: The Divorce Agreement

The night I found out I was pregnant, my husband stayed out all night with his old flame.

So, I quickly packed my bags, signed the divorce papers, and walked away without a second thought.

'Besides, you don't have to be married to get a birth certificate for your kid anymore.'

'The single life, raising a baby after we split the assets... Doesn't that sound amazing?'

1

Just last night, my test results came back. I was five weeks pregnant, and I texted my husband right away to tell him the news.

But he didn't text back or come home all night.

The next day, I was scrolling through my social media feed when I saw a photo someone had posted.

My husband and another woman were sitting right in the center. He had a faint, tender smile on his lips—a look I rarely saw.

I knew the woman, too. She was my husband, Stellan Lancaster's, first love and his old flame, Serena Shaw.

I had pursued Stellan Lancaster for four years. The year she left for Paris, France, to chase her dream of studying ballet was the year I finally married him.

We were married for three years. On the very night I found out I was pregnant, she came back, and Stellan Lancaster's heart ran right back to her.

'How ironic.'

'You'd think after all these years, even a heart of stone would have warmed up.'

I stared at the post, my heart aching. It felt like it had been torn into a million pieces, which were then stomped into the ground and ignored.

I took a deep breath, staring at the group photo. Then I closed my eyes and made up my mind.

I stopped myself from bombarding Stellan Lancaster with messages. Instead, I quietly liked the post, my way of saying, 'Message received.'

Then, I had my lawyer draw up divorce papers and send them over.

I packed a suitcase while I waited.

The lawyer arrived, but Stellan Lancaster was still a no-show.

I quickly signed the papers, left them on the dining table, and walked out with my suitcase.

Since I was pregnant, I figured I wouldn't be able to fit into my clothes for much longer. So, I decided not to take a single item.

You don't need to be married to get a birth certificate these days. I rubbed my still-flat stomach, where my baby was growing, and started wondering where I should buy a house to raise them.

Stellan Lancaster is very rich, and he didn't make me sign a prenup when we got married. By law, that means I'm entitled to half of all assets acquired during the marriage.

In the three years since we married, his net worth had skyrocketed to five billion dollars. Even if I only got one-tenth of that, my child and I could live a life of leisure.

I decided to wait until the dust settled before telling my parents about the divorce. In the meantime, I went to a five-star hotel and checked in using his card.

'After the divorce, I'll be a wealthy woman. Money won't be an issue.'

Dragging my small suitcase, I slowly made my way to Aethelburg's grandest five-star hotel to check in.

Just then, Stellan Lancaster finally called.

'He must have gone home and seen the divorce papers.'

"What kind of stunt are you pulling now?"

The first words out of his mouth were impatient and tinged with exhaustion. "I've been up all night. I don't have time for your games."

The me of yesterday would have instantly felt sorry for him, not even asking why he'd pulled an all-nighter. My anger would have evaporated, and I would have scurried right back to his side to take care of him.

But after seeing that post, I was no longer willing to be his lapdog wife.

"I already signed the divorce papers. They're on the table. Just sign them and send them to the lawyer to be processed."

My voice was unusually calm. He didn't take me seriously, so I wasn't going to care about him anymore.

But, as I expected, Stellan Lancaster didn't believe I would actually divorce him. He completely ignored my words and simply said, "I'll have Hao Nian come pick you up. I have a meeting to get to."

2

'In his dreams!'

Without a word, I hung up on him.

For the first time in my life, I was the one to hang up first.

But my heart wouldn't stop aching. The pain was so intense that not even the king-size bed in this five-star, $800-a-night hotel room could soothe it.

Tears streamed from the corners of my eyes, soaking the pillow. I looked up at the lavish ceiling and silently made myself a promise. 'This is the last time I'll ever cry for Stellan Lancaster.'

Maybe it was the pregnancy making me sleep more, but after I cried myself out, I ended up sleeping for the entire day. It wasn't until five in the afternoon that hunger finally woke me.

When I woke up, I saw I had over a dozen missed calls.

'Could it be from Stellan Lancaster?'

I unlocked my phone to check, only to find they were from Holden Lancaster, Stellan Lancaster's younger brother.

I gave a self-deprecating laugh. 'I really overestimated my place in Stellan Lancaster's heart. As if he would ever call me more than ten times.'

RING! My phone rang again. It was still Holden Lancaster calling.

"Elara Everhart, where the hell have you been? I've been looking for you all afternoon and couldn't find you," Holden Lancaster yelled the moment I answered.

'But I just saw that all thirteen calls came within the last ten minutes,' I thought. 'How could he have been looking for me all afternoon?'

'Stellan Lancaster probably told him to look for me this morning, and he's only just now remembering to do it.'

