Two years of IVF, three months pregnant, and here I was at the hospital, asking for the pregnancy to be terminated.

The doctor didn't understand. "This baby wasn't easy to come by. Why would you give it up?"

I yawned. "Because I didn't sleep well last night."

"Does the baby's father know you've made this decision?"

"Well, once you know, doesn't that mean he'll know too…"

I lifted my head and looked at my attending physician. My husband's childhood sweetheart.

She wore a mask over her face, but it couldn't hide her panic.

I was so grateful for the sweet little bubble tea Jude Delgado had ordered for me. It was what kept me awake last night, awake enough to hear that vile little conversation.

"Molly, you really are the clever one. Putting our baby in her belly means you don't have to suffer through pregnancy and childbirth, and I don't have to suffer through all this longing and abstinence."

"Be quieter. You're making such a racket, what if she finds out?"

"I married her. Bearing my child is her duty… She's just a vessel. Once the baby's born, we throw her out, exactly as planned…"

His voice came in broken pieces, threaded through with grunts like some panting dog.

I bit down hard enough to split my lip, just to keep myself from storming in and killing them both.

After I left, dragging my suitcase behind me, I had my assistant put together a video file.

——

"Dr. Lambert, write up the order. The sooner the surgery, the better."

I watched Molly Lambert at my leisure, and I didn't miss the displeasure in her eyes.

This child, the one she'd placed in my belly with her own hands, had to be ended by her own hands too.

But I knew she couldn't bear to.

Her eyes stayed on me, while her fingers flew across her phone screen.

I didn't need to guess. She was reporting to Jude.

"Bella Fox, do you understand what this baby means to you? Your ovarian function has severely declined. This child may be the only one you'll ever have."

"Dr. Lambert, when a patient asks to terminate, do you always counsel against it this devotedly? Or is it just me?"

"It almost seems like you care about this baby more than I do."

Her pupils contracted sharply, and her phone dropped straight onto the desk.

After three seconds of silence, she went back to her gentle persuading.

"Bella, of course I care about this baby. I just can't stand to see everything you've endured these past two years trying to conceive go to waste."

"And termination carries far more risk than you imagine."

I scoffed and pulled a report out of my bag.

"If you really cared about me, why did you forge my checkup results?"

Molly stared at the rush checkup report I'd had done at Central Hospital today, and her face went white in an instant.

Because there it was, in black and white: my ovarian function was completely normal.

She adjusted her mask with one hand and forced herself into a delighted little cheer.

"Bella, congratulations!"

"It must be that all the care and treatment I gave you these past two years has finally paid off. From now on, if you and Jude want a second baby the natural way, there'll be no problem at all."

I knew she'd never admit a thing.

So I made my demand again, my voice cold.

"Then I can get rid of the baby now, right? Since I can have as many as I want later anyway."

I wanted to see just what excuse she'd come up with to stop me this time.

The AC in the room was set to seventy-three degrees, but Molly had already broken into a cold sweat.

She dabbed at it with a tissue before she spoke.

"It's wonderful that your body has recovered, truly. But there's no need to abort the baby over it, is there?"

"You're three months along now. You'll feel the baby move soon. Could you really bear to give up this child just because you couldn't sleep?"

I stared into her eyes and said it word by word.

"Why couldn't I bear it? It's not like I can't have another after this one. He's already keeping me up all night, giving me nightmares. That just proves he'll be born a little debt collector anyway."

"If you won't do the procedure, I'll switch to another hospital."

"And while I'm at it, I'll get a paternity test done too. In my nightmare last night, this kid didn't even call me Mom. He called me a bitch! Said I was nothing but a delivery service!"

I turned and headed for the door, pulling out my phone to book the procedure at Central Hospital.

"Bella! Wait! I'll write up the order!"

Molly's voice came shrill behind me.

Because she couldn't afford the gamble.

The moment a test proved the baby wasn't mine, everything between her and Jude would come crashing into the open.

Smiling, I turned around and settled back into the chair.

"Then I'll trouble you, Dr. Lambert!"

Face white, she wrote up the order, then pulled out the surgical consent form.

"A family member has to sign for the procedure. Have Jude come down here!"

"You call him. Don't you two have each other on speed dial? Saves me the phone charge!"

Something unnatural flickered across Molly's face, and she explained with the guilt of a thief caught in the act.

"Bella, Jude and I grew up together. We added each other to our family speed dial ten years ago. Don't read into it."

That same sugary, two-faced act.

Before, I'd thrown countless fits over how close she and Jude always were.

But every time, Jude brushed me off, saying the two of them were no different from brother and sister.

And since I was still counting on Molly for my IVF, all I could do was swallow the discomfort.

Molly dialed the call and handed me the phone.

"You tell Jude yourself. I can't be the one to say it!"

She didn't want to play the villain. She wanted Jude to despise me even more. I wasn't about to let her have her way.

I stayed silent, and Jude assumed it was Molly.

"Nana, we can't let her beat us to—"

The guilt jolted her. She cut him off, voice spiking.

"Jude, get to the hospital, now. Your wife is insisting on an abortion! Yes, she wants it done right away, and she wants a paternity test too..."

