Chapter 2

As I packed my luggage, laughter floated through the door from the hallway.

"Don't worry, Cecilia. I promise you, Evelyn will only ever be his legal guardian on paper. I’ll make sure the boy knows you are his real mother. Evelyn will never replace you."

The words struck like jagged glass scraping across my raw heart.

A year ago, over Christmas break, I drove twelve hours through a blizzard to surprise my husband.

When the front door swung open, Cecilia stood there, her pregnant belly on full display. She frowned and asked who I was and what business I had in her home.

Before I could wonder if I had entered the wrong apartment, Julian walked out of the bedroom.

The moment his eyes met mine, there was no joy—only sheer, paralyzed terror.

"Evelyn? W-weren't you supposed to be up in the mountains? Why are you back?"

Cecilia didn't panic. Instead, she offered me a patronizing smile.

"Oh, Evelyn. We wanted to keep this quiet for a bit longer, but since you’re already here, I suppose there’s no hiding it. I’m Cecilia. The baby in my belly belongs to your husband..."

Her lips kept moving, but everything turned into white noise.

Julian had broken every vow. He had fathered a child behind my back.

My mother died weeping, begging for a grandchild, yet Julian sneered at her deathbed, claiming he hated kids. But for this woman, he threw his sacred promises out the window!

Blinded by fury, I tackled Cecilia to the floor, clawing and screaming, venting months of betrayal and anguish. In that moment, I wanted both of them dead.

Julian shoved me off her and called 911 without hesitation.

When the police pinned me to the floor, they quickly determined it was a messy domestic dispute, urging us to settle it privately.

Yet Julian’s parents rushed in, screaming at the deputies to lock me up for assault and breach of peace just to "teach me a lesson."

They cooed over Cecilia and rushed her to the ER, while I was hauled into county jail, locked away in a freezing cell for seven miserable days.

That was the moment I realized I no longer had a home.

My life had been stolen by someone else.

My child-free husband fathered her child.

My in-laws worshipped her as the golden daughter-in-law.

Only I was kept in the dark, a disposable clown.

A week later, Julian begrudgingly showed up to bail me out.

"Stop throwing tantrums, Evelyn. Cecilia is sick. She’s dying. All I wanted was to give her a piece of this world before she leaves. She’s even willing to share motherhood with you. Why can’t you show a shred of her grace?"

I kept my face buried in the shadows of the precinct lobby, my voice hoarse. "When my mother was dying, why didn't you offer to give her a grandchild?"

Julian froze, unable to answer.

I already knew the answer.

I didn't leave with him. I had no home to return to.

Then, an internet nightmare exploded overnight. A local teenage student posted a viral video accusing me of grooming and coercing him into an inappropriate relationship, complete with doctored doorbell footage of me leaving his house late at night—a night I had merely given him free tutoring.

No matter how I begged and explained, the public crucified me.

Cruel comments flooded social media. Julian publicly called me a monster. His parents spat on my family name.

I spent an entire year behind bars, enduring the stigma of a predator.

It wasn't until my pro-bono defense attorney uncovered text messages proving the student had been bribed that the charges were dropped, my name was cleared, and my teaching credentials were reinstated.

Julian stepped into the guest room, pulling me from my memories.

"Good to see you're finally cooperating. Once you’re done packing, sleep in the study. Cecilia and I need the master bedroom to nurse the baby."

"Cecilia... doesn't have much time left. There's no point in being jealous of a dying woman. I just want her final days to be filled with happiness..."

I cut him off with a chilling glare, grabbing my bag and walking toward the study. Cheating was cheating.

Late that night, just as exhaustion dragged me toward sleep, sickening moans leaked through the thin drywall of the master bedroom.

"Julian... be gentler... the walls are thin."

"Isn't that even better?"

"You're awful... keep it down, you'll wake the baby."

Happiness, indeed.

Sleeping with my husband right next door, purposefully making sure I heard every gasp.

Julian, you really have no soul.