Chapter 1

Three years into our marriage, my husband shredded my positive pregnancy report.

"We agreed on no kids. Did you lie to me?"

He slammed the door and headed straight to another woman's place.

The woman he always called his "little sister," claiming she was stressed over grad school exams and needed someone by her side.

This wasn't the first time he abandoned me.

And he seemed to have completely forgotten that I only got pregnant because he had broken down in tears while drunk, begging me for a baby.

I went through the grueling IVF process just to fulfill his wish.

Because my uterine lining was thin, the doctor had already advised fetal reduction.

Now, I didn't need to worry about that anymore. He wouldn't have to take responsibility for any of them.

I dialed another number. "Dad, I'm ready to come home and take over the company."

Silence lingered on the other end for three seconds. "I've waited three years to hear you say that."

Since he thought having children or not was my original sin, I would take my babies home to inherit the family empire.

From now on, he could play the devoted best friend, and I would be CEO Vance.

"Valerie, have you completely lost your mind?"

Nathan Cross slammed the shredded test results straight into my face, pieces of paper fluttering across the floor.

He stood in the middle of the living room with his collar undone, having just returned from the office without even loosening his tie.

"We agreed on a child-free life, and you sneak behind my back to get pregnant? What the hell do you take me for?"

I knelt down to pick up the scraps, gathering them off the rug one by one. A fragment landed by his shoe, and he deliberately stepped on it.

"Answer me." He looked down at me, his gaze as cold as if he were staring at a complete stranger.

"I didn't sneak behind your back." I stood up, cradling the torn pieces in my palm. "Three months ago, you said you wanted a baby. I was just keeping my promise."

"I said I wanted one, so you just went and did it?" He scowled, his tone dripping with familiar, patronizing impatience. "I was drunk out of my mind that night. You actually took drunken babble seriously?"

I didn't reply.

He took a deep, sharp breath, clearly trying to suppress his temper. Then he grabbed his phone off the coffee table, scrolling through it as he turned toward the door.

"I need some space to clear my head. I'm not coming back tonight."

"Are you going to Chloe's?"

He paused at the entryway without turning around. "Her GRE is next week. She's stressed out, so I'm helping her study."

The front door slammed shut.

I stood frozen in place, the torn paper crushed into a tight ball inside my fist.

My phone buzzed.

It was a message from Chloe Brooks in Nathan's friends' SnapChat group. Someone had added me a while ago, but Chloe didn't know I was in it.

"Nathan is cooking pasta for me right now! Don't be jealous, guys, haha!"

Attached was a photo of a beautifully plated dish of tomato pasta alongside a fruit platter with apples cut into little bunny shapes.

Someone in the group replied, "Isn't your wife at home going to be furious?"

Chloe sent a blushing emoji. "Nathan said we're just friends. I'm practically his little sister!"

I stared at the screen, then set my phone down.

I didn't say a single word in that chat, nor did I leave. It would come in handy later.

The phone rang.

It was Nathan's mother.

"Valerie, Nathan said you pissed him off so badly he stormed out?" Her voice wasn't loud, but every syllable carried a heavy dose of condemnation. "You two had a perfectly fine life. Why on earth did you have to stir up trouble with a pregnancy? You agreed to no kids from the start. Now you're going back on your word. How do you expect him to feel?"

"Mrs. Cross, he was the one who said three months ago that he wanted—"

"He said it, and you took it as gospel? Can anything a man says while drunk ever count? If you don't even have that much emotional intelligence, how can you be a decent wife?"

I stopped trying to explain.

She paused, her tone shifting. "Besides, you're thirty-seven. Even if you conceive, you might not carry to term. If you go through all that hassle and end up with nothing, it'll just be a false alarm. Who takes the blame when your body gets ruined?"

"Mrs. Cross, the doctor said everything is stable."

"Which doctor? Do I know them? Are they reliable? Let me tell you, there are plenty of shady unlicensed clinics out there. Don't go getting scammed."

I took a deep breath. "The head of obstetrics at Saint Jude Medical Center."

Silence hung on the line for two seconds. Then she said something that caught me off guard.

"In that case, send me the medical reports first. I'll have someone look over them."

Have who look over them? Who in her circle was an obstetrician?

She only knew one person—Chloe's cousin, who worked as an OB-GYN nurse.

I didn't call her out. "Fine."

Hanging up, I sank onto the sofa and gently laid my hand over my lower abdomen.

Thirty-seven years old. Triplets. A thin uterine wall. A doctor advising fetal reduction.

I had been wrestling with whether to reduce to twins or a single baby.

Now, there was no need to agonize over it.

I was going home. My father had more than enough money to raise them all.

Three babies.

He wouldn't have to take responsibility for a single one.