I cradled Chloe’s newborn, filled with joy and affection. The baby was not blood of mine, yet as Chloe’s best friend, I would love and protect the little one with everything I had.

"Sweet boy," I whispered, gently tapping the tip of his nose. "I'm your godmother. No one would ever hurt you."

The hospital room was washed in golden afternoon light. Adrian stood by the window in a dark overcoat, his profile sharp against the glass.

He looked exactly like the man the whole industry knew: controlled, elegant, untouchable. Hollywood's golden producer. My newlywed husband.

Then he said, in a voice as flat as if he were discussing a contract, "He's not your godson. He's my son."

For a second, I thought I had misheard him. Maybe I was just exhausted from the wedding, from the endless calls and fittings and congratulations. I almost laughed.

But Adrian turned around. A cruel little smile curved his lips.

"The child is mine," he said again.

My arms tightened around the baby.

"The night you got hurt," he went on, "I was with Chloe the whole night. We went through an entire box... apparently this little guy still found a way to arrive."

I couldn't move. It felt as if ice water had been poured down my throat. I opened my mouth, but no sound came out.

After a long silence, I finally managed to whisper, "But... we only registered our marriage yesterday."

Adrian walked over and put an arm around my shoulders, almost gently. His tone was soft, but it carried the kind of condescension people used with a child throwing a tantrum.

"Don't worry. Chloe and I were never going to get married. If I had wanted to marry her, I would have done it years ago."

He paused, and something almost pleased flashed in his eyes.

"Didn't Chloe ever tell you? We had a history. I was her first."

I didn't remember how I got back to our Beverly Hills mansion.

Three months earlier, I had stood on the Oscar stage with the Best Actress statuette in my shaking hands. Under the blinding flashes of cameras from every major media outlet, I announced my engagement. I told everyone I was ready to step back from the peak of my career and focus on building a family.

That night, the whole world called me the happiest woman alive.

Adrian had been sitting in the front row, looking at me with such devotion that I truly believed I was the only person in his universe.

Now I knew that devotion had been nothing but poison disguised as love.

By the time Adrian came home, the living room looked like a battlefield. I had smashed our wedding photos. Broken glass covered the floor. The silk decorations for our newlywed home had been torn down, and the master bedroom we were supposed to share was wrecked beyond recognition.

Adrian stood in the foyer and finished a cigarette in silence. Then he walked over and checked my hands.

"Did you cut yourself?"

I yanked my hand away. The anger I had been swallowing all afternoon finally burst out of me.

"Why?" I demanded, my eyes burning. "Why me?"

He raised an eyebrow, as if he was genuinely considering the question. Then he gave a short, dry laugh.

"Because you fit into my life, Evelyn. You're composed. You're respectable. For my career, you're the perfect producer's wife. You were even willing to retire for me. That kind of woman is meant to stand beside me."

Then he added, almost casually, "Not like Chloe. She's spoiled, unstable, and useless at home. You can't depend on her for anything."

His honesty hurt more than any lie could have.

When he saw the tears in my eyes, Adrian stepped closer and tried to pull me into his arms.

"Come on," he said. "I told you, Chloe and I don't have a future. From now on, we'll only have to deal with each other because of the child."

I shoved him away.

"Then why did you do this to me?" I screamed. "Why marry me when you already had a child with her?"

Adrian didn't answer. He only looked at me as if I were being unreasonable.

After a while, impatience settled over his face.

"Stop making a scene," he said. "Chloe is still waiting for me to bring her soup."

I stood there, frozen, and watched him go into the kitchen.

I watched him light the stove, chop the vegetables, and skim the foam from the broth with practiced ease.

In the three years we had been together, Adrian had never cooked for me once. I had always assumed he simply didn't know how. It turned out he knew exactly what he was doing. He had just never done it for me.

A memory suddenly surfaced: Chloe laughing as she told me that an ex-boyfriend once cooked for her every day because she was a picky eater.

At the time, I had smiled and teased her for being spoiled.

Now every detail matched the man standing in my kitchen.

Then all the other things I had forced myself to ignore came rushing back. Chloe handing Adrian his sunglasses a second before I could. Chloe knowing exactly what he refused to eat. Adrian walking out of an entire board meeting because Chloe had a fever.

I had seen all of it.

I had simply refused to understand.

Tears blurred my vision. When I spoke, my voice was rough and nearly gone.

"Adrian. I want a divorce."

Adrian finally looked up from the stove. His brows drew together, not in panic, not in guilt, but in annoyance.

He was about to speak when his phone rang.

It was the special ringtone he had set for Chloe.

The moment he saw her name, the cold, professional mask on his face softened into a smile.

"What is it, princess?" he said, his voice low and gentle. "I'm already making the soup. If you're bored, play with the baby for a while."

He paused, glanced at me, and said into the phone, "She doesn't know. Don't worry."

Then he hung up and turned back to me.

"Chloe doesn't know I told you everything," he said. "Act like you don't know. She doesn't want to lose you as a friend."

With that, he packed the soup into a thermos and headed for the door.

"Divorce," I said again.

Adrian stopped and looked back at me as if I had said something absurd.

"We registered our marriage yesterday. Why would we divorce now? Do you want us to become a joke in front of everyone we know? Be professional, Evelyn. Stop making a scene."

I picked up a crystal vase from the table and smashed it at his feet.

"I'm making a scene?" My voice cracked as the tears finally spilled over. "When I nearly snapped my spine filming that high-altitude fall, I was in the ICU for three days. You were the first person I wanted to see when I woke up. And where were you? In a hotel with her, celebrating her new single hitting the charts. Did you show me any respect? Any dignity?"

