Otto rushed into the bedroom with the color drained from his face, scooped me up, and ran for the hospital.

The doctor said my condition was dangerous and that the pregnancy needed to be stabilized immediately.

Otto stood outside the emergency room and, for the first time, lost every shred of his composure.

"I don't want to save the baby! Save the mother! Did you hear me?! I said save the mother!!"

When I woke, he was sitting at the edge of the hospital bed, his eyes bloodshot, his arm still wrapped in bandages.

Vivien whispered to me that on the way to the hospital, the car had nearly collided with a delivery truck.

It was Otto who had thrown himself over me to shield me, his arm cut deep by the shattered glass, more than a dozen stitches.

And he hadn't even waited for the anesthetic to take hold before running back to the room to watch over me.

I shrank away from the arm reaching to hold me and asked softly,

"Otto, what exactly do you mean by all this?"

Otto looked at me with reddened eyes.

"All because of one gift, you're going to put us through all this. Is that it?"

"Leah just got back to the country. That gift was nothing more than common courtesy."

"You only saw a seven-figure necklace, but you didn't see that every single thing in this house, all of it, I bought for you and the baby."

"You couldn't sleep well, so I had a mattress custom-made for you."

"You couldn't stand the smell of cooking oil, so I came home right after work to make you soup."

"I painted the nursery with my own hands. I made the furniture for our child with my own hands."

"I've worked to be a good husband, a good father, and never imagined that in your eyes, none of it could measure up to one necklace."

He pressed a hand over his wound, looking at me with disappointment.

"Deidre, I can give you so much love. I'd give up my own life for you and the baby."

"But I can't give you money. I don't want money mixed into what we have."

After that, he started a cold war with me.

Whatever I said, he acted as if he hadn't heard it.

Every night he claimed he had to work late, and he slept in a separate room from me.

He even went out of his way to needle me, saying I claimed to love him with my mouth while my heart only cared about his money,

just waiting for me to back down, explain, and apologize.

But with Leah he grew closer and closer, joining her for dinners, taking her to gallery openings, throwing money around to make her happy.

Vivien tried to reason with me.

"Ma'am, the master is only sulking. He loves you so much. The money may not be in your hands, but isn't all of it spent on you and the baby?"

"If I were you, I'd hurry and apologize, and promise never to fight with him over money again."

I opened my mouth, but my chest was knotted tight with misery.

I asked myself,

"Deidre, is that necklace really so important?"

I looked at the floor scattered with the baby toys he'd carved by hand and the nursery he'd painted himself,

and for one moment, I truly wavered.

But it was right then that my father was diagnosed with kidney failure.

I set aside my pride to plead with Otto, and didn't even dare call it anything but a loan.

Yet all he gave me was disgust and disappointment.

"Deidre, how are you still like this?"

In that moment, I finally understood.

What I cared about was never that one necklace.

It was that Otto's love was like an exam I could never pass.

I gave everything I had to prove my heart was true, and still he found me wanting;

yet Leah didn't have to do a thing, and he'd already scored her a perfect mark.

Now, this was the third time I wanted a divorce.

This time, I was going to go through with it.

I waited for Otto on the living room sofa all night long.

From dark until dawn, the study door stayed shut.

Through that one door, I could hear Leah's laughter drifting out now and then, and Otto's deliberately lowered, soothing voice.

I sat on the sofa, gripping that divorce agreement in my hand, and what had started as fury faded, until in the end all that was left was numbness.

Just before dawn, I couldn't hold out any longer and drifted off against the couch, half-conscious.

Somewhere between sleep and waking, someone gently laid a blanket over me.

My eyes snapped open and I grabbed his wrist.

Otto froze mid-motion.

He looked down at me, and for a single instant something panicked flickered in his eyes before his face hardened again.

Clutching at his sleeve, I asked hoarsely,

"The divorce agreement. Did you read it?"

Otto's expression went cold in an instant.

"Deidre, are you done making a scene?"

He pulled his hand back, like he'd been holding it in all night and finally couldn't anymore.

"You want to divorce me over three hundred thousand dollars?"

I looked at him, and suddenly the whole thing felt so absurd I almost laughed.

"Otto, that money is what's keeping my father alive."

"You're willing to buy Leah's dog a four-hundred-thousand-dollar collar, but you won't lend me three hundred thousand to save my dad's life?"

Otto's fists clenched, his face dark.

"The money is mine. How I spend it is my business. It's none of yours."

I stared at him, numb.

"But don't forget."

"For this marriage, for our child, I gave up my career on my own."

"All those years of salary, bonuses, my savings from before the wedding—I handed every cent of it to you."

"You were so afraid I was after the Gilbert family's money that you wouldn't even let me live in the apartment your family had ready. You insisted we buy our own place."

"This home, I bought it myself. I paid the down payment myself."

My voice was cracking, little by little.

"Otto, all I asked was to borrow three hundred thousand."

