Seven years of marriage, and I'd lost count of the women my husband, Justin Wiley, had slept with.

The reason I'd turned a blind eye all this time?

He always threw money at me afterward.

An affair with some influencer? A penthouse in the city center.

A yacht party with young models? A matching yacht, signed over to my name.

He bought off my breakdowns, my questions, my tears—all with his checkbook.

Until I was eight months pregnant, and my baby died inside me. A stillbirth. They had to induce labor to take him out.

I leaned on the housekeeper's arm, barely able to stand, as I shuffled out of my hospital room.

That's when I saw him—in the room next door. Justin, hovering over another woman who'd just given birth, handling her like she was made of glass.

Our eyes met. A flicker of panic crossed his face before the familiar coldness settled back in.

He walked over and held out a blank check.

"Write whatever number you want."

I tore it to shreds.

I looked at him and smiled.

"Justin, I don't want money this time."

My trembling hand rose, pointing past him toward the thin, reedy cry coming from that hospital room.

"I want that child."

1.

"Serena, have you lost your mind?!"

Disbelief was written across every line of Justin's face.

I said it again. "I want that child."

The aftermath of induced labor had left me so weak that every word felt like it was draining the life out of me.

"What the hell are you playing at?" He kept his voice low, hissing. "That's not your child!"

"Your child is gone!"

Yes. My child was gone. Dead.

"Your child," I said softly, "isn't that also my child?"

"Or would you rather the Wiley family's firstborn grandson enter this world branded as a bastard?"

Justin's mouth snapped shut.

He and I had grown up together. Our families went back generations—old money intertwined with old money. The Wiley family and the Sinclair family were both elite households that lived and died by reputation and propriety.

He could play around. He could have his affairs. But a stain on the family name? That was the one thing that would never be tolerated.

On the hospital bed, Davina Fox finally processed what was happening.

She struggled to sit up, her voice shrill: "Justin! You can't give her my baby! This is my only—"

Her only weapon for climbing the ladder.

A woman of her unremarkable background, dreaming of rising through motherhood? Delusional.

I watched Justin's face twist with conflict, and suddenly, the whole scene struck me as grotesquely absurd.

I gathered the last of my strength, shoved him aside, and walked into the room, one agonizing step at a time.

Davina flinched, clutching the swaddled infant tighter against her chest.

"Hello, Third Mistress," I said. "I'm Serena Sinclair. Justin's wife."

I forced my lips into a rigid smile and delivered the truth, syllable by syllable.

"Starting today, I am this child's mother."

I paused, savoring the way her face drained of color, then twisted the knife.

"And you? Your baby was stillborn. Induced labor. Do you understand?"

Those two words—induced labor—I barely whispered them.

But they cut so deep I could hardly breathe.

"NO!"

Davina's scream shattered the air. She grabbed the pillow from behind her and hurled it at me.

"You're lying! This is MY baby! MINE!"

Justin followed me in, his expression pained.

"Justin, you can't let her take our child!" Davina sobbed, reaching for him desperately.

Justin looked at me, caught between two impossible choices.

"Serena..."

I leaned in close and murmured in his ear:

"The Westside land deal... Grandfather cares about it a great deal. And it just so happens to be in my brother's hands."

Justin went rigid.

The Westside land was the Wiley family's most critical strategic asset for the next decade—and Justin's one chance to prove his worth to Old Mr. Wiley.

He whipped around to face me. Fury. Resentment. And beneath it all, a flicker of wariness.

He drew a sharp breath and turned to Davina. "Be reasonable. The child... let Serena raise him. It's the only way to make this legitimate."

I turned to Anne Lambert, my housekeeper.

"Go. Bring that baby to my room."

I stepped out of the ward and dialed my assistant.

"Mia Harper, handle the hospital. This stays between us—no one else finds out. On the birth certificate, there's only one name under 'Mother.' Mine."

Soon, the room next door erupted—shouting, something shattering against the wall, and Davina's raw, gut-wrenching wails.

I looked down at the infant in the bassinet.

He was fast asleep, his tiny lips parting and closing with each breath.

A cold smile tugged at the corner of my mouth.

Justin came to my room every day. Stayed a while. But his body was here; his mind was next door.

His phone screen never stopped lighting up. Message after message from Davina.

"Justin, I miss our baby so much. Can't you make her give him back to me?"

"I don't want anything else. I just want my child."

"Justin, I'm bleeding so much. The doctor says it's postpartum hemorrhaging. Am I going to die?"

Davina knew exactly how to work him.

She never attacked me directly. She just kept circling back to her suffering, her longing for the child.

Making me look heartless by comparison. Cruel.

Every time he read her messages, the crease between his brows deepened. Then he'd mutter some excuse and rush out.

Early one morning, Justin was gone. The nurses and Anne had taken the baby for his checkup.

