After My Miscarriage, He Chose His Mistress

The steady beep of the heart monitor was the only sound breaking the silence in my private room at Cedars-Sinai. Outside, Los Angeles wept, rain streaming down the window like tears I could no longer shed. My own had dried hours ago, leaving nothing but a hollow ache where my heart—and my child—had once been.

I stared at the ceiling, counting the tiny holes in each tile. Anything to distract from the emptiness inside me. The doctors had been clear: the complications from my miscarriage were severe. A hysterectomy had been necessary. Emergency. Life-saving.

Life-saving. I almost laughed at the irony. What life was there to save?

With trembling fingers, I reached for my phone on the bedside table. The familiar weight felt heavier today as I pressed record, knowing this would be the last entry in my journal of pain.

"Entry ninety-nine," I whispered, my voice raw from hours of crying. "Today I lost our baby. And I think...I think I've finally lost myself too."

I paused, watching raindrops race each other down the glass, merging and separating like the twisted paths of my relationship with Ethan.

"Eight years," I continued. "Eight years of loving a man who has never truly seen me. Who promised to be here today, of all days. Who swore things would be different this time."

The monitor beeped faster as my pulse quickened with anger. I took a deep breath, trying to steady myself.

"I've documented every betrayal, every lie, every moment he chose her over me. Ninety-eight entries of pain I somehow convinced myself was love."

I stopped recording and pulled up Ethan's contact. My thumb hovered over his name before I pressed call, holding my breath as it rang once, twice, three times.

On the fourth ring, someone answered, but it wasn't Ethan.

"Isabella," Victoria's voice dripped with false sweetness, "what a surprise."

My blood turned to ice. "Where's Ethan?"

"Oh, honey." Her laugh was like shattered glass. "He's right here beside me. A bit...indisposed at the moment."

I heard rustling, whispers, a masculine chuckle in the background that I knew all too well.

"Put him on the phone," I demanded, my voice stronger than I felt.

"He doesn't want to talk to you," Victoria said, her tone hardening. "He asked me to tell you he won't be coming to the hospital. Something about it being too...messy."

"Messy?" I repeated, disbelief washing over me. "I lost our child. I needed emergency surgery. I can't ever have children again, and he thinks it's too messy?"

"Well, it's not like he ever wanted children with you anyway," she replied, her words precise and calculated to cause maximum pain. "That was always going to be our thing, wasn't it? You were just...keeping his bed warm until I was ready to take him back."

Something inside me—something that had been bending for eight long years—finally snapped.

"You can have him," I whispered, a strange calm settling over me. "You deserve each other."

I ended the call before she could respond, my hand no longer shaking. This was it. The ninety-ninth betrayal. The one that finally set me free.

With newfound resolve, I scrolled through my contacts until I found a number I hadn't called in ten years. My father's private line. The one reserved for family emergencies.

This was an emergency. I was finally ready to come home.

He answered on the first ring, his voice cautious, disbelieving.

"Isabella?"

"Father," I said, my voice steady despite the tears threatening to fall again. "I need the family jet. I'm leaving Los Angeles. Today."

There was a moment of stunned silence before he responded, his voice thick with emotion.

"Where shall I send it?"

As I gave him the details, I felt something unfamiliar stirring in my chest. It wasn't love or pain or even anger anymore.

It was power. The power of a Montclair daughter reclaiming her birthright.

Ethan Blackwood had no idea who he'd just betrayed for the last time.