Chapter 2

I woke up to the steady beeping of a machine. The world came into focus slowly. White ceiling. White walls. The clean, sterile smell of a hospital.

Ethan was sitting in a chair by my bed. His face was pale, his eyes heavy with exhaustion. When he saw I was awake, he surged to his feet and rushed to my side.

"Ava," he breathed, his voice rough with emotion. He took my hand, his grip tight and desperate. "You're awake. The doctors said you were lucky. A few more inches and..." He trailed off, unable to finish the sentence.

For a moment, the warmth of his hand felt real. A part of me, the part that had loved him for so long, wanted to believe his concern was genuine.

But then I remembered the phone call. You just have to know how to handle her.

I pulled my hand away from his.

He looked surprised, then hurt. "Ava? What's wrong?"

"I'm tired," I said, my voice a dry rasp. I turned my head to look away from him.

He didn't push. He just stood there for a long moment before sitting back down in the chair. The silence in the room was heavy. He was trying to manipulate me with his concern, just like he had with his grand proposal. He was trying to use my near-death experience to pull me back into line. But something inside me had broken for good. The illusion was gone, and I could see him clearly now.

"The police said it was brake failure," he said quietly. "An accident."

I didn't respond. I knew it wasn't an accident.

He tried again, his voice softer, laced with the old intimacy he used to control me. "I was so scared, Ava. When I got the call... I thought I'd lost you again. I can't go through that."

His words were a painful echo of a past I was trying to escape. I once craved this kind of declaration from him. Now, it just made me feel cold. I was tired of being a pawn in his emotional games.

The door opened, and a nurse came in, followed by a doctor.

The doctor smiled kindly at me. "Good to see you're awake, Mrs. Kensington. You gave us all quite a scare." He checked my chart. "We ran a full set of tests, just to be safe. Everything looks good, considering. The baby is fine, too."

The air left my lungs.

"The... the baby?" I whispered.

The doctor looked from me to Ethan, his smile faltering. "Yes. You're about six weeks pregnant. You didn't know?"

Suddenly, the room was spinning. Pregnant. I was pregnant with his child. The nausea I'd been feeling for weeks, the exhaustion... it wasn't just stress. It was a baby.

Ethan's face transformed. The worry and hurt were replaced by a look of pure, unadulterated joy. A wide, brilliant smile spread across his face.

"Pregnant?" he said, his voice filled with wonder. He looked at me, his eyes shining. "Ava, we're having a baby."

He rushed to my side again, this time to hug me. "A baby," he whispered into my hair. "This is a miracle. This is a sign. Everything is going to be perfect now."

His happiness was a suffocating weight on my chest. Perfect? Nothing was perfect. This was a nightmare. A child would tie me to him forever. It would be another chain, another way for him to own me completely.

My mind flashed back to two years before I staged my death. I had gotten pregnant then, too. I was twenty, terrified, and secretly living in his house. I told him, my hands shaking. He had gone cold, his face like a mask of stone.

"Get rid of it," he had said, his voice flat and devoid of emotion. "You can't have a baby now. It would ruin everything."

He gave me cash and the name of a discreet clinic in another town. I went alone. The procedure was cold and clinical. The pain was immense, but the emptiness that followed was worse. He never mentioned it again. It was just another secret we buried.

And now, he was celebrating. The hypocrisy was staggering. This child was convenient. This child was a symbol of his victory, a way to solidify his perfect life. It had nothing to do with love.

He finally pulled away from the hug, his hands on my shoulders, beaming.

"I have to call my mother," he said, already pulling out his phone. "And the family. Everyone will be so happy."

He practically bounced out of the room to share the good news, leaving me alone with the catastrophic reality of my situation. A baby. His baby. Trapped. I was well and truly trapped.

A few minutes later, the door creaked open again. I thought it was Ethan returning.

But it was Chloe.

She stood in the doorway, holding a bouquet of white lilies. She wore a simple, elegant dress, and her expression was one of deep, sincere concern. It was a perfect performance.

"Mrs. Kensington," she said softly. "I heard about the accident. I came as soon as I could. I'm so glad you're okay."

She walked over and placed the lilies on the bedside table. Their funereal scent filled the air.

"Thank you, Chloe," I said, my voice flat.

"Ethan-Mr. Kensington-just told me the good news," she said, her eyes wide with what looked like joy for me. "A baby! How wonderful. I'm so happy for you both."

She paused, then gave me a small, almost shy smile. Her hand went to her own flat stomach in a gesture that was anything but innocent.

"It's funny," she said, her voice dropping to a conspiratorial whisper. "It seems we're in the same boat."

I stared at her, my blood running cold. "What are you talking about?"

Chloe's smile widened, a hint of steel in her eyes. "I'm pregnant, too, Ava. And it's Ethan's."

The world stopped. The beeping of the heart monitor seemed to fade into a dull roar in my ears. Her words hung in the air, sharp and poisonous. It wasn't just an affair. It wasn't just a flirtation. He was having a child with her, too.

I finally understood. I wasn't just being replaced. I was being duplicated. He wanted his perfect wife and his perfect heir at home, and his compliant mistress on the side, both of them bearing his children. He wasn't choosing between us. He wanted both of us. Two women, two babies, two lives he could control completely.

The last shred of hope inside me died. The betrayal was absolute, a bottomless pit. I saw my future laid out before me: a gilded cage, a life of quiet humiliation while he built another family just across town.

A cold, hard clarity settled over me. There was no room for pain or sadness anymore. There was only rage. A quiet, focused rage that burned away all the weakness and desperation.

I would not live that life. I would not bring a child into that lie.

I looked at Chloe, at her triumphant, smiling face. She thought she had won. She thought she had broken me.

She was wrong.

When the nurse came back in, I looked at her, my voice steady and clear.

"I need to speak to my doctor," I said. "Alone."

I was ending this. All of it.

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