For one second, guilt flickered across Adrian's face.

Then impatience buried it.

"You're crazy," he said coldly.

He slammed the door and left.

I sank to the floor.

A few minutes later, my phone began buzzing with messages from Chloe.

"Eve, you left before I even woke up."

"Did you see your godson? Isn't he cute?"

"When are you and Adrian going on your honeymoon? He's so mean, making you get married right when I'm giving birth. Now you can't even stay with me during recovery. Ugh!"

Then another message appeared.

"But don't worry about me. The baby's father is here taking care of me."

A photo followed.

In the picture, a man's long fingers were holding a baby bottle. On his ring finger was the same custom wedding band I wore.

They hadn't even bothered to take it off.

My hands shook so violently I almost dropped the phone.

At the same time, Chloe posted an Instagram story with one line:

"If I asked you to stay this time, would you?"

Seconds later, Adrian texted me.

"Go on the honeymoon by yourself for now."

Something in my chest tightened until I could barely breathe.

I opened Chloe's post and typed a comment beneath it.

"No need for the hints. You can have him."

After I hit send, I went upstairs to pack.

This house had been decorated piece by piece by me. Every vase, every curtain, every framed photo had once felt like part of a future I was building. Now I couldn't stand to stay in it for another minute.

Before leaving, I saw Adrian's work laptop on the desk.

For the first time in my life, I gave in to a dark impulse.

I typed Chloe's birthday.

The screen unlocked.

The photo albums were full of her.

Chloe sleeping. Chloe pouting. Chloe crying as she was wheeled into the delivery room.

One photo after another. A private archive of her entire life.

The cruelest part was that I appeared in some of those pictures too, always in the background. A blurred, ridiculous ghost smiling as I helped my "best friend" hold up her dress, completely unaware that I was only a prop in their love story.

Adrian had taken tens of thousands of photos of Chloe.

In three years, he and I didn't have a single private photo together, apart from our wedding portraits.

He had told me he wanted to keep things low-profile in the industry.

I believed him.

I put the laptop back.

My tears had dried.

Then I texted my manager, Janice.

"I have a plan. Arrange for Paul to pick me up."

I had barely sat down in Paul's SUV when two silver Bentleys cut across the driveway and blocked our path.

Adrian stepped out of the car.

He didn't give me a chance to ask anything. With one careless wave of his hand, his bodyguards moved in and stopped Paul from getting out.

"Get out of the car, Evelyn," Adrian said. "Chloe was caught on camera. The video was going to leak tonight."

I gripped the door handle so tightly my knuckles turned white.

Through the window, I looked at my handsome, cold-blooded husband.

"I told you I wanted a divorce," I said. "Her PR crisis has nothing to do with me."

"Nothing to do with you?"

Adrian stepped forward, yanked the door open, and dragged me out by the wrist.

"You think announcing your retirement means this industry will let you disappear? The footage is blurry. If you show up at the press conference tonight and say it was you celebrating your wedding a little too wildly, the media will move on. You have the innocent golden-girl image. A small scandal will be written off as you finally being human."

His grip tightened.

"But Chloe is at the peak of her career. A scandal like this would destroy her luxury contracts overnight."

I stared at him, unable to believe what I was hearing.

"You want me to trade the reputation I built over ten years for her brand deals?"

"We're talking about hundreds of millions in commercial value," Adrian said coldly. "And don't act as if you can simply walk away. Your father's unpaid debts, your studio's investor agreements... do you really think you can handle all of that without me?"

At that moment, a kind of despair I had never known sank into me.

His support for my retirement had never been love. It had been a way to take control of my money, my career, and my name.

By the time we arrived at the PR room, the dull ache in my lower abdomen had sharpened. Cold sweat broke out across my back, and my legs suddenly felt weak.

Something was wrong.

I grabbed Adrian's sleeve.

"Adrian," I pleaded, my voice low and shaking. "My stomach hurt. I might be pregnant. Please take me to get checked. Just half an hour."

Adrian looked down at me with the same detached expression he used in business meetings.

"Evelyn, are you really using this kind of drama to protect your pride? Don't forget, I'm a producer. That performance won't work on me. What you need to do right now is step in front of the cameras and play the rebellious bride."

He didn't even glance at the medical staff on site.

Instead, he signaled for the stylists to fix my makeup.

They pushed me in front of the flashing cameras while my face was bloodless beneath the foundation. The lights hit me like hail.

Against my will, I admitted to a scandal I had never committed in front of the entire country.

Then I collapsed in the hallway backstage.

When I opened my eyes again, I was in a hospital room.

The doctor told me, with deep regret, that extreme stress and physical trauma had caused a miscarriage.

I lay there, numb, when the door opened.

Chloe walked in wearing an expensive velvet nightgown. She looked radiant, rested, almost glowing.

"Oh, Evelyn, darling."

She sat by my bed and reached for my hand as if we were still the closest friends in the world.

"Thank you for saving my image last night. I heard you miscarried? Don't be too sad. Adrian said it doesn't really matter, since you're retiring anyway. The important thing now is to use this hot topic to drive traffic to my new album."

Then she laughed softly.

"Maybe I should give you half of my Grammy someday. After all, your performance last night was brilliant."

I looked at her.

Then I looked past her at Adrian, who was standing outside the door, chatting and laughing with the PR team as if he had just finished another routine day at work.

With the last of my strength, I grabbed the glass of water beside me and threw it at Chloe.

"Get out!"