Chapter 1

My husband, Dylan, and I had agreed to be childfree.

To make sure of it, he had gotten a vasectomy years ago.

Yet in the third year of our marriage, I suddenly collapsed at work.

At the hospital, the doctor told me I was pregnant.

Dylan stood out in the hallway for a long time, gripping the test results.

When he finally walked into the room, his eyes were bloodshot.

"Whose baby is it?" he asked.

I froze, completely stunned.

"It's yours, of course! What are you talking about?"

Dylan didn't yell. He didn't start an argument.

He even came with me to my early prenatal checkups, but with every passing day, he looked more hollow, more exhausted.

At seven weeks, I was in a car accident and suffered a miscarriage.

It broke my heart completely.

Yet Dylan looked like a massive weight had been lifted off his chest.

His energy returned almost instantly.

Then came the day a nurse wheeled me down the hall to have my dressings changed.

Through the ajar door of the stairwell, I saw Dylan stop my attending doctor.

He asked, "Can we run a paternity test on the fetal tissue from the miscarriage?"

A chill ran straight down my spine.

In that instant, the brutal reality hit me: Dylan had never once believed the child was his.

After the procedure, I lay curled up in my hospital bed.

The agonizing grief of losing the baby, paired with the raw physical pain, made tears stream down my face nonstop.

That afternoon, the nurse wheeled me down the corridor for a dressing change.

As we passed by, I saw Dylan pull my doctor into the stairwell.

I motioned for the nurse to pause near the door. Through the gap, I heard Dylan's strained voice:

"Excuse me, Doctor... I want to run a paternity test using the aborted fetal tissue. What's the process for that?"

The doctor's response was completely flat and professional.

"Mr. Miller, a paternity test on post-miscarriage tissue requires signed consent from both you and your wife."

"Given that your wife just suffered a traumatic loss and surgical intervention, I strongly advise against—"

Whatever else the doctor said was drowned out by the roaring in my ears. Seeing my pale face, the nurse quickly wheeled me back into my room.

Minutes dragged by like hours.

Finally, Dylan walked in, followed by a nurse holding a clipboard.

I looked up at him, suddenly finding his face completely unrecognizable.

He avoided my gaze.

"Nora, I... I can't force myself not to care whose child it was."

"Since the baby is already gone, let's just do the paternity test."

"Whatever the result is, at least we can finally move forward."

With that, he handed me a consent form.

"The doctor said you need to sign this."

Before he could stumble through any more excuses, I took the clipboard and pen from his hands.

Flipping directly to the signature page, my hand shook as I scrawled my name across the line.

"Is that enough?"

"Is there anything else you need me to comply with?"

My voice was barely a whisper, thick with tears I refused to let fall.

Dylan stared at me, the rest of his rehearsed speech instantly catching in his throat.

"Nora, I..."

"Is this finally over?" I pressed, enduring the stabbing pain in my abdomen.

Dylan remained silent.

The nurse looked at Dylan, then glanced back at me with quiet sympathy.

Once Dylan finished signing his portion, she took the clipboard.

"The tissue will be transferred to the genetic forensics lab, and the genetics center will review the parental markers. It typically takes seven business days."

Snapping out of his daze, Dylan urgently asked, "Does the genetic review require another blood draw from me? Is the sample size sufficient? Could the tissue have been contaminated?"

The doctor, who had walked in behind the nurse, gave Dylan a cold look.

"Everything will be handled according to standard clinical protocol. Your wife just came out of surgery. Let her rest."

The door clicked shut.

Dylan walked over and sat on the edge of the bed, gently pulling the blanket over my bare feet.

"Dylan, once the results come back, let's get a divorce."

I closed my eyes, my breathing shallow.

His hands froze on the blanket. "I never said I wanted a divorce."

"I just need an answer."

I cleared my tight throat. "Well, I'm the one who doesn't want this marriage anymore."

"These past weeks have been pure agony for both of us."

Dylan sat in silence for a long while before whispering, "Let's talk about this later. You just had surgery. It's not the right time."

"I mean it," I emphasized.

"I know you're upset, Nora, but you don't have to say hurtful things right now. Focus on recovering first."

Always the same response.

