Even on our anniversary—a date he'd remembered without fail for twenty years.

Jewelry. Designer bags. Every gift had once been proof of our love, trophies I'd shown off with pride.

Now they were just evidence of how thoroughly Duke had deceived me.

My mother noticed me wasting away and assumed we'd had a fight.

"Delilah, every couple bickers now and then."

"I know that boy. You're the only one in his heart. Just be patient with him."

I lowered my gaze, terrified she'd see the tears threatening to spill.

Patient?

How do you forgive betrayal?

The door swung open. Duke walked in carrying a fruit basket.

He peeled an apple for my mother with practiced ease, his voice warm and gentle—as if nothing had happened.

"Mom, Delilah's just throwing a little tantrum. I'm here to take her home."

He even pulled Brandon forward, addressing my mother in her hospital bed. "Once you're feeling better, we'll all visit Grandma's grave together—the three of us."

My mother's face lit up. She waved me off. "Stop being stubborn. Go home with Duke."

Under her hopeful gaze, I extended my hand and let him take it.

His palm was warm. It felt like a viper coiling around my wrist.

The moment we stepped into the hallway, he dropped my hand like it burned.

"Delilah." His voice went flat. "For your mother's sake, I won't divorce you."

"But you will behave. You'll treat Brandon as your own son."

I lifted my chin. "Duke, it's not like I can't have children."

He laughed.

"Actually, you can't."

Every muscle in my body locked.

He watched me with detached calm.

"Last month, during your appendectomy? I had the surgeon remove your fallopian tubes while he was in there."

"You will never have a child of your own."

The world tilted. Ice flooded my veins, freezing me from the inside out.

Duke stepped closer. He reached up and stroked my hair—the same tender gesture he'd made a thousand times before.

"I want to spend my life with you, Delilah. I really do."

"But I can't gamble on human nature."

"This way, you'll have no choice but to pour all your love into Brandon."

Something inside me shattered. I pointed at the boy slouched against the wall, absorbed in his phone.

"For him?" My voice cracked. "You did this for him?"

Duke nodded.

"I have to take responsibility for my mistakes. That girl back then—I lied to her too."

I couldn't breathe. An invisible fist had closed around my heart and was squeezing, squeezing.

Duke pulled me into his arms.

"I love you, Delilah. That's why I'm telling you the truth instead of hiding it."

"Let's just go back to how things were. Live our lives. Isn't that enough?"

In that embrace—the one I'd once craved more than anything—I felt myself suffocating.

His lips brushed my ear.

"There's a new targeted therapy overseas. It could really help your mother. But it's expensive."

"Be good for me, and I'll find a way to pay for it. Okay?"

I couldn't tell if I was exhausted or destroyed. Either way, I nodded.

I became exactly what Duke wanted: the obedient wife, the devoted mother.

I cleaned Brandon's room. Washed his clothes. Cooked his favorite meals.

Duke was pleased. On weekends, he'd take us out together—the picture-perfect family of three.

He thought I'd surrendered.

He didn't know about the medical report tucked safely in my purse. The one diagnosing him with azoospermia.

I carried it with me everywhere. Every single day.

Brandon saved his cruelty for when Duke wasn't watching.

He spat in my soup. Ground his new sneakers into my skirt. Waited until I'd finished mopping to spill juice across the floor.

I cleaned it up without a flicker of expression.

Duke saw what happened. His only response was, "He's still a kid. Cut him some slack."

I knew Duke—he'd always been emotionally distant.

It wasn't really about making it up to Brandon. He was trying to make it up to the abandoned child he'd once been.

Watching him shower Brandon with attention every day, I felt a twisted flicker of satisfaction.

That boy wasn't even his son.

Duke lied to me. I lied to him.

Twenty years together, and we were both losers.

But Brandon kept pushing boundaries.

Until one evening, I stepped out of the bathroom—and there he was, blocking the doorway, eyes crawling over me.

