First Marriage Failed, Second Marriage was SweetChapter 1

The fake heiress, June Fox, pushed me down the stairs while I was pregnant.

I collapsed in a pool of my own blood, feeling the life inside me slipping away, tears streaming from the pain.

And my husband, Patrick Harding, was wiping the tears of the woman trembling in his arms, murmuring soft words of comfort.

"Don't look. It's ugly. Are you hurt anywhere?"

Because the best window for emergency treatment was missed, I could never carry a child again.

Patrick shrugged it off like it was nothing.

"So you can't have kids. It's not like you're dying."

From the day we started dating, through our wedding, to now, eight full years. He knew better than anyone how much I loved children.

And he had stripped me of the right to ever be a mother.

Three days later, I stumbled home in a daze.

On the master bedroom sheets, there was a half-dried stain. It was obvious. They'd had sex in my marriage bed.

I shut the bedroom door. Something inside me went quiet for good. I dialed a number I hadn't touched in years. "I agree. I'll honor our arrangement.Leave him and marry you."

——

"Serena Abbott, the divorce papers and the resignation letter are both ready. Are you really going through with this?"

My closest friend handed me the two documents, her eyes full of reluctance and confusion, a sigh caught in her throat.

She had been there since I was brought back to Graystone City. She'd witnessed every chapter of my love story with Patrick.

I took the papers. Eight years of my life, condensed into two thin sheets. Almost laughably light.

I nodded, firm. "Yes."

I was going back to Havenport. My adoptive parents were still waiting for me to come home.

I turned and walked out, carrying those two sheets of paper straight to Harding Group, all the way up to the top floor.

Patrick looked up when I came in, mildly surprised, a crease of irritation forming between his brows.

"Why did you check yourself out? Are you feeling better? I've been swamped. That's the only reason I haven't come to see you."

"You don't need to rush back to work. Your only priority right now is recovering. You know that, right?"

Swamped. Not swamped. He simply didn't care enough. He'd been too busy taking care of June Fox.

I smiled and said nothing. I slid the papers across the desk toward him.

"Sign these."

Patrick's gaze dropped. His pupils contracted, an involuntary reflex.