Davina appeared at my bedside like a ghost. Her eyes glittered with venom.

"Don't think you've won, Serena."

"That unlucky baby of yours? I'm the one who made Justin get rid of it."

"That night, he'd been drinking. Kept calling me, over and over."

"I just... pouted a little. Told him the child in your belly would be an obstacle for me someday."

"Asked him to spend more time with me. Stop revolving around you."

"I didn't expect him to hang up and actually go back to you. What happened after that..."

"Your baby? You just weren't capable of keeping it. Don't blame anyone else."

"You're nothing but a surrogate raising my child. Don't celebrate too soon."

She turned and walked out.

Every word seared into me like a red-hot brand.

So that's how it happened.

I lay there, eyes closed, my hands trembling violently beneath the blanket. Blood crept back through the IV line, staining a section of the clear tube crimson.

I bit down on my lip until the taste of iron flooded my mouth.

I didn't cry. I didn't scream. I just reached over and pulled the needle from my hand.

A bead of blood rolled down the back of my wrist, dripping onto the white sheets—a single, brutal plum blossom.

The door swung open.

Justin walked in.

He froze when he saw the blood on my hand, then strode over and grabbed my wrist.

"Why did you pull out the IV? Have you lost your mind?"

He snatched a cotton ball from the nightstand and pressed it hard against the wound, his brow furrowed. For a moment, he almost looked like he cared.

My whole body shook. I wanted to scream. To demand answers. To lunge at him and tear him apart.

But I had no strength left.

"Just go. Go be with Davina."

"Anne will be back soon. I don't need you here."

From next door came another burst of wailing. Davina, putting on her show again.

Justin bolted toward the door without a second's hesitation.

I called my assistant and told her to process my early discharge immediately.

"Back to the estate."

Time to claim what was mine.

When I appeared at the gates of the Wiley estate with that baby in my arms, the entire family erupted.

Grandparents from both sides, uncles, aunts—everyone swarmed around me.

"Oh, my precious great-grandson!"

Grandmother took the baby from my arms with trembling care, her face splitting into a smile so wide it seemed it might never close.

Grandfather was even more overcome. His hands shook as he looked at me, eyes brimming with approval.

"Serena, well done! You're the greatest contributor to our family!"

I became the family's hero.

Because I had given the four-generation Wiley household its first male heir of the fifth generation.

No one knew that my heart had already died in that cold hospital room, alongside the child I would never hold.

My father-in-law watched the nanny's car pull directly into the garage and frowned. "Where's Justin?"

"Busy, I suppose. I didn't see him at the hospital either."

The elders' rewards were staggering.

Grandfather gave me a seaside villa overlooking Victoria Wiley Harbor. He placed the keys on my nightstand himself.

Grandmother brought out her most treasured jade jewelry—set after set, so green they dazzled the eye.

My father-in-law transferred five percent of Wiley Group's shares into my name, making me the youngest member of the board overnight.

My mother-in-law was the most thoughtful. She gifted me a private island in the Maldives, saying I could go there to recuperate once I'd recovered.

I smiled and accepted everything.

I deserved all of it.

I had paid for it with my child's life.

No one knew that in the deepest corner of my walk-in closet, I had carved out a small space.

There were no designer bags there. No gowns.

Only a small memorial tablet, carved from sandalwood.

It bore no name.

Before it lay a pair of tiny knitted booties I had made with my own hands—booties I would never give to anyone now. And a few heartbreakingly small baby clothes.

Every night, when the house fell silent, I would lock myself in that closet.

I would hold that little tablet, running my fingers over its smooth surface again and again.

Baby, Mommy's here.

Baby, Grandma and Grandpa bought so many toys today. If you were here, you'd have them too.

Baby, do you blame Mommy? Mommy was useless. Mommy couldn't protect you...

I never cried aloud. I just let the tears slide down in silence, soaking into the wood I clutched against my chest.

There was a hole where my heart used to be—a wound that would never heal. Cold wind howled through it endlessly, and the pain made it impossible to breathe.

That was the secret that belonged only to me and my lost child.

Justin returned to the estate too, but he didn't dare come near me.

In front of the entire family, Grandfather jabbed his cane at him and called him a disgrace. I had just "given birth," he thundered, and not only had Justin failed to stay by my side—he'd upset me.

He was made to kneel in the family chapel all night.

He probably couldn't understand it. The Serena who had once loved him to the point of obsession, the one he'd had wrapped around his finger—how had she suddenly become this?

Occasionally, he would come to the bedroom to keep me company. But more often, he went to see the baby.

He would hold the child clumsily, feed him his bottle. And in his eyes, there was something unfamiliar—something that might have been called fatherly love.

One evening, he stood behind me for a long time. Then, finally, he spoke.

"Serena, about that night... I was wrong. I'd had too much to drink."

A pause.

"Davina... she just depends on me too much. Don't hold it against her."