He let out a low whistle. "Not bad for an old lady. Still got it."

My stomach lurched.

This wasn't a child's prank anymore.

When I told Duke, he barely looked up.

"He's just a kid. How could he mean anything by it? You're overthinking."

I couldn't take it anymore. Sitting at my mother's hospital bedside, the words finally spilled out. "Mom, I want a divorce."

Her hand trembled in mine.

She looked at my hollow cheeks, and her eyes reddened.

"Is it because I'm a burden?"

I shook my head, but the tears came anyway.

She gripped my hand so hard it hurt. Each word landed like a verdict.

"Then go. Divorce him."

"My daughter deserves better than this."

"Don't worry about me. I can hold on."

I wrapped my arms around her and finally let myself sob.

This pointless game of revenge—I was done playing.

I took out the diagnosis report, ready to end things with Duke once and for all.

But the moment I stepped outside the apartment complex, a van screeched to a stop in front of me.

Rough hands dragged me inside before I could scream.

Brandon sat in the back, grinning. He jerked his chin at his friends—bleach-blond punks with hungry eyes.

"My stepmom here's a little past her prime, but she's still got that something, right?"

"Consider this your lucky day, boys. Enjoy."

He'd come prepared. There was even a camera.

"Get it all on film," he said. "Let's see if she still has the nerve to spend my dad's money after this."

Ice flooded my veins.

I fought like a trapped animal.

In the chaos, I wrenched the camera from his grip and smashed it into his skull with everything I had.

The van door flew open.

Duke lunged inside.

For one desperate second, I thought I'd been saved.

Then his palm cracked across my face.

He grabbed a fistful of my hair, dragging my head back. "Why did you hurt Brandon?!"

I hit the ground hard, clothes torn, body shaking.

When I looked up, Brandon was cradling his hand. Blood seeped between his fingers—a thin cut from the camera's edge.

His little gang had already scattered like rats.

"He kidnapped me!" The words tore out of my throat.

Duke shoved Brandon behind him like a shield.

"He's a child! He's not capable of something like that!"

"You can't have kids, and it's eating you alive—but that doesn't give you the right to take it out on him!"

"He's my only family! My own flesh and blood!"

"Touch him again, and I swear to God, you'll regret it!"

I sat on the cold pavement, and suddenly—I laughed.

Laughed until the tears streamed down my face.

"Duke. Let's get divorced."

He went still.

He'd never expected those words from me—the wife who'd always yielded, always stayed quiet.

The silence stretched. Finally, he nodded.

"Fine."

He turned to leave, then paused.

"I thought you understood me, Delilah."

I limped to the hospital alone.

Cleaned my own wounds. Called a lawyer that same night.

One week later, the papers were signed.

I packed what little we had, lifted my mother into her wheelchair, and left the city where I'd spent my entire life.

We headed south, to a small town where the sun was warm and no one knew our names.

Before I left, I mailed the signed divorce papers to Duke—along with his infertility diagnosis.

At the office, Duke was walking Brandon through company operations.

"Dad, you're amazing," Brandon said, all wide-eyed innocence. "I hope I can be just like you someday."

Duke smiled. "One day, all of this will be yours."

But even as he said it, his mind drifted.

This company still bore Delilah's fingerprints everywhere. She'd built it alongside him, brick by brick. Twenty-some years—her mark was etched into every corner of this place. Into him.

But now, there was no going back.

He'd regretted confessing the affair.

He'd never regretted choosing Brandon. Not once.

That was his son. His own flesh and blood.

His secretary entered with a package from Delilah. Duke waved dismissively. "Just handle it."

Then came the sharp intake of breath. "Mr. Delgado, you need to see this."

"It's just the divorce papers," Duke said, not bothering to look up. "No need for theatrics—"

The words died in his throat.

The infertility diagnosis stared back at him like a branding iron, searing through every excuse he'd ever constructed.

His hands shook as he gripped the thin sheet of paper.