'So now he's in a panic, bombarding me with calls.'

He had absolutely no respect for me, his sister-in-law.

In fact, the group photo I saw on my feed this morning was posted by Holden Lancaster himself.

"Don't bother looking for me. I've already signed the divorce papers. Just make sure you tell your brother to sign them." When I was with Stellan Lancaster, I'd spared no effort trying to please everyone around him.

Especially with his good-for-nothing, hot-tempered brother, Holden Lancaster. I always spoke to him gently, never arguing, and would even point out his rare good qualities to praise him in front of the Lancasters.

But for some reason, he was always deeply hostile toward me and never showed me a shred of kindness.

"You've been threatening to get a divorce for ages. If you actually leave my brother, I'll be your damn dog!" Holden Lancaster sneered, sounding even more convinced than Stellan Lancaster that I was just bluffing.

On my end of the line, I silently rolled my eyes and said coldly, "Even dogs would find you disgusting, Holden Lancaster. Go be some other animal; don't bring shame on their kind."

With that, I hung up on him and, while I was at it, blocked the contact information for every single member of the Lancaster family.

However, my jab at Holden Lancaster sent him into a rage. He went straight to a group chat we shared with many mutual friends and blabbed about my divorce from Stellan Lancaster.

Holden Lancaster: [Elara Everhart's making a scene about divorcing my brother again.]

Holden Lancaster: [I told her she could never leave my brother, that I'd be her dog if she did, and she cursed me out, saying even dogs would find me disgusting!]

Holden Lancaster: [I'll be the bookie. Taking bets now. I say she comes crawling back to our house in less than three days.]

: Pregnant?

3

The group chat lit up over his message, and everyone started placing bets on when I would go back to Stellan Lancaster.

Some bet it would be a week, others half a month, and some a full month. The stakes were a series of luxury cars, priceless bottles of wine, or a six-figure sum in cash.

I silently watched as the chat flooded with messages. Someone even asked me directly, telling me to give them a timeframe so they could place a better bet.

I knew most of the people in the group, but only because of Stellan Lancaster.

Every last one of them was a scion of Aethelburg's rich and powerful elite.

This pack of playboy heirs had no concept of respect. Or perhaps, it was just me, Elara Everhart, that they didn't respect.

I wasn't from Aethelburg. I'd only come here for university, where I fell in love with Stellan Lancaster, and I only stayed after we got married.

In Aethelburg, the Lancasters were one of the most prominent families. But thanks to Stellan Lancaster's efforts, they had become number one by a landslide in recent years, making them the richest family in the city.

Yet, as his wife, I could never quite fit into the high-society circle that revolved around the Lancasters. I was always an outsider.

Now, I was finally on the inside, but only as the butt of their jokes.

I was serious about leaving Stellan Lancaster. Instead of arguing in the group chat, I simply left it. Then, one by one, I deleted all of their contacts. I discarded them all, just like taking out the trash.

When I was finished, the only people left on my contact list were good friends from before college and a handful of acquaintances from Aethelburg.

'Seven years in Aethelburg, and I'd wasted them all. Apart from a diploma, I had nothing to show for it.'

I married Stellan Lancaster right after graduation. The Lancasters didn't like their daughter-in-law to be in the public eye, wanting me to stay home to be a wife and mother, so I never got a job. I'd even thought it was a blessing that Stellan Lancaster let me be a freeloader.

But now, free from Stellan Lancaster, I was only just realizing that I didn't have a social circle of my own.

None of this affected my appetite, though. I ordered a Michelin-starred dinner from the hotel and ate until my stomach was round and full. With nothing better to do, I went for a walk in a nearby park, slowly rubbing my belly with one hand and supporting my lower back with the other.

I didn't expect to run into them, but as fate would have it, I came across Serena Shaw and Stellan Lancaster.

The two of them were strolling shoulder to shoulder along a park path, laughing and talking. The handsome man and the beautiful woman made for a perfect picture.

"Oh! Ellie? Long time no see!" Serena Shaw spotted me in surprise as she turned to speak to Stellan Lancaster, and she waved enthusiastically.

As she spoke, her eyes scanned me from head to toe, as if sizing me up. After a moment, a smile spread across her face. "You've gained a little weight," she said. "Your face is fuller. So cute."

If she had called me fat before, I would have been absolutely mortified.

Compared to Serena Shaw, with her perfectly toned ballerina's body, I felt like a telephone pole. I wouldn't call myself fat, but I was definitely a little soft around the edges.

But now, I didn't care. 'If I don't eat more,' I thought, 'my baby will starve.'

When I didn't answer, Serena Shaw let out a soft laugh. She pointed a finger at the way I was holding my stomach and back. "Ellie," she said, her tone probing, "are you... pregnant?"