Late at night, Henry burst in with cold air clinging to him.

When he saw me sitting on the living room couch, he visibly relaxed.

After changing his shoes, he came over with a paper bag in his hand, his tone light—almost like he wanted praise.

“Here. Haven’t you been talking about this place’s donuts for days? I drove all the way out there. They’re still warm.”

That shop was in the old district. From our apartment, it was at least forty kilometers round trip.

As he spoke, he reached out like he’d done a thousand times—trying to pull me into his arms.

I stood up and bent over to set the donuts on the coffee table, slipping neatly out of his reach, avoiding his arm and that familiar intimacy.

My throat tightened. I forced a small smile.

“Just leave them there. I don’t really have an appetite right now.”

Henry’s arm froze midair. Then he casually withdrew it, acting as if nothing happened.

He glanced me over, expression unchanged—assuming I was just sulking—and turned toward the bathroom.

“Fine. Eat when you’re hungry. I’m having a shower.”

Water started running.

That was when the phone he’d tossed onto the couch lit up.

Like I’d been possessed, I picked it up.

No passcode.

I’d always known that—but I’d never once thought about checking.

The screen unlocked and jumped straight into his chat with Ann.

A photo filled the entire screen.

A gorgeous, elaborate cream cake.

And the logo on the cake box… was from the same shop as the donuts he’d just brought me.

Under the photo was a message:

“The cake is so— good! Thanks for recommending, Henry~ Getting to eat something this delicious before my checkup makes my belly hurt less”

So that was it.

The “special treatment” I thought required a forty-kilometer drive—was just scraps.

He’d carefully picked a cake for someone else then tossed me the leftovers on the way home.

My heart felt like it had been soaked in iced lemon water—sour, bitter, tightening with pain.

Henry came out of the shower, hair still dripping. A towel was wrapped low around his waist.

He walked over with warm, damp air clinging to him—trying to hug me again.

I shoved him away like I’d been shocked, panicking for the stupidest excuse I could find.

“Don’t… I’m on my period. I don’t feel good.”

The warmth on Henry’s face vanished instantly.

In its place came sheer impatience and coldness.

He raked a rough hand through his wet hair, rolled his eyes, and spoke with suppressed irritation:

“Rory Brown.”

He used my full name, his voice hard and icy.

“Do you really have to be like this? Always pressing. Always refusing to let things go?”

His volume rose, like my “unreasonableness” was the real problem.

“I don’t understand why you insist on setting the wedding on the day of Ann’s prenatal checkup. One day earlier or later—what’s the difference? Did I ever say I wouldn’t marry you? Are you really this desperate? Throwing a fit over this?”

Every sentence was a dull knife stabbing into my heart.

He remembered everything.

He remembered his promise to my mother.

He remembered the agreement about my thirtieth birthday.

He just didn’t care.

Just like the way he didn’t care that Ann was my half-sister.

The way he didn’t care that she and her mother’s existence indirectly led to my mother’s death.

To him, I was simply irrational—taking out my anger on the wrong person.

The pain numbed me until I couldn’t even argue anymore.

I just lowered my head and stood there silently.

My silence only seemed to enrage him further.

He stared at me, his chest rising and falling hard, then let out a cold laugh.

“Fine. So you’ve really got guts now.”

He spun around, grabbed his coat and car keys from the couch, and slammed the door behind him.

Bang—

The sound echoed through the apartment, making my ears ring.

I stared at the door, still trembling slightly on its hinges, and at the hard line of his back as he left.

And suddenly I remembered the boy he used to be—bright, reckless, burning with life.

Back then, he wasn’t the family heir.

His father only gave him small projects, scraps to manage.

Henry poured all his money into investments, desperate to prove himself.

He hated that his father wanted to hand everything to Ethan.

He ran everywhere searching for capable partners.

At night, he would do data analysis for people just to cover our daily expenses.

On my birthday, he pulled three straight all-nighters and earned four hundred dollars—just to buy me a cake.

Henry back then… he truly loved me.

In his eyes, in his words—love was everywhere.

I’d seen the way he loved me.

So, the hesitation, the wavering he had now… I could see right through it.

Not long after he left, my phone vibrated.

A text from an unfamiliar number popped up.

But the tone—one glance, and I knew exactly who it was.

The photo showed a dim corner of a bar.

