The day my husband drove me to my prenatal checkup, I found a condom wrapper tucked under the passenger seat.

Second pregnancy, and I'd caught him cheating again. I broke down, hemorrhaging like the first time.

Only this time, Jude Gilbert didn't flinch. He just dropped the divorce papers in front of me.

"Divorce or stay married. That's on you."

"I'm not the broke kid I used to be. You can't expect me to spend my whole life on one woman."

I looked at my own reflection, pale and worn out, and picked up the pen with a shaking hand. Just as I was about to sign, my phone rang.

The woman on the video had my face exactly, but she was flushed and glowing, dripping wealth.

The first words out of her mouth were, "Alma James. I'm you, ten years from now."

I stared at how poised and put-together she looked and asked, "If I have it that good later, is it because I divorced him?"

Her face changed instantly, and she snapped at me,

"Divorce, my foot! Put that pen down!"

"Hold on one more month. Jude's going to throw a secret wedding banquet with that woman, and at the table he'll accidentally drink the counterfeit liquor his mistress bought. The scumbag drops dead on the spot, the mistress rots in prison. And you walk away sitting on a fortune, plus a million in compensation!"

"The one thing you should be doing right now is not divorcing him. It's rushing out to buy an accident policy on our dear dead husband!!"

I was quiet for a few seconds. Then I raised my hand and tore the papers to shreds.

When Jude came back and saw the floor littered with scraps, he let out a cold laugh.

"What, weren't you the one who had a problem with me seeing someone?"

I smiled, gentle and soft.

"I didn't understand things before. Men are men. As long as he still comes home in the end, that's enough for me."

"..."

The sneer on Jude's face froze for a second, like he hadn't expected me to suddenly turn so agreeable.

He watched me for a long time, and the contempt in his eyes slid into wariness.

"Alma, quit playing the good little wife."

"Let me spell it out for you. Bridget Fox's pregnant."

My fingers stilled a little.

He'd finally hit the sore spot, and the corner of his mouth curled up at once.

"Three years ago you forced her to get rid of it once. This time, I will never let you touch the baby in her belly."

I froze where I stood, and almost without thinking, my hand went to my own stomach.

Bridget's baby wasn't the one I'd killed.

But my baby—she and Jude had killed that one together.

The first time I was pregnant, I came home so happy, holding the test results.

The moment I opened the door, what I saw was my husband and his newly hired secretary tangled up in my bed.

Back then Jude wasn't like this, wearing that couldn't-care-less face.

He was terrified. He didn't even bother with his clothes, dropped to his knees in front of me, clutching the hem of my dress for dear life, swearing on everything, crying that he'd been wrong, begging me not to leave.

I hemorrhaged and passed out.

While I was unconscious, he took Bridget straight to the hospital for an abortion and had her driven out of Harbor City.

When I woke up, what I saw was my poor baby, not even fully formed.

And that lump of flesh in Bridget's belly.

Now he was taking the very thing he'd done to prove his loyalty and pinning it on me.

I tugged at the corner of my mouth and said calmly,

"Fine. Then let her have it."

His expression locked up completely.

I pressed on.

"What? Or do you want me to nurse her through the month after she gives birth too?"

Jude's brow twitched hard, and there was anger in his voice when he asked,

"If you're so generous, why not let her move in and rest here through the pregnancy?"

I gave him a considerate little smile.

"If that's what you want, of course. It's your home, after all. I can't stop you."

His face went dark in an instant, terrible to look at.

"Alma, are you out of your mind?!"

I raised my brows and looked at him, all blank and puzzled.

"Isn't this what you wanted? I'm giving it to you. So why are you angry?"

Jude looked like the sight of me made him sick. He glared at me for a few seconds, then grabbed his coat and headed for the door.

The moment it slammed shut, the whole apartment shuddered.

The smile dropped off my face at once. I loosened the hand I'd dug into hard enough to leave a bloody welt,

fished out my phone, and messaged the future me.

【Jude has an illegitimate kid out there too. How did you handle it back then?!】

The reply came almost the second I sent it.

【What are you panicking for.】

【As long as nobody runs a paternity test, who's to say whose kid it is?】

【The second that deadbeat husband stops breathing, cremate him right away. Pick the cheapest urn there is, and spend what you save on a bag for yourself.】

I stared at the screen for a few seconds, and the ache that had been swelling in my chest suddenly eased.

Good mood, and my nerve grew right along with it.

【Future me, while you're at it, can you give me a few lottery numbers, or some stock tickers or something?】

【I want to buy a few now.】

A string of exasperated emojis came through, and then a few cryptic codes.

【Don't buy now. Keep the little you've got for insurance and keeping the baby.】

【Once the deadbeat kicks the bucket and the insurance payout and the inheritance land, ease your way in.】

The moment I saw the word "insurance," I bolted upright.

I'd almost forgotten the most important thing.

I pulled up my contacts right away and called my best friend, the one in insurance.

"Sweetie, your next ten years of sales? I'm covering all of it."

She went silent for two seconds, spooked.

"Alma, what set you off?"