Ever since he found out I was pregnant, he had convinced himself that every defense I offered was just defensive, emotional lashing out.

And every humiliating question he asked was supposedly just in pursuit of "the truth."

As the anesthesia completely wore off, the cramps in my lower belly intensified into sharp waves.

Seeing cold sweat bead on my forehead, Dylan tried his best to soothe me while hurrying to fetch a doctor for painkillers.

His voice was gentle, his touch attentive.

For a fleeting second, it felt like we were back in college when we first fell in love.

Back then, whenever I had a fever, he would stay by my bedside all night, feeding me warm soup and making sure I was comfortable.

Back then, someone had generated a malicious, explicit deepfake video using my face and sent it to Dylan to break us up.

He hadn't hesitated for a second. He stood by me, held my hand, and went straight to the police station to file a report.

Yet now, when I was actually pregnant with his child, he was utterly convinced I had cheated.

And even with our baby gone, his first thought was to extract its tissue for a paternity test.

Exhaustion pulled me into a fitful, feverish sleep. By the time I woke up, it was eight in the evening. Dylan wasn't in the room.

From outside the cracked door, I heard the sharp, familiar voice of his childhood friend, Victoria.

"The fetus was seven weeks along. Theoretically, a DNA test is possible. But with samples from such an early stage, degradation is common, and the results aren't always conclusive."

Dylan's voice was low and heavy. "Is there any way to guarantee an accurate result? Cost is not an issue."

Victoria scoffed playfully. "Since when do you talk money with me? If there was a way, wouldn't I have done it already?"

"Honestly, the fact that Nora signed the consent so easily might mean the kid really was yours. Or maybe she already talked to another doctor and knows an early sample might come back inconclusive."

A long silence followed before Dylan answered, "Nora isn't like that. She just lost a baby. Stop making assumptions."

"Right, so now I'm the villain here."

Victoria let out an irritated sigh. "Growing up, every single time someone messed with you, who was the one who had your back? Nora sheds two tears and suddenly you're snapping at me! It's not like I forced you two to get tested."

A moment later, the sharp click of high heels approached, and the door was pushed open.

Victoria walked in carrying a food container. Seeing my eyes open, she paused mid-step.

"You heard?"

She didn't even bother pretending.

That was very Victoria.

"I heard," I said coldly.

Victoria set the container down and shot Dylan a glaring look. "I told you to close the door properly!"

Dylan's face darkened. "You should head home."

Victoria slammed the container onto the bedside table. "I spent two hours cooking fresh broth for you guys and brought it all the way over here. I don't even get a thank you, just get kicked out?"

She turned on her heel, stopping at the door to look back at me. "Nora, our lab ran the analysis twice. You know Dylan's condition better than anyone."

I stared straight into her eyes. "Splitting a single blood draw into two vials and running them through the same machine counts as 'two separate tests' to you?"

Victoria's expression shifted slightly.

"The results were identical. What's the difference?"

"You looked at one sample twice, yet you deliberately phrased it as two independent evaluations."

I watched her carefully. "Dylan believed you. And because of that, he convinced himself I cheated, to the point of denying his own child."

Dylan stepped forward and placed a hand on my trembling shoulder.

"Lie back down, Nora."

I shoved his hand away with every ounce of strength I had left.

Victoria bit her lip, standing in the doorway with an air of injured innocence. "I was only trying to help. If you insist on treating me like the enemy, fine, be my guest!"

"Victoria," Dylan called after her. "Send me the full, uncropped lab report."

She glared at him. "I sent it days ago. If you didn't bother reading the attachments, that's on you!"

The door slammed shut behind her.

Dylan pulled out his phone and brought up the image Victoria had sent. The screenshot was tightly cropped, cutting off right after the line: No target markers detected in paternal peripheral blood.

Whatever text had been underneath was completely hidden.

He placed the phone face down on the table. "I'll go down to the records department and pick up the official paper copy myself tomorrow."

"Why didn't you go today?"

He looked at me, unable to form a reply.

Because in his mind, he already had his answer today.

His wife had gotten pregnant despite his vasectomy, and his semen analyses had consistently shown zero sperm count.

To him, there was nothing left to double-check.