My husband’s first love and I got pregnant at the same time. My husband stepped forward without hesitation and said that her baby was his.

But my baby became someone everyone cursed and called a bastard. Just because two months ago, she and I were kidnapped at the same time. That whole night, the unfinished building was filled with our cries for help.

I had an AIDS certificate in my bag for self-defense, so the kidnappers did not dare to touch me.

I stared at my husband, trying to find even a little emotion on his cold face.

“You clearly know this baby was already there before the kidnapping. Why do you not believe me?”

My husband looked at me with disgust. “You are willing to tell any lie just to protect your own name. That is disgusting.”

Later, the hospital proved that the baby in my belly was my husband’s.

But my husband still got angry and slapped me. “Tyara, you did not save Elise because she is my first love. You are a cruel woman, just like your mother. No wonder your father cheated.”

I looked at him in shock. For the first time, he felt like a stranger to me.

I once told him everything with full trust, but it became the fuel he used to shame me and my parents.

I suddenly realized that in ten years of marriage to Geff, I was the only one still living in the joke called “love.”

From the beginning to the end, the only person he ever cared about was Elise.

Since that was the truth, then I would give him one last gift — freedom.

***

“Geff, my stomach hurts…”

In the dark warehouse, Geff kicked the door open with his men.

My eyes lit up. I struggled and called out to the man at the door.

But Geff only gave me a quick glance. Then he saw Elise not far away, her clothes torn into pieces, her body full of wounds.

Geff’s eyes widened, and his face turned pale at once. “Elise!”

He rushed to the woman who was almost unconscious. His legs nearly gave out.

I stared at his reaction in a daze. The calm and steady man finally lost control for the first time. Then a sharp pain in my lower belly pulled me back to reality.

Under my skirt, blood was flowing out non stop, and the strong pain made it hard for me to even breathe. I struggled to reach out and said with great effort, “Geff, my stomach… blood…”

Geff picked up Elise in his arms and turned around.

Our gazes locked. I looked at him, begging silently, while his eyes remained icy and distant.

His deep eyes were unusually cold.

All the words I wanted to say got stuck in my throat. After ten years of marriage, I could almost read every look in his eyes.

The doubt in his gaze hurt me deeply. I looked down at my still mostly clean skirt.

“I had an AIDS certificate in my bag for self-defense, so they did not dare touch me… Geff, I really knew nothing about this.”

I tried to grab him, but the tearing pain below my body left me with no strength.

A trace of disgust flashed in Geff’s eyes. He turned to the door and shouted, “Doctor! Where is the doctor?”

I lay on the ground and slowly lifted my head. All I saw was Geff holding the girl tightly and running to the door, calling Elise’s name again and again.

I opened my mouth, but my heart felt like it was being cut by a knife. My throat was so tight that I could not speak.

All this time, Geff never showed many emotions in front of me. I thought he was just a quiet, cold man who did not talk much. But now, seeing how panicked he was, my chest felt so heavy I could hardly breathe.

So he was someone who was afraid to lose someone.

I dragged my weak lower body and slowly crawled to the warehouse door. Then I heard Geff talking to someone.

“Sir, Miss Heggart is stable now. We should go check on Mrs. Sincle.”

“No need. She planned this to hurt Elise. She deserves to die.”

I looked at the shadows moving on the ground and froze in place.

Geff’s words were like an invisible knife, cutting deep into my heart and destroying my last bit of hope.

I wanted to call for help, but the pain in my body and heart was too much. I could not even move.

Before I lost consciousness, I seemed to hear Geff say, “Leave her here and let her think about what she did. She must pay for everything she has done.”

When I woke up, I smelled disinfectant. A familiar woman’s voice came to my ears. “So lucky. You actually woke up?”

My blurry vision slowly became clear, and Elise’s face appeared in front of me.

I wanted to speak, but the pain in my throat made me swallow my words.

Elise played carelessly with the drip tube in her hand, pulling the needle in my vein and stirring it around.

I frowned and let out a low groan.

“Do not look at me like that. Geff trusts me, that is all.” Elise leaned closer, her voice proud and smug. “I only helped you see who Geff truly loves.”

I stared at her and said hoarsely, “Aren’t you afraid Geff will find out the truth?”

“The truth?” Elise laughed as if she had just heard a big joke. “I am pregnant. Geff said he would not let me be embarrassed, so he already told everyone that this baby is his.”

“And your baby…” Elise poked my belly hard, “…is a bastard.”

She laughed wildly, while I stared at her in shock, unable to say a word.

“Go ahead and tell everyone. Let us see if Geff will believe your silly ‘truth.’”

Watching Elise walk away, I stared at my belly in a daze. So that stomach pain was because I was pregnant?

But then I thought about how Geff was willing to give up even his own child for Elise.

The joy in my heart disappeared at once.

I stared at the tree branches outside the window. After a while, I took out my phone and made a call.

“I agree to what you said. Come and pick me up now.”

“Agree to what?” Geff suddenly pushed the hospital room door open.

I did not know how much he had heard, so I quickly hung up the phone in panic.

His eyes went to where I hid my phone, then he coldly looked away.

Seeing him like this, I suddenly felt my actions were silly. After all, why would he care?

“The doctor said you need to walk more during recovery. Get ready. I will send someone to pick you up later.”

I stared at him in a daze for a few seconds. But very soon, the little hope in my heart was crushed again because I saw Elise in the car.

She was sitting in the front passenger seat, smiling warmly and waving at me.

She looked completely different from the cruel face she showed when I woke up.

Geff’s calm voice came from the side. “You should thank Elise. She said she felt lonely and wanted you to keep her company…”

His sharp gaze fell on me. “Otherwise, I would never give you another chance to get close to her.”

