He opened the car door for me himself, held my hand the whole way up, careful with me like I was a child.

The whole company watched us, and the younger women in particular looked at me with envy in their eyes.

They all thought Greg doted on me.

Only I knew he was just afraid I'd run.

He pulled me into the office, skipped the long instruction sheet entirely, took out the special drug, poured a glass of water, and told me to take it.

"This drug is for treating allergies, but no pregnant woman in the country has done a clinical trial on it, so I don't dare let Sophie take it. You take one first. If nothing happens, keep taking it, three times a day."

He was as cold as a machine.

Like he was running a test on a sow, no feeling in it at all.

I stroked my belly, felt my womb slowly stretching, the baby struggling inside, wave after wave of sharp pain.

"Greg."

I called his name softly.

"Have you thought about what happens if I take this and miscarry? I'm your wife, I'm carrying your child. Do we mean nothing to you at all?"

"You're different."

He answered without a second's thought.

"If you miscarry, you can still have children later. But Sophie might only ever get this one child in her whole life. You owe it to her to help a little. Things aren't easy for her."

Things aren't easy for her?

Just like they say online. To a man, every woman except his own has it hard.

I racked my brain and never once imagined a thing like this happening between Sophia Shepherd and my husband.

And from the day I met Sophia, I knew her mind ran wild, always doing the last thing you'd expect.

At sixteen she'd made it her mission to stay childfree, swearing she would never marry, never have a baby.

She didn't take care of her body, ran it down early, and by twenty-five she was diagnosed with premature ovarian failure.

The doctor advised her to have a child, or she never would.

Sophia panicked, asked her family for a sum of money, went all the way to an overseas sperm bank, picked a child, had it implanted, and came home.

The implant succeeded. As long as her pregnancy went smoothly, ten months later she'd give birth to a mixed-race baby.

No one supported Sophia. Only Greg did.

The day he learned she was pregnant, he was as happy as if he'd become a father himself, donated three hundred thousand to a charity, and prayed for her and the baby's safety.

I was pregnant at the same time, and I saw not a trace of joy on his face, just a few flat words of reminder.

Drink plenty of hot water, get your rest.

Because Sophia was carrying a mixed-race baby, the rejection reaction in her body was stronger, and it left her feeling terrible.

And the moment she felt unwell, she'd call Greg, day or night, no matter the hour.

Sometimes Greg didn't come home at night and didn't even tell me.

At two in the morning I found out from Sophia's social media that she'd suddenly wanted porridge, so Greg had bought a whole load of ingredients and gone to her place to cook it for her.

She'd posted a photo of his back, with a heartfelt caption.

"If every man were as gentle and thoughtful as my sister's husband, I'd never stay childfree my whole life!"

I laughed, not sure what she meant by it.

Every time, she said she saw me like her own sister, and behind my back she did things like this.

If we weren't still partners, co-invested in a company we'd started together, I might have turned on her right then.

For the sake of one last shred of dignity, I stayed up and sent Sophia a long string of messages, but she didn't dare answer a single word.

Within twenty minutes, Greg came home under the stars, and never mind that I was pregnant and resting, he grabbed me and tore into me.

"What are you jealous of Sophie for? I can't even be good to her? Everything I do is so she'll keep working with you, keep making value for you, isn't it?"

"Go apologize to your Sophie right now, take back all that whiny nonsense. You made her worry all night, made her send me home in the dark."

Memories like that one had happened more than once.

My nose stung, the ache low in my belly sharpening as the thought dragged me back to the present.

"Felicia?"

Greg pressed me again, his eyes fixed the whole time on the pill in my hand.

"Just take it, would you? If the drug shows no problems in a pregnant woman, I'll have the overseas R&D team produce a batch right away."

I nodded, staring straight at him.

"All right, Greg. You won't regret this?"

He didn't follow.

"Regret what?"

"You won't regret it if our baby miscarries?"

"Felicia, stop overthinking everything. You're not like Sophie. You're young, your embryo quality is good, you're at the perfect age to have a child. Sophie's carrying a mixed-race baby, so her embryo is naturally more delicate. Yours won't miscarry that easily."

"And what if it does?"

He answered without hesitation, pushing the cup to my lips.

"There's no 'what if.' I already told you, even if you miscarry, we'll have more children later. Sophie's different. It's not easy for her."

Not easy again?

I didn't say anything more. I swallowed the pill in one go.

Nothing. The pill wasn't as bitter as my life.

He kept me at the company for half an hour of observation, and then Sophia called on video and pulled him away. She heard I was there beside him, and made a point of calling out to me a few times over the line.

"Fee, lend your husband to me for a bit, would you? The morning sickness is really awful. I can't keep down anything anyone else makes, only the porridge your husband cooks. Send him over to make me some."

"Sure."

I kept my voice flat. I'd already made up my mind to have nothing more to do with her.

"No need to say 'lend,' it's too formal. Just take him."

Sophia paused for a second, then broke into an easy laugh, so loud that Greg fussed at her in alarm.

"Can you laugh a little more quietly? Aren't you afraid of startling the baby? Always so careless. Would it kill you to settle down a bit?"

"Fine, fine, fine."

She turned coy, her playful face filling the screen, sticking her tongue out to clown around.

"It's only because you take such good care of me that I get to be careless. Enough talk, I'm hungry, hurry up and come."

