His Mistress Was Pregnant,But Not by Him

My husband's sperm was practically useless, but he was desperate for a child.

So I gritted my teeth and went through round after round of IVF with him.

Three years later, we finally had our first successful embryo.

I rushed to tell him the good news, only to find him spinning his childhood friend around in his arms.

When he saw me, he didn't flinch. Instead, he pulled her in front of me like he was presenting a trophy.

“Babe, Nora Brennan's pregnant. It's my kid! Mine!”

“I'd like to see anyone call me a failure now!”

I couldn't stop myself from cutting in：

“You cheated on me? And got her pregnant?”

He blinked, caught off guard for a second：

“What do you mean, 'got her pregnant'? This is a gift from God! There's no way I'm letting my son be some illegitimate kid!”

“It's not like we can't afford to take care of her and the baby, right?”

He must have forgotten. We signed a prenup.

And cheating comes with a price.

——

“Let me see the pregnancy report.”

James didn't think twice. He handed it over, practically vibrating with excitement：

“Babe, look at this HCG level! The doctor said the higher the numbers are early on, the healthier the baby is! Might even be a boy!”

One glance was all it took. The pregnancy was solid.

Not like my first three, which had ended before they'd barely begun.

I took a photo of the report and sent it to Belinda, my best friend and a doctor, asking her what the odds were that James could get someone pregnant naturally.

While I waited for her reply, I opened the camera on my phone and hit record.

James assumed I wanted to capture the momentous occasion.

He pulled Nora close without a shred of shame and flashed a peace sign at my lens：

“Babe, am I amazing or what? Nora and I already talked it out. Once the baby's born, it's yours to raise!”

“You should be thanking us for making you a mom the painless way!”

Painless.

Then what were the five hundred injections I'd endured over the past three years?

The man who used to watch me turn white from pain, who jabbed himself with a needle out of guilt and swore he wanted to feel what I felt, split apart from the James Gilbert standing in front of me now, like they had never been the same person.

I tugged at the corner of my mouth and let the sarcasm drip：

“You're right. I really should thank you!”

Thank you for cheating when the company was at its peak.

That way, the divorce would pay out beautifully.

To squeeze out more evidence of his affair, I kept going：

“This baby. You two must have been trying for a while, huh?”

James hated having his prowess questioned. He held up one finger, smug as ever：

“First try. Impressed?”

Nora swatted at him with a coy pout：

“James, stop it! She's your wife, not a stranger. No need to brag. You know you wore me out plenty of times!”

“The worst was our first night together. I couldn't get out of bed for three days. And because you were taking care of me, you missed your wife's birthday……”

So that was it. When he told me he was on a business trip overseas and couldn't make it back for my birthday, the "business trip" had been to her bed.

Nora reached out, her fingertip grazing my earlobe with deliberate slowness：

“These earrings really suit you.”

My eyes locked onto the hand she left dangling in the air on purpose. The pink diamond on her finger glared under the light.

When James came back and tried to make up for my birthday, he found out I'd been hit by a car and hospitalized that day.

All thirty-three calls I'd made to him had gone unanswered.

Drowning in guilt, he gave me a pair of chip-diamond earrings as an apology.

I picked a fight, telling him his apology meant nothing when the gift wasn't even a matching set.

He rolled up his pant leg and showed me his bruised, swollen knees：

“Babe, you can't blame me! I got on my knees for these earrings!”

He told me he'd offended the wrong people trying to get his hands on a pink diamond for my birthday.

In the end, he'd knelt all night and only managed to walk away with the scraps.

I believed him.

And technically, he hadn't lied.