.

I had just set my suitcase by the front door when Kevin pushed it open and walked in.

His suit, always immaculate, was wrinkled beyond recognition.

And on his neck, faint lipstick marks.

I forced down the bile rising in my chest.

He spotted me and froze, surprise flickering across his face, followed by a flash of panic.

“Maura, you're still up?”

I didn't answer.

His eyes landed on the suitcase in my hand, and understanding dawned on his face.

“Are you going on a work trip? There's something I need to talk to you about.”

I gave him a flat look, my voice cold：

“Your business has nothing to do with me. Don't tell me. I don't want to know.”

Before Kevin could react, I turned and headed for the guest room.

But as I went to close the door, he jammed his foot in the gap.

I couldn't shut it. He pulled me back out to the living room and sat me down in a chair.

Kevin sat across from me and slid a prenuptial agreement across the table. “Maura, I'm sorry. There's going to be one more person in our life. Two, actually.”

I lifted my gaze and stared at him, cold, saying nothing.

He kept talking anyway.

“The person who added you today, Bertha Barnes. Her parents were my mentors. They were in an accident.”

“Their will asked me to take care of her. From now on, we'll all be living together……”

“This prenuptial agreement is to make sure that after we're married and she moves in, you'll treat her well.”

His gaze locked onto mine, something sharp behind his eyes.

I laughed inside. A hollow, bitter laugh.

Taking care of his late mentor's daughter. Taking care of her all the way to a wedding photo shoot.

How he managed to say something so righteous with a straight face was beyond me.

Kevin Sanchez truly thought I was a fool.

I smiled, casual and loose. ：“But that's only one person, isn't it?”

Kevin paused. His throat bobbed. “She's pregnant. So that makes two. I'll need you to look after her.”

As he said it, his eyes softened with a tenderness I knew too well. Only it had never been for me.

My nails dug into my palms. I was trying to stay calm, but my heart swelled and ached all the same.

During our first year together, I had been pregnant too. He coaxed me with sweet words, told me he wanted to be child-free, that he didn't want kids. He coaxed me into terminating the pregnancy.

Now I finally understood. Child-free was the excuse. It wasn't that he didn't want children. He just didn't want me to have them.

But none of it mattered anymore.

I said nothing. In Kevin's eyes, my silence was consent.

Then a crack of thunder split the air outside, and rain came pouring down. “”

Kevin's phone buzzed. A custom ringtone.

Back when I still loved him blindly, I had taken his phone and tried to set a custom ringtone just for my calls.

He'd taken it back. “Maura, that's childish. It doesn't fit my image.”

I could only swallow my disappointment.

The thunder grew louder. Kevin's expression shifted, worry creasing his brow.

“Maura, it's thundering. Bertha's alone. She gets scared.”

He stood, reaching over to ruffle the top of my head in passing, like soothing a cat that never scratches back.

“Stay home by yourself tonight. I'm going to be with Bertha. Don't forget to sign the agreement.”

Kevin forgot that I was afraid of thunder too.

That malpractice riot at the hospital had happened on a night just like this. Thunder and rain. It left a scar in my mind that never healed.

He had held me in his arms and promised me：

“Every rainy night from now on, I'll be right here beside you.”

But the moment his first love came back, he forgot every vow along with her.

Kevin left without hesitation, as if leaving me behind was the simplest thing in the world.

But I refused to fall apart over a man like him, and I refused to stand still waiting for a love that was never going to arrive.

I sat in the living room all night, unmoving.

The moment the sky began to lighten, I dragged my suitcase out the door, one step at a time, leaving that place and everything it had broken in me behind.

I found a hotel nearby and tossed my luggage into the room without caring where it landed.

I collapsed face-first onto the bed and buried my face in the pillow.

When I woke again, it was almost evening. My eyes were so swollen I could barely open them.

The second I turned on my phone, the screen was flooded with missed calls.

But it was the dozen unread messages that made my vision blur red. All from Kevin.

【Maura, we're supposed to be at City Hall soon. Where are you?】

【Why can't I reach you?】

【I'll wait for you.】

……

I read through every message with cold eyes. My stomach turned.

It was the first time I truly understood that a single heart could be split in two and offered to different people.

It disgusted me.

I deleted him without a second thought.

I opened Instagram and started scrolling through videos, trying to dull the nausea.

But the very next thing that appeared on my feed was a new post from Bertha.

The first photo was a marriage certificate.

Bertha Barnes and Kevin Sanchez's marriage certificate.

The second was their wedding photo.

The comments were full of people gushing about what a gorgeous couple they made.

Something in my chest was carved out, raw and bleeding.

So this was what Kevin meant by “I'll wait for you”?

I managed a bitter smile,

wiped the dampness from the corners of my eyes, and liked the post.

Three years. At least it ended cleanly.

I placed the phone face-down on the bed.

I lay there for another half hour before my stomach started cramping.

A full day without a single meal.

When I'd checked in, I remembered seeing a row of restaurants near the hotel.

That was when I heard it. Panting from the room next door, rising and falling in waves.

My face burned.

I got up, splashed some water on my face, and had just opened the door

when the sounds next door stopped.

A man stumbled out of the neighboring room, barely dressed, frantic.

I froze.

He turned around, and every emotion I had forced down surged back at once.

It was Kevin.

My vision went dark at the edges. But he looked at me like I was a lifeline.

He grabbed me and pulled me into the room, his voice urgent：

“Maura, check on Bertha, quick. She says her stomach really hurts.”

Bertha's face was drenched in sweat. She clutched her abdomen, moaning nonstop.

I frowned, but swallowed the bile rising in my throat.

Professionalism won. I told her to lie flat and examined her.

No bleeding from the lower abdomen. A small mercy.

The tension between my brows eased slightly. I turned to Kevin, and my voice went cold on its own.

“Nothing serious. She needs to lie down for an hour or two and use a warm compress on her lower abdomen.”

“She's less than three months along. Sex is absolutely off-limits. It's dangerous.”

“You're the father. How do you not know that?”

Kevin didn't argue. He just lowered his head.

“I was being gentle……”

He got halfway through the sentence before realizing what he'd just admitted. He scrambled to backtrack.

“That's not what I meant.”

I let out a cold laugh and slapped him across the face.

“Kevin Sanchez, you make me sick.”

I turned and slammed the door behind me.

The slap had snapped his head to the side. He stood stunned for a beat, then chased after me.

He caught my wrist and held on, refusing to let go.

“Maura, let me explain.”

“You didn't show up at City Hall today. I drank too much. I thought she was you.”

I laughed. No sound came out.

“Kevin, do you really think I'm that stupid? That easy to fool?”

He stared at me, genuinely confused.

I gave him one last bitter smile, shook his hand off, and walked back to my room.

This time, he didn't follow.

Because Bertha was calling for him from inside.

I thought I would break down crying again, pathetic as always.

But my eyes were so dry they had nothing left to give.

I picked up my phone and called the hospital.

“Hi. Is it possible to move up my flight date? I can cover the cost myself.”

The voice on the other end said yes.

I grabbed my suitcase and went straight to the airport, boarding a plane headed across the ocean.

One month later, I answered a call from an unknown number.

“Maura, you've been away on your assignment for a month now. When are you coming back?”