I had understood. Yet, I had still told him, "If one day you want a child, just tell me directly, and we'll decide together."

And Charles had agreed without hesitation.

Seven years ago, Isaiah, his father, inexplicably stopped being angry. Even his mother, Leah, had abandoned her under relentless pressure. They had suggested moving to another city and embracing retirement. At the same time, Charles would visit from time to time to check on them.

I had believed them. I had truly thought they had finally accepted our choice.

Then… I saw the picture.

It was a family photo on Leah's social media.

Charles. Another woman. A little boy.

Smiling. Happy. Complete.

The moment I saw it, something inside me shattered. The illusion I had clung to crumbled like sand slipping through my fingers. The truth cut through me like a blade, sharp and merciless.

His frequent trips to another city had never been about visiting aging parents.

They had been about them.

His real family.

The joyful moments Leah had captured so fondly, so effortlessly, felt like knives tearing through me, robbing me of breath, leaving nothing but searing pain in their wake.

I parted my lips, but the escaped sound was hoarse, barely recognizable.

"And what about me? Charles, when you treat me like this… isn't that just as heartless? Just as cruel?"

A flicker of guilt crossed his face, softening the steel in his voice.

"I'm sorry, Natalie. I never wanted you to endure the pain of childbirth. But if you're willing, I can bring them here. We can all live together—"

I let out a bitter laugh, the sound sharp and hollow.

"So let me get this straight. My husband cheats on me, and not only am I expected to forgive him, but I also have to accept his mistress's child. And now, I'm supposed to share a home with her, bump into her in the hallways, and pretend this is normal?"

Charles fell silent. He had no excuse left.

When he finally left, he was considerate enough to take all the lingering relatives with him as if granting me space to digest the unbearable truth.

Before stepping out, he turned back once more.

"Natalie, I know this is a lot to take in. It's fine. Take your time. But my decision remains the same: I won't abandon Eleanor Kelley or our child."

I sat still as the hours bled into the night.

By the time dawn stretched its weary light across the room, I reached for my phone and dialed the company lawyer.

"You know how to draft a divorce agreement, right? Draft one for me. I want a divorce."

And just as he had promised, Charles spent an entire week with them, never looking back.

My hands trembled when the high-priced paparazzi finally sent over a stack of photos and videos. I almost couldn't bring myself to open them.

Now that everything had blown up, Leah no longer bothered to keep up the facade. She didn't even pretend to be civil.

Instead, she flooded social media with endless videos, at least eight hundred of them, showcasing Charles's picture-perfect little family.

Charles played with his son.

Charles taught the boy how to write.

Charles tenderly supported his pregnant mistress as they took a leisurely stroll.

And the captions, overflowing with joy, cut deeper than any blade.

[Daddy took the little one out for another fun trip!]

[My precious grandson is starting first grade this year! He even pouted and begged his dad for help with homework!]

[My son and daughter-in-law.]

The content was no different from what the paparazzi had captured, just ordinary, heartwarming family moments.

Yet, to me, they burned like salt on an open wound.

After a long silence, I finally left a comment beneath one of the posts.

[If she's your daughter-in-law, then who is the person listed as your son's spouse?]

The comment vanished almost instantly.

Seconds later, a 60-second voice message arrived from Leah.

"What nonsense are you spewing under my video? Do you even realize what people will think of my grandson if you say things like that? He's just a child! Do you want him to be labeled a bastard? How can you be so cruel?! Let me tell you, I haven't even begun to settle accounts with you! You refused to give my son a child, fine! But you even convinced him to get a vasectomy…"

Before I could react, more voice messages followed one after another, flooding my phone.

I thought I had cried all my tears in the past few days.

But hearing her gloat, twisting everything as if I were the villain, my eyes still burned, and the tears still fell.

I couldn't understand. How could people change so suddenly?

Leah, who once treated me like her own daughter, had turned into a stranger. And Charles, the man I had spent twenty years of marriage with, had become someone I no longer recognized.

When Charles returned, he found me sitting by the window, my voice lost from crying too much. He pulled me into his arms, the chill from outside still clinging to him.

Silently, he took off his coat and tucked my frozen hands inside his sweater, his warmth seeping into my skin.

For a fleeting moment, it felt like time had rewound twenty years to when we still loved each other fiercely.

Back then, we struggled. Isaiah had cut off every opportunity for Charles, trying to make him regret his decision to get a vasectomy. Because of that, he resented me, too.

In this vast, indifferent city, we had slept in a cramped basement, surviving on instant noodles and steamed buns. At our poorest, we couldn't even afford a single sanitary pad.

On the coldest nights, we curled up together in one bed, wearing every piece of clothing we owned, shivering beneath a threadbare blanket.

I had cried back then, too.

I kept telling myself to let go, that if we clung to this life any longer, Charles, whose health was already fragile, would only wither further.

"Charles, let's stop this. Let's get a divorce. Go back and admit your mistake. If you go now, you might even get a warm bowl of chicken soup waiting for you."

He held me tighter, tucking my hands deeper into his clothes, pressing my frozen feet against his body as if trying to shield me from the world itself. His voice trembled between fear and determination.

"No, I won't divorce you. Natalie, I won't say I was wrong because I wasn't. I'm sorry… The vasectomy hurt, but I couldn't bear to see you suffer. And yet… I still made you suffer."

Bitterness spread across my tongue, the taste no different from the tears that blurred my vision. The past and present bled together, indistinguishable.

"Charles, let's leave, okay?"

"You love children. We can have one of our own, okay?"

"Why? Why didn't you tell me when you wanted a child?"