Greg was already itching to go. If he could walk through walls, he'd have been standing in Sophia's kitchen already.

Before he left, he ran through a few instructions: send him an update on how I felt every half hour, and write down anything the least bit off.

I agreed to all of it with a smile. Once he was gone, while there was still daylight, I took a taxi to the hospital's OB-GYN department again.

Only this time it was different. I registered with gynecology and asked for an abortion.

The doctor saw the dead look on my face and didn't ask much, assuming I'd run into some impossible trouble, and wrote up the surgery order right away.

I lied that my husband was dead, signed for myself, and walked out with the termination medication and an appointment slip to be in the operating room at nine the next morning.

"Take both of these once you get home. The drugs will start working after about half an hour. There may be some pain and some bleeding, that's normal. Come back tomorrow in comfortable clothes and we'll do the procedure."

It was simpler than I'd expected.

The moment I stepped out of the hospital I took the pills, then calmly caught a taxi home.

I'd barely gotten in the door when Sophia called on video. The camera was aimed at Greg, in a flowered apron, bustling around the kitchen like he was her husband.

"Fee, I completely forgot to ask you and Greg over for porridge at the start. How about you, is the morning sickness bad these days?"

Before I could answer, Greg cut in from his end with a sneer.

"Her? How could she be as fragile as you. She's as sturdy as an ox."

Sophia burst out laughing and started roughhousing with Greg again.

After a while she began to complain that she was breaking out again, that a big rash had come up on her back and it itched terribly, and she wanted Greg to scratch it for her.

Greg came running from the kitchen at once, lifting the back of her shirt to scratch her carefully.

"Right there, it's really itchy where the bra clasp is. Undo the clasp and scratch it for me."

Greg did exactly that, the two of them completely without any line between man and woman.

Right there on camera, Sophia slipped off her bra and tossed it onto the couch.

I couldn't watch anymore. I hung up and threw the phone as far as I could.

After a shower I felt the drug slowly taking effect, leaving me dizzy and in pain.

Sophia called me a few more times on video after that. I didn't answer a single one.

By eleven that night rain was coming down hard outside, and since I still hadn't made a sound, Greg forced out a check-in message.

"The rain's too heavy, it isn't safe for me to drive back, and Sophie's scared of thunder, so I won't come home tonight. I'll stay and keep her company."

"Oh, right, why didn't you send me how you felt after taking the drug?"

I couldn't be bothered to deal with him. I turned the phone off and tossed it aside.

While Greg was out of the house, I went to the safe in the study and took out the most important patent contracts.

That same night I found a courier and sent copies of the contracts to a law firm, telling them to file suit for me as fast as possible.

Then I packed a few sets of comfortable clothes into a suitcase, waiting for morning to hurry to the hospital.

Neither thing could wait a moment longer.

That night the pain grew in my belly bit by bit, as if the baby were struggling weakly inside me.

At five in the morning it finally stopped.

Day broke, the pain was gone, and there was steady bleeding, and I knew it was all supposed to be over.

I'm sorry, baby. Next time find yourself better parents.

I hurried into a taxi and rushed to the hospital.

I scanned in for a number, and soon I was inside the operating room, waiting.

When I turned my phone on, all the messages Greg had sent last night came flooding in. I knew what he wanted to ask, so I gave him one line.

"Everything's fine after taking the drug. Clear-headed, no abnormalities with my body. You can relax."

"Good."

He replied almost instantly, and after that he sent nothing more.

I got through the surgery, holding back the pain, and an hour later, once the anesthetic wore off, I saw that Sophia had posted a new update. In the photo was the bottle from my drug trial.

Beside it she'd written: "My baby and I both have a one-of-a-kind love!"

Greg commented within seconds: "You're not much more grown-up than the baby."

Sophia fired back a string of cute stickers, and Greg answered with more.

Only then did I notice their stickers were couple sets. The Greg who was so quiet and sparing with words in front of me wore a completely different face in front of Sophia.

I laughed at that, and quietly tapped Like.

Greg must have sensed something was off too, because he messaged me privately with a make-up message.

"By the way, when's your next prenatal checkup? Send me the time and I'll go with you."

"No need."

I replied at once, and right after that the lawyer sent over the litigation documents, saying they'd already been submitted to the regulatory audit team, and that in two hours an inspection would be ordered at the company.

Greg still had no idea. He thought I was just throwing a tantrum again and sent a pile of impatient text.

"What do you mean, no need? Felicia, could you not be unreasonable? The truth is you want me there, but you keep pushing me away, and you're putting me in a really difficult spot, you know that?"

I laughed, and just told him the truth.

"When I say no need, I mean the baby's gone, so of course there's no checkup. Don't read too much into it."

Greg froze. The chat box kept showing "typing," but not a single word came through.

He panicked, flooding me with video calls, every one of which I rejected.

I blocked him. Just as I was about to get some proper sleep, Sophia started calling me over and over, relentless, and I picked up by accident.

"Fee!"

She gasped it out in a low voice, frightened.

"Don't do anything stupid, that's the first child between you and Greg! If you resent me, if you're feeling awful, just take it out on me."

I was perfectly calm, and I made a point of telling her this "good news."

"I haven't done anything stupid. Oh, and Sophia, I'm going to divorce Greg……"