Introduction

My husband, Ethan Hayes, was a powerful, arrogant man, openly flaunting his mistress, Chloe Vance.

Everyone pitied me, the quiet, obedient wife, living in his shadow.

But they had no idea.

Every humiliation, every cruel dismissal, every moment of neglect was a calculated step in my secret, desperate plan.

I married Ethan for one reason: to have a child.

Not his child, but Caleb's.

Caleb, his identical twin, the man I loved more than life itself, tragically taken too soon.

Ethan was merely a vessel, a living replica of my soulmate.

When that pregnancy test turned positive, my mission was complete.

I filed for divorce, expecting his usual dismissiveness.

He waved me off, telling me to "handle it," too consumed with Chloe's trivial demands.

He even pushed me down the stairs when Chloe falsely accused me, leaving me bleeding, gasping for our baby.

But the final straw came when Chloe, with Ethan' s blessing, shattered a small, invaluable snow globe-Caleb's last, unfulfilled gift to me.

He thought my tears, my quiet "devotion," my carefully curated items were for him.

He never saw the truth, never understood his own arrogance blinded him to the woman he truly possessed.

How could he?

His ego was too vast.

So, when the divorce was finalized, I called him.

"I never loved you, Ethan," I told him, each word a shard of ice.

"You were just a means to an end.

The child I carry is Caleb's legacy, not yours."

I walked away, leaving him and his empty world behind, to start anew in San Francisco, with Caleb's child, and finally, my own freedom.