After those viral videos of boyfriends treating their girlfriends like babies took over the internet, I decided to test the waters.

I sent a photo of a cat to my boyfriend, who had just proposed to me the week before.

"This will be our first baby. A fur baby still counts."

Herman Barnes rubbed the top of my head, his smile casual and unhurried.

"No. That'd be the second."

I stared at him, this man who had never once said anything remotely romantic.

I was sure he meant that I was the first—fragile, sensitive me.

I didn't press him on it. After all, he really did take good care of me.

I burrowed into his arms, giddy, already dreaming of our future together.

Then came the parent-teacher conference at the kindergarten.

I watched my fiancé walk through the school gates holding the hand of a child he'd told me belonged to a friend who had passed away.

I was about to go over and ask what was going on when the little boy's voice stopped me cold.

"I don't want to be a kid without a dad anymore. When are you going to tell Ms. Gill that you're my real father?"

Herman gently pinched the boy's cheek.

"Once Ms. Gill and I are married, I'll convince her to adopt you. But until then, you can't let her find out about you or your mother."

The boy nodded obediently.

The ground dropped out from under me.

The first baby he'd been talking about wasn't me.

It was his illegitimate son.

……

"When are you going to let Herbert Hayward call you 'Dad' for real? If this keeps up, it's going to mess with his head."

An unfamiliar voice. A woman's.

I hadn't even recovered from the shock of my fiancé having a child when I saw a face I didn't recognize and yet somehow did.

My heart seized.

I knew her.

Janet Hayward. Herman's ex-girlfriend.

I'd seen that face years ago, young and fresh in an old college group photo.

Now, looking more carefully, Herbert really did share their features. The resemblance was unmistakable—sixty percent theirs.

Two years. Two full years, and I hadn't noticed a thing.

So all those times his friends had teased him about his "epic love story" with his ex, it had been real.

Back then, Herman had looked me straight in the eye like an earnest schoolboy and sworn up and down they were just joking.

Promise after promise. Oath after oath.

And I, like a fool, had laughed it off and teased him for being more sensitive than I was.

Those hadn't been precautions. They'd been previews.

My nails dug into my palms. The pain barely registered.

I couldn't look away. I forced myself to watch.

Herman frowned.

"Don't use our son as an excuse to come to me asking for a title. I told you—Daniela Gill is the only woman I will ever marry. Whatever I felt for you is long gone."

Janet's downcast eyes reddened almost instantly.

"That's not what I meant. You know I'm terminally ill. I just want to make sure my son has somewhere to go before I die. I don't want him to lose his mother and then be rejected by his father too."

The moment the words left her mouth, Herman's expression softened.

"Focus on your treatment. No matter what happens, he's my son. I'll take care of him."

Janet shifted closer, pressing her forehead against his shoulder, her body trembling.

"But you're about to get married. I'm so afraid he'll be..."

Herman—who always kept his distance from other women—didn't push her away.

He looked resigned.

"I understand your concerns. But don't worry. I've already been slipping Daniela medication to make her infertile. When the time comes, I'll produce a premarital medical exam showing she can't conceive."

"Once I suggest adopting a child, she'll feel guilty enough to agree. And she'll take good care of Herbert."

A bomb went off inside my skull.

One deafening blast, and then nothing. I couldn't hear anything at all.

Never—not once—had I imagined that this man, who had made me so many precious promises, would turn his cruelest schemes on me.

I bit down on my lower lip until it nearly split, the only thing keeping the sob locked inside my throat.

The Barnes family had a sole male heir lineage spanning three generations. His parents had said more than once that they hoped for grandchildren—a boy and a girl at least, ideally more, to fill the house with laughter.

I loved children too. In all my years as a kindergarten teacher, I'd always dreamed of having my own.

Every time I showed Herman a photo of some adorable kid, he'd smile and say, We'll have our own someday. Even cuter than that one.

I'd been naive enough to believe him. It never crossed my mind that he'd been deliberately sterilizing me just to make room for his illegitimate son.

He knew full well that his mother valued lineage and fertility above all else.

If she ever found out I couldn't have children, she'd tear me apart.

He swore up and down that he had no feelings for Janet, yet everything he did was for her. For their child.

He told me I was the only one he loved, then built me a marriage lined with thorns.

The pain in my chest was so sharp I thought it might crack me open. I fled the school like a woman possessed, desperate to escape the suffocating weight of it all.

A message from Herman glowed on my phone screen: Why aren't you in the classroom?

My hands trembled. But the warmth I used to feel when he checked on me—that sweetness—was gone.

I turned off my phone, hailed a cab without hesitation, and went straight to the hospital.

The doctor told me that the herbal tonic I'd been taking to regulate my cycle contained a cold-natured ingredient that, with prolonged use, caused infertility.

That tonic. The one Herman brewed for me every month like clockwork, spooning it into my mouth himself.

No wonder my cramps never got better.

What I'd mistaken for tenderness was arsenic wrapped in sugar.

I clutched the lab report so tightly my knuckles went white. I could barely breathe.

I didn't remember how I got home.

I burrowed under the covers, my hands moving on their own, scrolling, searching for every trace of him and Janet.

On Janet's social media, she'd documented her entire pregnancy.

For the first six months, she'd played the role of a single mother who'd run off with her baby bump.

Then, gradually, a man began appearing in her posts.

27 weeks + 3 days: Couldn't help myself. When my ex was confessing his feelings to another woman, I told him about the baby. He was furious, but he still gave me the gift he'd bought for his girlfriend's confession. She got the freebie instead.