Elise gently tapped the man’s arm and pretended to be upset. “Geff, did I not tell you? That whole thing was because Tyara was too scared. She did not mean it. Do not be so harsh to her.”

Geff’s voice softened at once. “Alright, alright, my fault, my darling. I was just afraid she might hurt you again.”

“With you here, no one can hurt me.”

I stood there, biting my lower lip hard. Watching how close they were, it felt like my heart was suddenly emptied.

It was as if an ice spike had gone through me — cold and painful.

In ten years of marriage, I had tried to be close to him before. But every time, he would say, “Tyara, as Mrs. Sincle, you should be proper and dignified. You should know manners, not act like a bar girl who cannot control herself when she sees a man.”

That sentence made me sad for a long time. But in the end, I convinced myself that maybe he just needed a proper wife who would support him and help him.

Now I saw Elise clinging to him like a spoiled little cat, and Geff calling her “my darling,” with love clearly shining in his eyes.

So even someone as proud and distant as Geff would lower his head for a woman he truly loved.

I did not know how I ended up sitting in the back seat of the car. By the time I came back to my senses, I was already in a wedding dress shop.

Elise looked like a child, marveling at how beautiful every wedding dress was.

Geff followed behind her, answering her again and again without any impatience.

That scene made it look like they were a real engaged couple, and I was just an unimportant outsider.

“Tyara!”

Elise did not want me to disappear like that.

She ran to me with a bright smile. “Tyara, what kind of wedding dress did you wear when you married Geff? Was it pretty?”

She looked so innocent, but every word felt like a needle stabbing into my heart.

“She never wore a wedding dress.”

I looked up at Geff in shock. The careless look on his face made my heart sink even colder. That was true.

When I first asked Geff to go see wedding dresses with me and full of hope, he pushed me away. “Tyara, the company is growing. I want to put all the money into the business. We already registered the marriage, so we can have the wedding later.”

With that one word “later,” he delayed it for ten years.

Elise pretended to be surprised, her face full of apology. “I am sorry, Tyara. I did not know…”

Geff quickly comforted the woman in his arms in a gentle voice. “It has nothing to do with you. If she really wants a wedding, I will give her one.”

I could not help letting out a cold laugh. So that was what he called “giving.”

I looked at the loving couple in front of me and smiled lightly. There was no warmth in my eyes, but in a corner no one could see, my hands were trembling.

After a moment, I looked into Geff’s eyes and slowly said, “No need. It is a waste of money.”

Geff rarely frowned and narrowed his eyes a little.

“Tyara, come choose with me then. Geff must want to see what his wife looks like in a wedding dress, right?”

I was about to refuse, when a man carrying a design book walked over. I recognized him as Geff’s good friend, Logan Avery.

He did not see me sitting there and went straight to Geff. “Finally! It wasn’t easy, but you actually brought Mrs. Sincle along?”

My heart jumped hard. Even though I had been married to Geff for ten years, his friends always called me “Miss Varch”, not Mrs. Sincle. He told me it was out of respect.

I looked past Logan’s shoulder and met Geff’s eyes, wanting an explanation. But he quietly looked away. “Yeah. Let her choose.”

Elise took the design book and glanced at me. Then she smiled and sat down to look through it. Just like that, I was treated as if I did not exist.

Logan secretly poked Geff’s arm, a teasing look in his eyes. “I did not expect this. You even got Miss Varch pregnant?”

Geff was silent for a moment, then took out a cigarette and put it in his mouth. “Why talk about her? Elise’s baby is the real one.”

Logan stopped him from lighting the cigarette. “Do not smoke here. Do you want to ruin all my wedding dresses?”

Then he looked at Elise who was choosing dresses. “Hey, back then when you fought with your first love and married Tyara out of anger, we even bet on whether it was real. The others trusted you so much, and you actually went through with it. It made me lose 1,5 thousand dollars for nothing.”

Geff gave a cold laugh. “Who told you to bet?”

He talked about me and Elise so casually with his close friend. I looked at him, the sadness in my heart would not go away.

After we got our marriage certificate, I wanted to talk to him about the wedding, but he left me at the City Hall.

Logan handed me an envelope and told me Geff was very busy, so he probably had no time to hold a wedding. The few friends who came today to witness the registration treated it as attending a wedding banquet, so they gave me the money as a “gift.”

I listened quietly, my hands trembling behind my back where no one could see. At some point, my eyes filled with tears. So that so-called “wedding gift money” was actually the punishment Logan and the others paid because they lost a bet.

I once naively believed that at least in the beginning, Geff loved me, and that his friends were also decent people. I never expected everything to be a game from the start, and I was the biggest joke in that game.

The next moment, Elise’s voice cut into the conversation. She smiled and held up the design book, pointing to a page. “Do you still have this one? I like this dress.”

Logan walked over and bent down. When he saw the design, he froze a little.

Elise noticed something was wrong. “What?”

“This…” Logan scratched his head and hesitated before speaking. “This was designed by Miss Varch…”

Suddenly I remembered, in the second year of my marriage, I secretly went to Logan and asked him to teach me how to draw designs. Then I personally drew a wedding dress design, and beside it was a suit I designed for Geff.

Every size was measured carefully.

I secretly took his old custom made suits and measured them one by one. But Geff never talked about having a wedding, so the design was slowly forgotten.

I looked at the now yellowed paper, my heart hurting so much I could not breathe.

Geff’s face changed slightly — something very rare.

“But this wedding dress was mistaken by my assistant as my new design, so it was made. If you want to try it, I can go get it for you…” As Logan spoke, he turned around and finally saw someone sitting behind him.

When he saw who it was, his eyes widened in shock and he opened his mouth. “Miss… Miss Varch?”