Jude got there fast, his forehead drenched in sweat.

He was supposed to be at work, and from the company to the hospital was thirty minutes even with no traffic.

And that was assuming no traffic.

But from Molly's first message to him walking through the door, only ten minutes had passed.

Which meant he hadn't rushed over from the office at all. He'd already been near the hospital.

I looked at his rumpled shirt, at the suspicious stains on his black slacks, and my stomach churned.

Seems he hadn't gotten his fill last night, afraid of waking me.

So he'd snuck off on his lunch break for seconds with Molly.

Forcing down the nausea, I pointed a trembling finger at his pants.

"Jude, weren't you at the office? How did you get here so fast? What have you been doing behind my back?"

Panic flashed in his eyes, and he scrambled for an excuse.

"Bella, I happened to be meeting a client nearby. When I heard you wanted an abortion, I knocked over my drink. That's all this is."

I didn't bother exposing his clumsy lie. I just handed him the surgical form.

"Oh. Then sign it."

Seeing that I really meant to go through with it, Jude's eyes went red with desperation.

"Bella! Everything was fine. Why an abortion all of a sudden? Are you feeling unwell somewhere?"

"Nana said you had a nightmare last night and now you want to abort the baby?"

I rubbed my temples, impatient.

"That's right. He called me a bitch, said I was just a delivery service, said I wasn't his mom. You think I can stomach that?"

"You know me. I've always believed in fate! I have to abort him, and then see whether he's even mine!"

Jude swallowed nervously and asked, uncertain.

"Besides dreaming about the baby, was there anything else?"

He was testing me.

I gave a faint tug at the corner of my mouth, deliberately knitting my brow as if to remember, then shook my head.

"There was more, I think, but it was gone by the time I woke up..."

Jude and Molly both let out a breath at the same time.

"Bella, it was only a dream. Dreams mean the opposite of what they show! How can you take it seriously?"

"This is the baby we've waited for so long. The proof of our love... Don't end it, all right?"

Jude's voice was actually shaking when he said it.

His eyes were full of pleading, of a man unwilling to let go.

If this baby were really mine, then even with him sneaking around with Molly, I wouldn't have it aborted.

Worst case, I'd take the child and leave the father behind.

"No. This pregnancy is ending. I don't want to carry it one more day."

The pleading froze on Jude's face, and something cold flickered in his eyes.

"Bella, it was just a nightmare. What exactly are you throwing a fit about?"

"I'm not throwing a fit. This baby kept me up all night. I don't want to have it anymore."

He suddenly gripped both my shoulders, hard enough to make me wince.

"Bella, can you stop being so willful? Do you have any idea how much money we spent and how much we both went through for this baby? You terminate now, and all of it is wasted. Do you know Mom prays every single day at home, just waiting to hold her grandchild?"

"If you get rid of this baby, you think Mom won't force us to divorce? By then you'll be crying too late to fix anything..."

Molly chimed in too.

"That's right, Bella. It was probably just your hormones giving you that nightmare. I'll write you a prescription for something to settle your nerves and you'll be fine. No need to end the pregnancy. Otherwise, if Mrs. Delgado finds out, she'll probably scold you all over again!"

At the mention of my mother-in-law, a flash of smugness crossed Molly's eyes.

Thanks to her, in three years of marriage to Jude, I had stayed childless.

And my mother-in-law had gone from liking me at the start to despising me.

Every holiday I went back, she'd order me around like a servant.

No matter how well I did, no matter how many gifts and red envelopes I gave her, she'd only sneer in roundabout jabs that I was a hen that couldn't lay eggs.

Last year she went further, saying it in front of every relative present:

"As a woman, if you can't even give your husband a child, then frankly, I'd have the decency to divorce him myself. Otherwise you're just a dog in the manger, cutting off another family's bloodline for nothing. Sooner or later that comes back on you!"

And all I could do was bow my head and work harder, so the relatives' pointing and whispering wouldn't get too loud.

The memory of those humiliations sent anger surging up in me, and my voice turned colder still.

"Even if we divorce, this pregnancy is ending!"

"I don't even care that everything I went through goes to waste. So what are the two of you in such a panic about?"

My eyes moved between the two of them, and then I gasped.

"Don't tell me the baby in my belly is yours? The two of you?"

"Bullshit!"

"Don't be ridiculous!"

Jude and Molly spoke as one.

But I knit my brows and pretended something had just come back to me.

"In the dream last night, I think I heard Dr. Lambert's voice too. What was it she said again?"

Molly and Jude's faces drained of color.

Terrified I'd remember more and finally realize it hadn't been a nightmare at all, Jude snatched up the pen and signed without hesitation.

"Molly, schedule her surgery as soon as you can."

"She wants a paternity test? Then she gets one!"

Humiliated and seething, he flung the surgical consent form in my face and said coldly,

"But if the results prove the baby is ours, then we divorce. And you walk away with nothing!"

Jude's shameless face was laid bare in that moment.

He was simply certain that with Molly in his corner, even a paternity test on this baby would only come back showing the child was mine.

What he didn't know was that I'd already had an amniocentesis done at Central Hospital.