For the first time, I didn't pick up immediately.

The phone rang and went silent, rang and went silent again. After the third time, I steadied myself and answered.

I still couldn't bring myself to speak. Joe's voice came through the line, low and detached. “Sarah, did your test results come back? What did the doctor say?”

An hour ago, those words would have melted me. I would have been so grateful I wouldn't have known what to say. Now, all I felt was how cheap his concern really was.

I'd been throwing up everything I ate for weeks. In just one month, I'd lost over ten pounds.

Terrified it was something serious, I'd asked Joe to take time off and come with me to the hospital. He agreed, then told me that morning something had come up at the office and I should go alone.

I was disappointed, but I understood. What I never could have imagined was that Joe's idea of "busy" meant accompanying Lillian Fox to her prenatal checkup.

When I still didn't respond, his voice rose slightly on the other end.

I actually heard a note of urgency in it.

I closed my eyes, forcing down the wave of nausea clawing up from my stomach.

“Nothing serious. Just my stomach acting up again.”

Back when Joe was first starting out, I'd wined and dined investors on his behalf until I drank myself into a gastric hemorrhage. Even after years of careful treatment, the pain still flared up without warning. But the stomach excuse was just something I tossed out to get him off the phone.

After walking in on what looked like one happy little family of three at the hospital. No, four, to be precise.

I'd fled in a blind panic without even picking up my test results. Where was I supposed to find the presence of mind to see a doctor?

“Good. The merger deal at the office still isn't wrapped up, so I'll be home late.”

“Oh, and I already sent someone to pick up Sunny. Just get some rest.”

Right on cue, a text arrived from the secretary I'd once sponsored. 【There was a merger meeting today, but Mr. Delgado never showed. The VP handled it.】

Of course. Joe was lying to me again.

A bitter smile tugged at my lips.

Back then, he'd been so tight with money he wouldn't even give me a wedding.

Now he was willing to blow off a multimillion-dollar meeting just to hold his college sweetheart's hand at her ultrasound.

He hung up almost before I could respond.

Outside the window, the rain came down harder. I felt cold straight through, like ice had settled into my bones.

I stood slowly and walked to the safe in the study, punching in the combination from memory.

Click. The door swung open.

I left the gold bars untouched. The only thing I took was the stock transfer agreement for Delgado Group.

Years ago, to help him start his company, I'd sold the jewelry my mother left me behind my father's back. I'd even used the Henson name to co-sign more guarantees than I could count.

He'd held my hands that day, his eyes shining. “Sarah, when this company goes public, I'm making you the largest shareholder. You deserve that.”

Then the company did go public. And he gave me ten percent, hiding behind excuses about avoiding conflicts of interest and protecting the ownership structure.

I'd been too blinded by love to care about the numbers back then. Now I was just grateful I hadn't been foolish enough to give those shares back.

I called Jordan again. “On top of the divorce, I need you to help me sell off my ten percent of the original shares.”

Two seconds of silence. “Sarah, Delgado Group is on the rise. You dump that ten percent and Joe could lose absolute control of his own company.”

My eyes were glacial. “That's exactly the point. I want to drag him down from the clouds and bury him in the dirt.”

“Are you sure about this?” Jordan sighed. “Once those shares are gone, there's no coming back. Not for you and him. Ever.”

I let out a hollow laugh. ：“He never loved me. There was never a 'you and him' to come back to.”

All I could do now was take back everything I'd given him before he realized what was happening.

As for the love that was never mine, the bond with a son who'd been turned against me, I was done wanting any of it.

It was eleven at night when I heard the front door open.

Joe paused mid-step when he saw me still sitting on the couch. “Why are you still up? I told you to get some rest.”

He walked over, and a faint trace of perfume drifted with him.

Not his usual woody cologne. Something sweet, cloying, soft. A woman's floral fragrance.

My stomach cramped again.

“Stomach acting up again?” Joe frowned and reached for my forehead.

I turned my head, dodging his hand without making it obvious. “I'm fine. Had some warm water. Feeling better.”

My voice was too flat. Flat enough that Joe's hand froze in midair and a flicker of surprise crossed his face.

Before all this, I would have leaned into his shoulder and whined about my stomach hurting too much to sleep, waiting for him to comfort me.

But now the smell of another woman clung to him, and even breathing the same air made me sick.

“Sunny asleep?” Joe pulled his hand back and loosened his tie like nothing had happened.

“Yeah.” I watched how composed he looked, and something inside me almost laughed.

He must have checked himself over before coming home. Scanned for lipstick stains, stray hairs, even smoothed the creases in his collar.

Otherwise I wouldn't have been stupid enough to only find out now that Joe was cheating.

Lillian's belly looked four or five months along. Their little reunion had been going on for at least half a year.

Or maybe longer than I guessed.

“Was the hospital busy today? Long wait?” Joe asked casually while pouring himself a glass of water.

I stared at his back, keeping my voice light. “Not really. But I did see someone who looked a lot like you from behind.”

