A Wife's Undeniable Scars

After seven years of marriage and a heartbreaking miscarriage, the two pink lines on the pregnancy test felt like a miracle. I couldn't wait to tell my husband, Drake, the man who had held me through every painful infertility treatment.

On my way to find him, I saw him in a park with a woman and a little boy. The boy, who looked just like him, ran up and shouted, "Daddy."

The woman was Kiana, the crazy stalker who'd "accidentally" pushed me down the stairs five years ago, causing my first miscarriage.

The son was four years old.

My entire marriage, all the nights he held me while I cried over our lost child-it was all a lie. He had a secret family with the very woman who caused our pain.

I couldn't understand. Why put me through seven years of hell trying for a baby he already had? He called me "stupidly in love," a fool he could easily deceive while he lived his double life.

But the truth was far worse. When his mistress staged her own kidnapping and blamed me, he had me abducted and beaten, thinking I was a stranger.

As I lay bound on a warehouse floor, he kicked me in the stomach, killing our unborn child.

He had no idea it was me.

Chapter 1

The two pink lines on the pregnancy test were undeniable. My hand trembled as I held it, a wave of pure, unfiltered joy washing over me. After seven years of trying, after the heartbreak of a miscarriage and the cold, clinical world of infertility treatments, it had finally happened. I was pregnant.

My heart hammered against my ribs. I had to tell Drake.

I imagined his face, the way his dark eyes would light up, a real smile breaking through the focused intensity he always wore as a tech CEO. He wanted this as much as I did. This baby was our miracle.

I clutched the test to my chest and hurried out of the pharmacy, my mind racing with ways to tell him. Maybe I' d buy a tiny pair of shoes and put them on his pillow. Or maybe I' d just blurt it out the second he walked through the door.

My steps slowed as I passed by the park near my office. A man with his back to me was kneeling, his broad shoulders familiar. He was talking to a little boy who was laughing, a bright, happy sound that echoed in the afternoon sun.

Then the man stood up, turning slightly, and my breath caught in my throat.

It was Drake.

My Drake.

A woman stepped into my line of sight, placing a hand on his arm. She smiled up at him, a possessive, familiar smile.

My blood ran cold. I knew that woman.

Kiana Henry. The woman who had "accidentally" tripped me down a flight of stairs five years ago, causing my first miscarriage. The woman Drake had sworn he despised, a crazy stalker from his college days he' d cut out of his life completely.

Kiana bent down and scooped the little boy into her arms. The boy looked to be about four years old. He had Drake' s dark hair, his sharp jawline. He wrapped his small arms around Kiana' s neck, then looked over her shoulder and said a word that shattered my world.

"Daddy."

Drake reached out and ruffled the boy' s hair, his expression soft in a way I hadn' t seen in years. He leaned in and pressed a kiss to Kiana' s cheek. It wasn't a friendly peck. It was intimate, practiced. The gesture of a man coming home.

The world tilted. The sounds of the park-the distant traffic, the children laughing-faded into a dull roar. My legs felt weak, and I gripped the iron fence of the park to keep from collapsing.

My mind flashed back. Kiana' s venomous glare at our wedding. The anonymous, cruel messages I' d received for months after. Drake' s fury when he found out.

"She' s a psycho, Elaine. Stay away from her. I' ll handle it."

He had handled it, or so I thought. He' d shown me restraining orders. He' d changed his number. He' d sworn she meant nothing to him, that his life was with me.

Another memory surfaced, sharp and painful. The hospital room, the sterile smell, the doctor' s sympathetic face. "I' m so sorry, Mrs. Cordova. The fall caused a complete placental abruption."

Drake had been a storm of rage and grief. He' d held my hand so tightly his knuckles were white, his face buried in my hair as I sobbed. He had promised me, he had sworn on his life, that he would make Kiana Henry pay for what she did to us, to our baby.

And here he was. With her. With their son.

A family.

My entire seven-year marriage, all the pain, the hope, the love I' d poured into it, suddenly felt like a lie. A sick, twisted joke.

Was any of it real? Was this some kind of nightmare?

I watched them walk away, a perfect little family against the backdrop of a sunny afternoon. Kiana, Drake, and their son, Cody. I knew his name because I heard Drake say it.

"Come on, Cody, let' s get you that ice cream."

I couldn' t just stand there. I had to know. I started to follow them, my movements stiff and robotic.

My phone buzzed in my pocket. A text from Drake.

'Thinking of you, my love. Stuck in a boring board meeting. Can' t wait to come home to you tonight. Xo.'

A wave of nausea washed over me so strong I had to stop and lean against a building, my knuckles white as I gripped the brick. The lie was so casual, so effortless.