30 weeks + 2 days: The doctor doing my checkup made an inappropriate joke about me. He stood up for me and hurt his hand—couldn't perform surgery for days. So handsome. So in love.

Due date! I told him I was having contractions and he came running through the rain. Stayed with me all night. Turns out the baby was just kicking hard.

When I saw the date on that last post, goosebumps crawled across every inch of my skin.

That was a day I would never forget as long as I lived.

We'd been watching the sunset from a mountaintop. He got a phone call from the hospital, and just like that, he abandoned me on the side of the road and rushed off.

That night, on my way home alone, I was nearly assaulted.

When Herman picked me up at the police station, saw me shaking and disheveled, he dropped to his knees and said he was sorry.

All those nights afterward, every time I jolted awake from a nightmare, I'd lie there wondering why he'd left me behind.

I told myself over and over: He's a doctor. He had something more important to deal with. He doesn't belong to me alone.

But now, seeing the perfect score he'd given someone else, I finally understood that what he'd given me didn't even earn a passing grade.

He could belong to his patients. He could belong to his ex. The only person he could never belong to was me.

Click.

The bedroom door swung open.

He saw my red, swollen eyes and reached out, his fingers gentle against my face.

"Did someone give you a hard time?"

I shifted slightly, pulling away from his touch.

My voice cracked despite every effort to hold it steady.

But my eyes were clear as glass when I looked at him.

"My supervisor said I was wasting my looks. Said I can't even bring in enrollment numbers or investment."

He paused for a fraction of a second, then pulled me into his arms.

His tone was careless. Barely even trying.

"Forget that dead-end job. Just quit—I'll take care of you, okay?"

A chill spread from somewhere deep in my chest. I couldn't feel his warmth anymore.

A sudden ringtone shattered the eerie silence between us.

It was Herbert.

"Uncle, my mommy just fainted! She's at the hospital, and I don't have anywhere to go, and I haven't eaten, and I'm so hungry..."

The boy's tearful little voice sent Herman into a tailspin.

His brow furrowed.

"Don't be scared. I'm coming to get you right now!"

He was already moving—shoes on the wrong feet, a shirt snatched off the back of a chair—and then he was out the door.

He didn't look back until he was already in the hallway.

"Something came up with the kid. I need to go handle it."

Not long after he left, a new post appeared on Janet's social media. The photo had a hospital room in the background.

The caption read: Rare family time. Someone's cooking is as amazing as ever.

In the picture, Herman and Herbert sat side by side at the edge of the hospital bed, feeding her. Another shot showed Herman's back as he stood at a counter, chopping vegetables, preparing a meal.

So this was what he meant by "no feelings."

Cold-faced, yet doing everything a husband would do.

I laughed bitterly and turned off my phone.

Before long, Herman came back with Herbert in tow.

"Her condition flared up again. He's staying with us tonight."

Herbert stood timidly behind him.

The boy had stayed with me plenty of times before, using the excuse that he had nowhere else to go. But he'd never warmed up to me. Not once.

I used to wonder why he kept his distance.

Now I understood. There had always been a reason.

I pressed a hand against my lower abdomen, where a dull ache was pulling downward, and tested the waters.

"I'm not feeling great tonight either. Maybe you could—"

I didn't even finish before his brows snapped together.

"You're a kindergarten teacher. Do you refuse to look after your students at school every time you feel a little under the weather?"

The self-righteous look on his face hit me like a wall. In that instant, I could see exactly what my life would look like after adopting Herbert—the moment anything fell short of their expectations, this was the treatment I'd get.

I smiled, though there was nothing behind it but mockery aimed at myself.

Herman must have caught something in my expression, because he realized his tone had been too harsh. He lowered his voice.

"Sorry. Her mother was being difficult earlier, and I've been angry the whole drive back. I didn't rein it in."

There was a time when the slightest hint that I wasn't feeling well would've sent him into a panic. He would've hovered, refused to let me lift a finger.

Now he'd forgotten my cycle entirely. My discomfort didn't even register.

I said nothing and went back to the bedroom alone.

I hadn't been lying down long when a sharp crash came from the living room.

I rushed out. A layer of dark ash dusted the floor.

Herbert was still holding the lid of the urn. The body of it lay shattered across the tiles.

My eyes burned red in an instant.

"Who told you to go through my things?!"

He froze where he stood, startled by my outburst.

I snatched the lid from his hands and crouched down, reaching for the scattered ashes. That was when I heard a loud thud beside me.

He was on the floor, wailing like his life depended on it.

"I'm sorry! I didn't mean to! Please don't hit me!"

I frowned and reached toward him to help him up, but his arms and legs flailed wildly, and one small foot connected squarely with my stomach.

The pain doubled me over. I lost my balance and hit the ground, shards slicing into my palms. Blood welled up instantly.

"What's going on?"

Herman emerged from the bedroom, and his eyes swept over both of us sprawled on the floor.

I reached out a hand, about to explain, but he stepped right past me and scooped up the sobbing, hiccupping Herbert.

"She hit me..."

Herman's brow furrowed. He didn't so much as glance at my ashen face.

"I get that you don't like him, but was hitting him really necessary?"

I gritted my teeth against the pain and pointed at the ashes on the floor, stained red with my blood.

"I didn't touch him. I came out and found he'd smashed Biscuit's urn. All I did was take the lid out of his hand."