Right after my best friend, Freda Foster, is done giving birth, I cuddle with her newborn while playing with him.

"Hi, darling. I'm your godmother, and he's your godfather."

That's when my husband, Hugo Reid, suddenly speaks up.

"I'm not his godfather. I'm his actual father."

At first, I think I'm hearing things.

Unexpectedly, Hugo's lips curl into a smirk. He repeats himself, "The baby's mine. On the day your father passed away, Freda and I did it the whole night. We used a whole box of condoms, too."

I remain rooted to the spot. My throat feels very constricted to the point I can barely find my voice.

A long while later, I finally choke out, "But… But we only registered our marriage yesterday…"

Hugo laughs as he wraps an arm around me and starts consoling me.

"Don't worry. Freda and I are friends with benefits, at most. If we wanted to get married, we'd have gotten married a long time ago."

A pause later, he adds teasingly, "Wait, Freda is still keeping this a secret from you, huh? The truth is, we were in a relationship before. I'm the first man she's been with, you know."

I forgot how I left the hospital and made it home. By the time my newlywed husband, Hugo Reid, returned, the house was already a complete mess.

I had smashed our wedding photo on the floor, sending shards of glass everywhere. I had torn down all the bright red wedding decorations on the walls and even wrecked the wedding bed.

Hugo stood in the entryway and silently finished smoking a cigarette. Then, he walked over and checked my hands. "Are you hurt?"

I yanked my hand away. I could no longer hold back the anger pressing against my chest. With bloodshot eyes, I demanded, "Why?"

Hugo arched his brow. "Why did I marry you?"

He paused as though he was actually contemplating it for a moment before breaking into a smile. "You're careful, calm, and willing to give up your career for me. You're wife material, unlike Freda; she's a spoiled, carefree princess. I can't even rely on her for basic housework."

Noticing the tears in my eyes, he stepped forward and pulled me into his arms. "Come on now. Didn't I tell you it was over between her and me? At most, we'll just raise our son together."

I broke free from his hold and bellowed, "Why are you doing this to me? Why did you marry me when you already had a child with her?"

Hugo was the man I had been in love with for many years, and Freda Foster was my best friend. Both of them had played me like a fool.

Clutching my chest, I was crushed by the truth until I could barely breathe.

Hugo didn't answer. He simply looked at me as if I had lost my mind.

After a long while, he snapped, "That's enough. Freda's still waiting for me to make her some chicken soup."

I was rooted to the spot, watching him busy himself in the kitchen. He lit the stove, chopped the ingredients, and skimmed the foam from the soup.

We had been together for three years, yet he had never once cooked for me. I had always thought he didn't know how.

Turns out, he did. He had just never done it for me.

All of a sudden, I remembered something Freda had once told me. To help her fix her habit of being a picky eater, her ex-boyfriend—a privileged scion who had never even stepped foot in a kitchen—spent every single day there researching and perfecting gourmet dishes for her. One time, he even managed to blow up his family's kitchen.

I had imagined that scene before, and now, everything in front of me overlapped with the details Freda had mentioned.

All of the moments I had deliberately ignored came flooding back. When we were in the car, Freda always handed Hugo his sunglasses before I could. When we ate together, Freda would blurt out, "He doesn't eat scallions."

When Freda fell, Hugo always caught her before I did. When Fred fell ill, Hugo abandoned an entire conference room of people and rushed to the hospital.

At some point, tears blurred my vision. My voice was hoarse as I forced out, "Let's get a divorce, Hugo."

Hugo finally looked up and frowned. He was about to respond when his phone rang.

He took one look at the caller ID, smiled, and answered the call. "What is it, Ms. Foster? I'm stewing the soup for you. If you're bored, go play with our son."

Just then, he paused, gave me a meaningful look, and responded, "Don't worry. She doesn't know."

After hanging up, he shifted his gaze toward me. "Freda doesn't know I've told you everything. So, pretend as if you're unaware because she doesn't want to lose you as a friend."

With that, he poured the soup into a thermos and hurried out.

I stopped him and repeated, "I want a divorce."

He looked over his shoulder, confused. "We just received our marriage certificate. Why would we get a divorce? Do you want everyone in our circle to laugh at us? Be reasonable and stop kicking a fuss."

I grabbed the vase beside me and smashed it in front of him. "I'm kicking a fuss? While I was mourning my dad, you two were fooling around in bed behind my back. Did I ever cross your mind then?

"Both of you even have a child together now. Why should I be reasonable?" To my dismay, tears rolled down my cheeks before I could stop them.

Hugo knitted his brows and snorted. "You're insane!" Then, he slammed the door and left.

I watched his figure disappear into the distance and collapsed onto the floor. A moment later, my phone started buzzing with messages from Freda.

"Tee, why didn't you wait for me before you left? Have you met your godson yet? When are you and Hugo going on your honeymoon?

"Hugo's so mean! He just had to drag you off to get married while I was giving birth. Now, you can't even stay and keep me company.

"But you don't have to worry about me. The baby daddy is here to take care of me."

Then, she sent me a photo. In it, a man with long, slender fingers was holding a baby bottle, and he was wearing a wedding band identical to mine on his ring finger.

My entire body trembled so violently that I could barely even hold onto my phone. Hugo and Freda couldn't even be bothered to hide it anymore; he hadn't even taken off the ring.

Freda posted on X at the same time. "If I ask you to stay this time, will you?"

The very next second, I received a message from Hugo. "Go on the honeymoon by yourself first."

My chest tightened sharply. I was breathing hard, and my whole body was shaking.

I forced myself to comment under Freda's post. "Why bother sneaking around? I'll give you two what you want."