A heavy silence settled between us, thick and suffocating. It crashed over me like a wave, dragging me back to reality.

Slowly, mechanically, I turned to look at Charles.

As I followed the hesitation flickering across his face, I realized he hadn't come back alone.

This was my first time meeting Eleanor.

Just like in the videos Leah had posted, she was young, poised, and exuded a soft maternal warmth, graceful in a way that made it impossible to look away.

And I turned toward the mirror by the window. My swollen, red-rimmed eyes stared back, puffy like walnuts, the wrinkles at the corners deepened by days of relentless tears. I looked utterly miserable.

Something unfamiliar twisted inside me.

Eleanor's gaze lingered on the very spot where Charles had been warming my hands. The pain in her eyes didn't seem feigned, yet she forced a smile as she gently nudged the child beside her forward.

Charles, visibly shaken by her sadness, didn't hesitate. His hand slipped from mine, and without a second thought, he wrapped his arm around her shoulders.

He said nothing, just pressed a tender kiss to Eleanor's forehead, a soothing gesture meant for her alone.

A sharp wave of bitterness surged through me, and my fingers, still not fully warmed, turned cold once more.

Eleanor shyly touched her face, then glanced at me with a smile, subtle yet triumphant.

"Orion, go on, say hello. This is Aunt Natalie."

I stiffened, disbelief lacing my voice.

"What… did you call me?"

She smiled, her tone light, almost effortless. "Orion. Orion, like the stars. Charles said he hopes he'll grow up to be as bright and admirable as the sky above."

A ringing filled my ears. My mind blanked.

Orion's lips moved, he was speaking, but I couldn't hear a single word.

Slowly, I turned to Charles, searching for an answer, but he only lowered his head, his guilt laid bare in the silence.

Orion Davis.

The name we had chosen together long ago when we had still dared to dream of a child of our own.

Even the meaning behind the name, Charles had given it away without hesitation as if it had never belonged to us.

Was he truly this determined to carve out my heart?

"Charles… how could you take the name we chose together and give it to a child you had with someone else?"

The moment the words left my lips, Charles's expression darkened.

"Natalie! Watch what you're saying!" he scolded in a low, sharp voice.

The suddenness of it jolted me back to reality. I watched as he hurriedly turned to Eleanor, his voice dropping into a rushed explanation. Only then did I notice how pale she had gone, her face drained of color.

A lump tightened in my throat, instinct urging me to step forward, to explain.

But then I saw it.

The wariness in Charles's eyes, cold and sharp, like a silent warning, stopped me in my tracks.

Eleanor remained frozen for a long moment before tears welled in her eyes. When she finally spoke, her voice trembled with pain.

"If our child was only born to fill the void of the one you never had with Natalie, then I would rather have never given birth to him!" Eleanor's voice broke, her shoulders trembling. "Charles, I love you. You can belittle me, ignore me, but Orion is innocent. I don't want him to exist as some consolation for your regrets with another woman."

"I know Natalie can't accept me or my son. I understood that seven years ago. That's why I did everything you asked: I stayed far away, lived in another city, and kept my distance. But when you suddenly said you'd bring me here, I thought… I thought we could finally be together and that this was finally our chance. But after seeing how she looks at us…" She choked on a sob, voice trembling. "Charles, send me and Orion back, okay? I don't want to stay here, watching my child live under someone else's shadow."

Her sobs grew heavier, and Charles panicked, rushing to reassure her.

"Eleanor, look at me." His voice was firm, desperate. "Orion is our son, he is not some substitute for regret. I love you. I love our child. I have never neglected you, and I never will. Everything I have, everything I can give, belongs to you and Orion."

"You don't need to care about her attitude! This is my home. A house I bought. My family. No one here will dare treat you or Orion unfairly." His voice softened as he brushed a hand over her trembling frame. "Be good, don't overthink. The baby in your belly doesn't want to see his mother sad either."

Every word sliced through me like a blade, cutting so deep I could barely breathe.

Of course. Every brick and tile in this house belonged to Charles; what did any of it have to do with me?

I let out a bitter laugh, the taste of irony sharp on my tongue.

After Eleanor and her son left, I pulled out the divorce papers I had prepared long ago and placed them before him.

"Sign them."

Charles barely spared them a glance before grabbing his coat, brushing past me as if I were nothing more than an afterthought.

"Natalie, you're not young anymore. Next year, you'll be forty. Stop joking around."

"We've been married for twenty years. If we divorce now, what do you think the media and business world will say about me?"

I scoffed. So that was what our marriage had become, just another carefully managed public image.

Everything had changed the moment success found us.

Ten years ago, the deal I personally secured had turned our struggling company into the city's leading enterprise.

But when it came time to divide power, Charles and I had different visions.

I wanted to be a general manager and keep building what I had helped create.

But Charles had already decided my fate for me. He wanted me to step back, to abandon my ambitions and return to being a housewife, the perfect image of a wealthy woman with nothing to do but live in comfort.

In the end, he didn't even ask for my opinion. He simply hired someone new to take over my role, sealing my future with a signature that wasn't mine.

I was furious. But under my mother-in-law's persuasion, I swallowed my resentment and chose to let it go.

From that moment on, something between us quietly broke.

I tried, time and time again, to mend the distance that had formed, but there was always an invisible wall we couldn't break through.

I tried to talk to him, to reach him, but he either brushed me off with work or dismissed me entirely.

"There's nothing wrong. You're overthinking," he would say, his tone carrying no warmth, no patience.

And so, we drifted further apart.

Until we became what we were today, two people bound not by love but by mutual interests, standing in the ruins of what had once been.