I rested a hand on my belly, my tone more generous than it had ever been.

"I want to buy accident insurance for Jude. The highest coverage available, set me up with all of it."

"As long as it's legal and by the book, as long as it pays out, buy as much as you can."

I couldn't wait for Delia Carter to come over, so I had her email me all the contracts to print and sign first.

By the time Delia got there, I'd just signed the last one.

She looked at the thick stack of insurance documents in front of me, then at my face, far too calm, and her eyes went red on the spot.

"Alma, did Jude bully you until you lost your mind?"

She grabbed me and held on, crying harder than me, the one it was actually happening to.

"Jude, that bastard. He swore up and down back then that he'd send her away for good. And now the scum's keeping her stashed away somewhere!"

"Both times he pulled this while you were pregnant! Nobody treats an enemy this cruelly!"

"After everything he's done to you, you're actually buying him insurance, worried something might happen to him?!"

I patted her back gently, my voice so gentle it made even me feel like the perfect wife.

"I've made my peace with it."

"Think of the policy as leaving something behind for my child."

Seeing me like that, Delia flat-out refused to leave me home alone. She insisted on dragging me to a bar to take my mind off things.

But we hadn't been in the booth long when a familiar name drifted over from next door.

"Alma really didn't make a scene this time?"

My hand went still around my glass of juice.

Delia clammed up too and glanced warily toward the wall.

The next booth's door wasn't shut all the way. Through the gap I could see Jude on the couch with his arm around Bridget.

His face was grim, and a few emptied glasses already sat by his hand.

Bridget tugged at him again and again, but couldn't stop him from drinking.

His friends crowded around the two of them, egging them on.

"Nobody does it like you, Jude. Three years ago, when Alma found out you'd cheated, she pulled the whole act—slit her wrists, wanted a divorce so bad she'd rather die."

"You really toughed it out, man. Not only did you get Bridget to have the abortion, you stashed her out in some little town for three whole years. Had to sneak your monthly taste of her every time you went back to visit your folks."

"And to keep Alma sweet, you tattooed her name on your stomach, strapped on an electronic tracker wired straight to her phone so she could check your location anytime she wanted."

"And you still went and broke that stubborn streak of hers, didn't you?"

The group burst out laughing, still heaping praise on Bridget and Jude.

"Our Jude's the richest man in Harbor City now. If I were her, forget just having a man with someone on the side—even if he came home a new groom every single night, I'd be the one showing up at his door with a fertility kit."

"She's got some nerve making a scene. Should've kicked her out with nothing and let her clear off, made room for our Bridget already!"

"Don't talk like that... I don't care about titles anyway."

That was what Bridget said, and yet the smile on her face was pure smugness.

Beside me, my best friend had gone white with fury, her fingers clamped around her glass, shaking with the force of it.

Something in my chest sat somewhere between relief and a dull ache.

So that was it. For three years he'd made the long trip home every single month.

I'd taken it for devotion. Turned out it was all for Bridget.

And the joke of it was, his own parents had gone right along with him, keeping it from me too.

Jude wasn't laughing. His face was dark,

throwing back one glass after another, some restless thing he couldn't name pressed down behind his eyes.

Finally someone caught on that something was off.

"How come you're still not happy? Alma's stopped making trouble, Bridget's pregnant—doesn't this mean you finally get to run both households out in the open?"

"Home fire still burning, banners flying outside too. There's men who'd kill for that and never get it."

Jude set his glass down hard on the table, his voice cold.

"Something's wrong."

The booth went quiet for a beat.

Jude let out a bitter laugh.

"You know what Alma said to me?"

"She said she'd be happy to wait on Bridget through her confinement!"

"I pushed her on it, said if she's so big-hearted, why not just move Bridget into the house to have the baby—and she agreed to that too!"

By the time he said it, his chest was heaving.

"She's out of her mind! Why isn't she angry?"

His friends traded glances, clearly not expecting him to blow up like this over the fact that I'd backed down.

Bridget's little face paled, and she bit down on her lip.

Someone ventured a careful laugh.

"Maybe she just came to her senses once she got pregnant."

"I mean, she's carrying a belly that big now. If she actually divorced, who's going to take on secondhand goods like her?"

"Women, right? However tough their mouths are, the second they've got no way out, they learn to be scared."

Jude shot him one cold look, and the man shut up instantly.

He leaned back into the couch, tapping his knuckle against the glass, one beat after another, his voice low.

"Alma's not that kind of woman. She's hiding something from me."

"This isn't going to just slide by. I'm going to keep testing her. I don't buy that she really feels nothing."

"I want to see what exactly she's up to."

His friends exchanged looks, their expressions turning a little odd.

Someone laughed it off, awkward.

"Never figured you actually cared this much about Alma, Jude."

"Thought you didn't have any feelings left for her at all."

"The hell are you talking about."

Someone beside him cut in at once.

"You know who Jude loves most, don't you? Bridget, obviously!"

By now Bridget couldn't force out a smile at all, her eyes red, her whole face full of resentment.

Jude said nothing, just drank, one glass after another.