Right after that, I dragged myself upstairs to pack. I couldn't stay in this house, which I had put together bit by bit, not for another second.

However, before I left, I found an old phone hidden deep in the closet. Instinctively, I entered Freda's birth date, and it unlocked. The screensaver was a photo of Hugo and Freda smooching.

The notes were all about Freda. Her period, her dietary restrictions, and her prenatal checkups.

The photo album was also filled with pictures of Freda—her sleeping face, her silly smile, the way she pouted when she wanted something, her flushed face in intimate moments, and her tearful eyes as she was wheeled into the delivery room.

Photo after photo, from the age of 12 until yesterday, Hugo had documented everything about Freda.

The funniest part was that I was also visible in the background of the photos he had secretly taken of Freda. My fingers trembled violently, and no matter what I did, I couldn't make them stop.

A lifetime was only about 30 thousand days, yet Hugo had taken almost 40 thousand photos of Freda. We had been together for three years, and apart from our wedding portraits, we couldn't even scrape together a single photo of us.

Whenever I reached for my phone to take a picture of us, he would always frown and come up with excuses. "You're in showbiz. If the photo gets out, it'll cause a huge scandal."

He had never once visited me on set, yet he had never missed a single one of Freda's concerts.

The honeymoon I had planned would have taken us no farther than the dam. But the two of them had traveled across the entire country, chasing the northern lights all the way to a secluded village.

Hugo and Freda had gone to a theme park 27 times. No wonder every time I suggested spending our anniversary there, he said it was boring. If it was really boring, why had he gone there with her 27 times?

I went through all the photos as though I was punishing myself. When I finally looked up, I realized that my tears had already dried.

I put the phone back where it was and messaged my manager, Rachel Linden. "I'll take the Luminara film project. Arrange for Paul to pick me up."

Rachel replied, "I'm so glad that you're making a comeback, Tione!"

After replying to Rachel, I dragged my suitcase out. However, the moment I was about to get into the cab, someone grabbed me tightly from behind.

Hugo's eyes were bloodshot, like a demon from hell. "Tione, Freda tried to take her own life because of what you said!"

I froze. "What did you just say?"

He yelled at me, "You know perfectly well she just gave birth and is emotionally unstable! Why did you provoke her?"

Before I could say a single word, he shoved me into the car. "Both of you have Rh-negative blood. You're the only one who can save her!"

He sped through several red lights in a row before dragging me into the hospital. "Doctor, she has Rh-negative blood! She can donate!"

His whole body was shaking as he said that. I had never seen Hugo look so disheveled and desperate.

I was frozen in place, my mind completely blank. Like a marionette, I allowed him to drag me into the blood donation room and let him roughly yank up my sleeve.

I didn't respond to anything around me. My mind was entirely consumed by the image of Hugo's panicked, frantic state over Freda.

I only snapped back to reality when the doctor's voice rang in my ear. "I'm sorry, sir, but this lady is pregnant; she can't donate blood."

I touched my stomach, feeling utterly lost. Then I heard Hugo bellow, "I told you to draw her blood. I don't want the baby—I only want Freda!"

In a heartbeat, it felt as though all the blood in my veins had run cold. Yet, tears suddenly poured from my eyes. "This is your flesh and blood, Hugo!"

But he simply continued to snarl, ordering them to thrust the collection needle into my hand.

"Hugo! Hugo, you can't touch my baby!" I yanked the needle out and turned to run.

I had barely taken a single step before I was pinned down with a death grip.

Hugo had completely lost his mind. Cupping my face, he spoke in a calm voice so cold it made me tremble. "Tee, go donate your blood to Freda."

I was pinned down in the blood donation room by four bodyguards. Tube after tube of blood was drawn from my body and rushed into Freda's emergency room.

The blood drained from my face until I could no longer support myself and collapsed headlong. When I came to, three days had already passed. The doctor tactfully informed me that I had fallen into a coma due to severe blood loss, and I had lost my baby.

I stared blankly at Freda, whose eyes were brimming with tears. "Tee, you know everything now, don't you? I'm so sorry! I felt so guilty toward you, and for a moment, I couldn't handle it. I never imagined Hugo would do this to you."

Then, she sank to her knees beside my bed and cried her heart out. Her cries were loud and piercing, yet the wound on her wrist was only covered by a simple Band-Aid. No matter how I looked at it, she didn't look anything like the "critical condition" Hugo had described.

All of a sudden, she straightened up, as though she had made up her mind. "Tee, from now on, my son is your son!"

Anger rose in my chest, and I forced the words through my raspy throat. "Get out of my face!"

Freda froze. With a wounded expression, she looked at me, then abruptly seized my hand and used it to slap herself across the face. "I know it's too late for me to explain, but I don't want to lose you as a friend. Hit me. So long as you can forgive me, you can take it out on me however you like!"

When she grabbed my hand and tried to slap herself with it again, Hugo appeared at the door—though I hadn't noticed when he arrived—and strode forward to pull Freda away. In the blink of an eye, I was dragged off the bed and fell heavily onto the floor.

Blood began to seep out from beneath me again. I let out a muffled groan and called for the doctor.

Hugo belatedly realized what he had done and released his hold on Freda. He was about to help me up when Freda sobbed, "This is all your fault, Hugo! Tee is genuinely mad at me now. I'm going to have no friends left!"

He hurriedly comforted her. "You're right, you're right. It's all my fault. Don't get too worked up now.

"I'll take you back to your room first. Our son needs you, after all."

I watched them leave, gritting out, "Hugo, I will never forgive either of you for as long as I live!"

He stopped in his tracks for a second, but he didn't look back.

Ten minutes later, he sent me a message. "I'll send Freda and the baby away and cut all ties with her. Once you recover, we'll go on our honeymoon."