Chapter 1

The sharp pain of the C-section was a fog, but the silence in the delivery room was a knife.

Dr. Albright stood over me, his face grim.

Ethan, my husband, held my hand, his grip tight, too tight.

"Amy," Dr. Albright began, his voice low, "I'm so sorry. There were... complications."

My heart hammered. "Noah? Is Noah okay?"

Ethan squeezed my hand harder.

"We did everything we could," the doctor said. "Your son... he didn't make it."

The words didn't make sense.

My baby. My Noah. Gone.

Ethan pulled me into an embrace, his shoulders shaking against mine.

"Our boy, Amy, our poor boy," he sobbed, his voice muffled in my hair.

His grief felt so real, a shared agony that wrapped around my own shattering pain.

I clung to him, the only solid thing in a world that had just dissolved.

He was my rock, my comfort.

Days later, back in our small Cleveland apartment, the silence was heavier than any sound.

Ethan moved through the rooms like a ghost, his eyes red-rimmed.

He brought me tea, fluffed my pillows, sat with me for hours without speaking.

One evening, he took my hands.

"Amy," he said, his voice raw. "I can't... I can't live without the hope of a family. Maybe... maybe we could try again? Soon?"

Dr. Albright had warned against it, said my body needed a year, at least, to heal from the C-section.

I told Ethan this.

"I know, I know," he whispered, "but what if a new baby could help us heal? Help fill this emptiness?"

He painted a picture of a future, a new hope rising from our shared sorrow.

His desperation felt like mine. I was so broken, so lost.

I was vulnerable, and his words, his apparent need, seeped into my cracks.

"Okay, Ethan," I whispered. "Okay."

He held me, a sigh of relief escaping him that sounded almost like triumph.

The new pregnancy was quick, too quick.

At a prenatal visit in Boston – Ethan had insisted we move there for "better doctors" after what happened to Noah – I sat waiting for Dr. Chen, Ethan's old classmate.

Ethan was outside, taking a call.

The examination room door was slightly ajar.

I heard Ethan's voice, sharp, impatient.

"David, you need to manage this. Cassandra is counting on it. Noah is thriving with her, she needs this to be perfect too."

My breath caught. Noah? Alive? With Cassandra?

Cassandra Ashworth, Ethan's childhood sweetheart, the one he always said was "like a sister."

"Ethan, the risks to Amy are severe," Dr. Chen's worried voice replied. "Another C-section so soon, especially if we push to term..."

"Ensure she carries this baby, David. Olivia needs to be healthy. For Cassandra."

Olivia. That' s what we' d decided to name her. Our daughter.

My world tilted. The floor seemed to drop away.

The man I married, the man who grieved with me, was a stranger.

My understanding of our shared loss, our relationship, shattered.

He hadn' t lost Noah. He' d given him away.

And now, Olivia... she was for Cassandra too.

I felt a cold dread creep up my spine. My entire marriage, his loving care, it was all a performance.

Dr. Chen came in then, his face pale.

He looked at me, a flicker of something – pity? Fear? – in his eyes.

"Amy, your blood pressure is a little high. We need to be very careful with this pregnancy."

His words were professional, but his eyes told a different story, a silent warning I was only just beginning to understand.

He knew. He knew what Ethan was doing.