He was the perfect husband. When I was struggling with infertility, he held me through every tearful night. He researched every new treatment, sat with me through every painful injection, and told me over and over that I was all he needed.

"If we can' t have a baby, Elaine, it doesn' t matter. I have you. That' s enough. That' s everything."

He' d sold a portion of his company shares once to fund an experimental treatment in Switzerland, a trip that ultimately failed but had felt like the grandest romantic gesture. He did it, he said, because my happiness was worth more than any company.

He' d promised we' d face everything together. That our love was the one solid thing in the world.

And all of it, every single word, was a lie.

The pain in my chest was a physical weight, pressing down, making it hard to breathe. Who was this man? The man who held me while I grieved our lost child, while he had another child with the very woman who caused our pain?

I followed them to a penthouse apartment building just a few blocks away. A place I' d never seen before. A place that was clearly their home.

I knew the security code. It was our anniversary. The same code he used for everything. My hand shook as I punched it in, and the door clicked open.

The air inside was thick with the scent of Kiana' s perfume and something else... the smell of their life together. A child' s toy truck was on the floor. A woman' s sweater was draped over a chair.

I crept up the stairs, my heart a cold, dead stone in my chest. I heard noises from the master bedroom. Laughter. A gasp.

I peeked through the slightly ajar door.

The sight burned itself into my memory. Kiana was on the bed, wearing nothing but one of Drake' s shirts. He was standing over her, a dark, predatory look in his eyes I had never seen before. It wasn' t the tender love he showed me. It was raw, almost brutal.

"Drake, baby, you were so good with Cody today," Kiana purred, wrapping her legs around his waist.

"Shut up," he growled, but there was no anger in it. Just a rough sort of passion. He grabbed a fistful of her hair and pulled her head back. "You know I hate it when you call me that."

His expression was a mask of cold desire. It was the face of a stranger. A monster.

I felt nothing. The shock had frozen me, creating a numb barrier between me and the horror unfolding in front of me. I was watching a movie. This wasn't my life. This wasn't my husband.

He was cheating. He had a child. He had been lying to me for years. Our entire life together was a carefully constructed facade.

Why? If he wanted Kiana, why marry me? Why put me through seven years of agonizing hope and failure, trying to have a baby he already had with someone else?

Then he did something that finally broke through my numbness. He pulled a small, velvet box from his pocket.

"I got you something," he said, his voice rough.

He opened it, and my breath hitched. It was a necklace. A custom-designed piece I recognized instantly. He had shown me the designs weeks ago, telling me it was a surprise for our upcoming anniversary. 'The Heart of the Ocean,' he' d called it, a massive sapphire surrounded by diamonds.

"Oh, Drake!" Kiana gasped, her eyes wide with greedy delight. "It' s beautiful! But... isn' t this for Elaine?"

"She doesn' t need it," Drake said, his voice flat. He fastened it around Kiana' s neck. "I owe you. For everything."

Kiana' s feigned modesty was sickening. "I don' t want you to feel like you owe me. Pushing her down those stairs... I know it was wrong. But I was just so crazy about you. I' ve loved you for over a decade, Drake. I would have done anything."

She started to cry, a practiced, manipulative sob. "I drugged you that night, I know I did. I was awful. But it gave us Cody. And I' ve waited so patiently for you, hiding in the shadows, letting her have the title of your wife."

Drake' s expression didn' t soften. If anything, it grew colder. "It' s done. We have a son. I' ll give you more time, now that the company is stable."

"But what if Elaine finds out?" Kiana whispered, her voice laced with fake fear.

Drake laughed, a harsh, ugly sound. "Elaine? She' ll never know. She trusts me completely. She' s stupidly in love with me."

The words struck me harder than a physical blow. Stupidly in love.

That' s all I was to him. A fool. An obstacle. A placeholder.

I stumbled back from the door, my hand clamped over my mouth to stifle a sob. I couldn' t stay here. I couldn' t breathe the same air as them.

I ran. Down the stairs, out the door, into the street. I didn' t know where I was going. I just ran until my lungs burned and my legs gave out.

My phone buzzed again. Another text from Drake.

'Almost done, my love. I' m bringing home your favorite pasta. See you soon.'

The vile hypocrisy of it sent a jolt of pure, undiluted sickness through me. I doubled over on the sidewalk, vomiting until there was nothing left but dry, painful heaves.

I wiped my mouth with the back of my hand and looked at my reflection in a dark shop window. A pale, shattered woman stared back at me.

But in her eyes, a tiny, hard spark was beginning to glow.

I took the pregnancy test out of my purse, the one I had clutched like a holy relic just an hour ago. I looked at the two pink lines.

Then, I dropped it into a nearby trash can.