Joe's body went rigid. The glass stopped just short of his lips for a fraction of a second, a pause so brief most people would never have caught it.

But I'd spent three years pining for Joe Delgado and seven years living with him. I could read his guilt like a book.

“Someone you know?”

Joe turned around. His jaw was tight, and something guarded surfaced behind his eyes.

I lowered my gaze and fiddled with the remote on the coffee table.

“No idea who it was. He was holding a kid's hand, walking a woman into the OB-GYN wing.”

The air in the living room froze solid.

Joe's throat moved as he swallowed. “Oh, really? Are you accusing me of something?”

“I was at the office all day. Obviously wasn't me.”

I looked up and held his gaze, then let out a quiet laugh. ：“I never said it was you. Why so jumpy?”

The moment the words left my mouth, I pulled the papers I'd prepared from under the coffee table and slid them toward him.

Joe glanced down. A small crease formed between his brows.

“What's this?”

I leaned back into the couch, keeping my tone easy. “Prescription forms from the hospital. They need a family member's signature before they'll release the medication.”

The top sheet was a printout of my old medical records.

But underneath, at the very bottom, was the divorce agreement I'd already signed.

Joe took the stack. His eyes landed on the first page, the prescription form.

His fingers kept going, the pages whispering against each other, and the corner of the second sheet peeked out.

My heartbeat spiked. I gripped the remote tighter without realizing it.

In that moment, I couldn't tell whether I wanted him to sign without looking or discover that I wanted out.

But just as Joe was about to reach the last page, a tiny voice called out from the top of the stairs.

“Daddy!”

Sunny came downstairs rubbing his eyes.

Interrupted mid-review, Joe didn't bother looking at the rest. He signed quickly.

“How come you're awake?”

Sunny threw himself into Joe's arms, little hands looping around his neck, and dropped his voice to a conspiratorial whisper. “Daddy, I didn't tell Mommy one single thing about you taking me to the hospital to see Aunt Lillian today.”

“Next time you go see Aunt Lillian, you have to take me again!”

Joe shot me a guilty glance, and only when he saw that my expression hadn't changed did he reach up and give Sunny's nose a gentle tap.

“Sure, buddy. Daddy promises.”

Sunny giggled and buried his face against Joe's chest.

There was a time when a scene like this would have made me smile, when I'd think how wonderful it was that father and son were so close, maybe even feel a twinge of envy that Joe could be so busy yet still win Sunny's adoration.

Now, watching that small head nestled against Joe's chest, all I felt was a dull blade sawing back and forth across my heart.

Five years old, and he'd already learned to cover for his father.

I stood up and turned the family portrait on the side table facedown.

“It's late. I'm going to bed.”

As I passed Joe, that cloying perfume invaded my senses again. I quickened my pace, desperate to put as much distance between us as possible.

The next morning, Joe was still home for breakfast for once.

He glanced at the light makeup I was wearing and looked mildly surprised.

“What's the occasion?”

“You mentioned it a few days ago. There's an auction today you need me at.”

Even though I didn't want to go, a promise was a promise.

Besides, it wouldn't matter much longer. Six more days, and I'd be free.

Joe grunted in acknowledgment and put a piece of bacon on my plate.

I didn't touch it.

Seven years of marriage, and Joe still didn't remember I was allergic to pork.

Sunny chewed on his eggs and mumbled through a full mouth, “Mommy looks so pretty today.”

I glanced at him but didn't respond.

Sunny pouted, unhappy with my cold reaction, but I didn't coax him the way I used to.

Joe didn't notice the tension between Sunny and me. He was staring at his phone, a faint, absent smile tugging at the corner of his mouth.

I didn't need to guess who he was texting.

The only person who could make him look that relaxed was Lillian Fox.

At three that afternoon, I walked into the auction house on Joe's arm.

Even with the divorce quietly underway behind the scenes, I kept a polished smile in place.

Several people came over to make small talk.

Joe fielded every greeting with effortless charm, pausing now and then to tuck a loose strand of hair behind my ear, the picture of a devoted husband.

Once upon a time, those public displays of affection would have set my pulse racing.

Now I just thought he was one hell of an actor.

The auction dragged on, unremarkable, until lot number seventeen appeared and my breath caught.

It was my mother's bracelet.

Years ago, when Joe was scraping together funds for his startup, I'd sold it.

When Joe found out, his eyes had gone red, and he'd promised me, “Sarah, once I make it, I'll buy it back for you. I swear.”

I raised my paddle without hesitation：“Two million.”

Joe glanced at me, brow creasing. “Since when do you like such an old-fashioned bracelet?”

He didn't even recognize it. My mother's last keepsake, and he had no idea.

I let out a quiet, bitter laugh and said nothing.

But a second later, another paddle went up.

“Three million.”

It was Bidder No. 8, seated diagonally across from us.

I looked over instinctively. A young woman in a face mask and cap.