"After everything I've given you over the years, isn't that more than three hundred thousand already?"

Otto's face was ugly.

But what rose in his eyes wasn't guilt. It was disappointment.

"Deidre, you're tallying up money with me now?"

He looked at me like it pained him to the core.

"I love you so much I'd give up my own life for you and the baby, and now you're counting dollars with me?"

He stepped back half a pace, as if he were finally seeing me clearly.

"Leah was right after all."

"You married me for the money."

"You never brought it up before because the time wasn't right."

"The second something happens to your dad, you start figuring out how to pull money out of my hands."

A dry, hollow laugh escaped me.

"Think whatever you want."

I pushed the divorce agreement across to him.

"I want a divorce. I won't take a single cent of your money. All I want is to sell the house and take back the down payment I paid."

Otto's face turned to ice.

"No way! I won't divorce you."

"This house is our marital home! You don't get to sell it! My name is on it too, and as long as I don't sign, you can't sell it. Don't even dream about getting a cent."

I looked at him, and suddenly I didn't even have the strength left to argue.

"Otto, you say you love me."

"And yet you'd stand there and watch my father die."

I said softly,

"Your love. It's terrifying."

Otto pressed his lips into a thin line, as if my words had stung him.

But in the end he only turned and walked toward the study.

"Think it over carefully."

"Kidney failure is a bottomless pit."

"You can choose the family you came from, the one that'll need you to keep pouring money into it forever, or you can choose me and the baby."

"Deidre, it's your decision."

The study door closed again.

Otto seemed to have forgotten that before I became a housewife, I was a lawyer.

And what I was best at was divorce cases.

I'd left one last shred of dignity for our marriage, but now he'd torn it away.

Otto's threats meant nothing to me anymore.

I wouldn't choose him.

I dialed the loan company.

“Yes, I want a loan.”

“Using my house as collateral.”

“I don't care about high interest. I need the money today.”

The moment the loan cleared, I went straight to the hospital.

I didn't just pay the $300,000.

I covered all the follow-up treatment costs too, switched him to the best medications, hired a private nurse, and booked a VIP single room.

When they wheeled my father into the room, my mother sat beside the bed, looking like she could finally breathe.

Watching them, worn out and uneasy, I felt a sharp ache in my chest.

If I hadn't married Otto Gilbert.

All of this, I could have done with ease.

It was love that had stripped me down to nothing, one step at a time.

The door of the room flew open with a kick.

Otto stormed in, eyes bloodshot, Leah Swanson trailing behind him.

He took in the private room, then the payment receipt on the table, and his face darkened in an instant.

“Deidre! Leah told me you were here throwing money around, booking a VIP room, and I didn't believe her.”

“I never thought you'd actually have the nerve.”

He crossed the room to me in a few strides, his voice frighteningly cold.

“Where did this money come from?”

My mother shot to her feet in fright.

“Otto, please don't be angry.”

“We won't stay here. We'll move back to a regular room right away.”

“It's our fault for being a burden on Deidre. Please don't let us come between the two of you.”

My father braced himself against the bed, trying to sit up.

“Deidre, I won't get treatment.”

“Don't tear your life apart for my sake.”

My eyes burned at their words, and I stepped right in front of them.

“Get out.”

Otto's expression shifted.

“Deidre, who do you think you're talking to?”

I stared him down.

“I told you to get out. Don't disturb my parents' rest.”

Leah tugged gently at Otto's sleeve.

“Deidre, you suddenly pulled out this much money. Of course Otto's going to wonder.”

“You're still carrying his child. Don't do anything to betray him.”

My father shook with rage and climbed straight off the bed.

“You apologize to her!”

“My daughter is decent and honest. You have no right to drag her name through the mud!”

Leah instantly shrank into Otto's arms, eyes red, and cried out:

“Otto, he's going to hit me!”

Otto's face changed in a flash, and he shoved my father aside.

“Who said you could touch her!”

My father slammed hard into the nightstand, the corner of his forehead splitting open at once, blood streaming down his face.

He collapsed to the floor, lips white, without even the strength to cry out in pain.

My mother screamed and threw herself toward him.

“Samuel!”

My mind went blank with a roar, and I rushed out shouting:

“Doctor! Somebody, help!”

Otto froze where he stood, staring at his own hands, the fury on his face finally giving way to panic.

“I didn't mean to. I just didn't want him to hurt Leah.”

I stood up and slapped him hard across the face.

“And Leah spreading filthy lies about me, that's fine?”

Otto's head snapped to the side from the blow, and Leah rushed to steady him, all tenderness.

“Otto, don't blame Deidre. She's just too worked up right now.”

Otto looked at me, eyes red.

“Deidre, I'll ask you one last time. Where did the money come from?”

I let out a cold laugh and held my phone screen up to his face.

The loan page was right there, clear as day.

“See it?”

“A loan. Using my house as collateral.”

“High interest. Cleared today.”

Otto's pupils contracted sharply.