Chapter 3

After seeing Ethan’s mother off, I felt as if all the strength had been drained out of my body.

The nurse adjusted my IV, and the attending doctor gave me another painkiller shot. Soon, I fell into a heavy, hazy sleep.

I did not know how long I had slept when a familiar voice suddenly came from outside the hospital room.

“Is Lily hospitalized because she is about to give birth?”

My eyes snapped open, and my breath caught slightly.

It was Ethan.

I stared blankly at the ceiling, and for a moment, I thought I was dreaming.

Six years ago, he hated me to the bone.

On the day we broke up, he knelt in front of me, his eyes red, begging me again and again.

“Lily, tell me. Did I do something wrong? I will change. I will change anything.”

I bit my lip hard and did not dare look into his eyes.

At that time, fluid had already begun collecting in my abdomen, and my lower belly had started to bulge slightly.

I lowered my head, touched my stomach, hardened my heart, and said to him,

“I am already pregnant with another man’s child.”

He stared blankly at my stomach, and the color drained from his face little by little.

After a long time, he finally asked in a hoarse voice,

“When did it happen?”

I forced myself to lift the corners of my mouth.

“I got together with him not long after I met him.”

“He has more money than you, more ability than you, and a better future than you.”

“Ethan, I never planned to suffer with you.”

Every word was like a knife stabbing into my heart.

After he heard it, he turned and left.

I watched his back, and my tears would not stop falling.

From then on, he treated me as the person he hated most.

Whenever someone mentioned my name in front of him, he would cut them off with a cold face.

“Do not mention her. Just hearing her name makes me sick.”

Later, on the day he went abroad, I still secretly went to the airport.

Through the crowd, he saw me.

But right in front of me, he only smashed the couple rings we had bought together and the phone full of our photos hard onto the ground, then turned and boarded the plane without looking back again.

I had always thought that in this lifetime, he would never take the initiative to see me again.

But I never expected that he would actually come to the hospital.

With his fiancée, Susie.

Susie was already three months pregnant.

So he had brought her here for a prenatal checkup.

Her gaze landed on my high, swollen abdomen, and her eyes lit up as she smiled and walked a few steps closer.

“Ms. Bennett, are you here to wait for delivery too?”

I instinctively tugged down my hospital gown, wanting to cover my swollen abdomen.

Before I could speak, Susie gently stroked her own belly and smiled with a face full of happiness.

“This is my first pregnancy, so I do not understand anything.”

“I heard from Ethan that you have given birth to quite a few children over the past six years.”

“You must have a lot of experience, right?”

I clenched the corner of the blanket tightly, and my knuckles slowly turned pale.

Ethan stood to the side, his indifferent gaze falling on my stomach as a mocking curve lifted at the corner of his mouth.

“Exactly.”

“Since you have so much experience, teach Susie.”

“After all, she is not like certain people who can casually get pregnant with another man’s child.”

Susie seemed not to notice the atmosphere and still looked completely serious.

“Ms. Bennett, is late pregnancy especially hard?”

“Do you sleep badly at night?”

“And giving birth, does it really hurt?”

“By the way, where is your husband?”

She looked around, and besides the doctor and nurse, there was no one else in the room.

A trace of surprise flashed in her eyes.

“Why is he not here with you?”

Ethan scoffed.

“What other reason could there be?”

“Of course he does not want her anymore.”

“For someone like her, it is already lucky if anyone is willing to take responsibility once.”

I slowly lowered my head.

My hand gently covered my high, swollen belly.

My eyes turned red little by little.

There had once...

Really been a child living there.

That was the last piece of good news the doctor told me before chemotherapy.

He said I was pregnant.

It was also bad news.

The tumor had spread too quickly, and the baby was developing slowly.

Everyone told me to terminate the pregnancy immediately, but I held my belly and wanted to keep the child.

Unfortunately, in the end, my child with him was still lost because of my illness.

The baby became a pool of blood.

I cried so hard I could not say a complete sentence.

I lost him.

And I also lost the chance to ever become a mother.

And now, what was swollen high in my abdomen was not a child.

It was only more than ten pounds of malignant ascites that could never be fully drained.

But I could not say a single word of this.

I raised my head and forced out a smile.

“Pregnancy... is indeed very hard.”

“I hope your child can be born safely and smoothly.”

At that moment, my best friend Zoey came in carrying fruit, and when she saw Ethan and Susie, her face changed.

Her lips and teeth trembled several times before she roared one sentence at Ethan.

“Fuck you. You and your mother are both shameless as hell!”

“Do you even know that Lily, Lily she...”

Hearing her choked voice, my heart tightened sharply, and I propped myself up to sit. “Zoey, I will tell them myself.”