Henry tilted his head back, drinking, his side profile cold and sharp.

In the corner of the photo, you could faintly see a slender hand with nude-colored nail polish resting on his coat.

“Rory, Henry looks really unhappy. Looks like you made him mad again.”

“Don’t worry. I’ll comfort him properly. Want to guess if he’ll come back to you this time?”

“Everything you have—Dad, the house, and Henry—will be mine in the end.”

“You’ll never beat me.”

My fingers trembled so badly I could barely hold my phone.

It took everything I had to type my reply, one letter at a time:

“Is that so? Too bad. Trash I don’t want is only treasure to someone like you—picking it up and acting proud just makes you look pathetic.”

I took a deep breath outside the office building and pushed the door open.

I pressed my fingerprint to enter Henry’s office.

When I pushed open that heavy door, my hand was still on the knob—I didn’t step inside.

Ann’s voice drifted out first.

Low, controlled, yet clear enough to feel deliberate, like she wanted someone to hear.

“Henry, don’t play games with me,” she said. “I’ve read your family’s trust terms. I understand succession. I’m only asking you one thing—if Rory ever has a child in the future, what then? Will her child still have inheritance rights?”

Henry’s voice carried that familiar, soothing steadiness.

“It won’t come to that.”

He didn’t raise his voice. If anything, he sounded even gentler.

“I won’t let Rory get pregnant with my child.”

Ann went silent for half a second—then laughed once, the kind of laugh with no warmth.

“Sounds nice. You think you can control a woman’s body? You think she won’t use a baby as leverage?”

Henry stayed calm.

“She won’t.”

Ann pressed, sharper:

“And why are you so sure?”

Henry answered quietly:

“Because I know her.”

Ann seized on that word, her tone turning cutting.

“You know her? Or you think if you keep her ‘safe’ in the spot you assigned, she’ll stay obedient forever? Henry, let me remind you—the board, the old foxes in the family, the media… they’re all watching you.”

Henry seemed to smile faintly, voice light.

“They’re watching money and power. Not Rory.”

“What about me?” Ann asked bluntly, her voice dropping even lower. “They’re watching me too. And the one in my womb.”

My fingertips tightened around the cold metal of the doorknob.

Henry didn’t hesitate.

“You don’t need to worry.”

Ann scoffed.

“I don’t need to worry? And you get to decide that for me?”

“Because I’ll handle it,” Henry said. “The baby, the inheritance, what we tell the outside world—I’ll handle all of it.”

Ann laughed softly.

“What we tell the outside world? And what are you going to say—this baby is Ethan’s, right? That’s what everyone believes.”

Henry only said, calm as ever:

“What the outside world believes doesn’t matter. What matters is that we don’t let anyone turn this into a weapon.”

“We?” Ann’s voice sharpened, pushing close. “Henry, you talk like we’re on the same boat. Don’t forget—in name, I’m still Ethan’s wife.”

Henry was still gentle… but there was a firmness beneath it that didn’t allow argument.

“Name is name. You know that.”

I didn’t take a single step forward.

And right then, something clicked in my mind—clear and brutal.

Why, when I told him before, “Ann’s baby isn’t Ethan’s,” Henry hadn’t shown any surprise.

Not because he didn’t care.

But because he’d known from the beginning.

Of course, he wasn’t surprised—because the baby… was his.

A dull pain spread through my chest, heavy enough to steal my air.

I stood there in front of that blank wall, trying to swallow the bone-deep cold.

That was when a security guard walked in carrying a huge rectangular box.

“Ms. Rory, you’re here. You’ve got a delivery. Need your signature.”

I froze.

“My delivery?”

I hadn’t sent anything personal to the office in a long time.

The guard checked the label.

“Yes. The recipient is you.”

Full of confusion, I signed and took the heavy box.

In a nearby lounge area, I opened it.

Under layer after layer of protective paper, a pure white fabric appeared.

When I unfolded it completely, my breath almost stopped.

It was a wedding dress.

Classic lace sleeves. Delicate pearl embroidery. An elegant A-line skirt.

Every detail was so familiar my heart started racing.

It was the exact style from my mother’s old photo album—the dress she wore back then.

My phone vibrated.

A text from an unknown number lit up my screen:

“A wedding dress recreated from your mother’s photos—do you like it?”