"I present the couple of the evening, Jullian Vale and Mirabel Lawson."

Natalie who had barely just arrived froze, her eyes widening as soon as she heard both names the emcee called.

Her husband and... Her maid?

It couldn't be real? It couldn't be true.

She shook her head, refusing to believe. The sounds of applause erupted in the halls, and Natalie's eyes ran through the crowd looking for Jullian.

Even though she had said that she wouldn't be coming today, she wanted to surprise him.

Finally, her eyes spotted the familiar blonde sleek hair styled to the back. A small smile appeared on her lips, and she began quickly walking towards where he sat. But before she could get there, the man suddenly stood up and turned around.

"Jull..." She wanted to call, but the rest of the words she wanted to say disappeared as soon as the saw him stretch out his hand to a feminine figure, who placed her delicate fingers in his.

Her feet slowly came to a halt, and the figure's face became visible.

Natalie's face paled, and her lips parted but now words came out.

"Oh my, isn't that Mirabel Lawson? I heard that she was Mr. Jullian Vale wife's maid."

"Nah, I doubt it, she looks too good to be a mistress."

"Maybe she's the one he really loved from the start but was forced to marry his wife.

Rumors flooded her ears, but Natalie could barely hear them.

Everything stopped. The entire congregation, the music, the applause, and Natalie's heartbeat.

She could only watch as the man she called her husband loved unconditionally for almost four years walked hand in hand on to the stage with another woman, with huge smiles plastered on their faces.

Natalie felt her body tremble in shock.

This...

This was impossible.

How could...

Natalie's eyes caught the dress Mirabel wore, which swayed elegantly as she climbed the stage. She remembered that dress.

That black body hugging long gown with a low neck cut was hers!

She bought it.

Then...

She noticed something even worse.

The diamond earrings. She had seen them in Jullian's drawer yesterday. She thought they were hers. But he... he has given them to her maid?

The audience continued whispering.

Nobody realized Natalie was standing just inside the ballroom.

"I thought Jullian was married." She heard another one say.  "Maybe they're divorced." Another one chipped in, her heart sank. "No... his wife is pregnant."

"Then who's that woman?"

Natalie couldn't control her body anymore, and she began shaking in anger, and shock and spite.

Her mood only worsened when the host suddenly laughed as he congratulated Jullian and Mirabel. "Now that's what true love looks like!"

What?!

The congregation erupted into a loud clap, and Mirabel blushed hiding her face behind her hands, while Jullian smiled, showing of his teeth.

He placed one arm around Mirabel's waist.

Then... Leaned in and kissed her forehead.

Natalie's heart shattered as she watched.

Not because of the kiss.

Because...He's never kissed her like that.

Not once in four years.

A tear slowly rolled down her eyes.

...

Lucien had absolutely no interest in awards. But his assistant had insisted he attended. For what he intended to do, he needed allies, and this was the best place to get that.

He planned on leaving in the next ten minutes.

Until...

He noticed her.

His fingers froze around his wine glass.

'Impossible.' he thought as he watched her.

His eyes never left the pregnant woman standing near the entrance.

No...

It couldn't be...

His face slowly morphed into an expression of disbelief.

His assistant noticed and came to stand next to him. "Boss?"

Lucien ignored him, his eyes darting between Natalie's face and her huge belly.

She was focused, staring at someone on the stage.

He traced her line of sight until he saw who she was staring at.

His younger brother.

Lucien's expression darkened.

...

Natalie finally turned, a tear slipped down her cheeks, falling to the floor.

She wanted to leave before anyone noticed her. But she had only taken a step when she felt a sudden gush of pain.

She froze.

Another pain attacked her, much stronger.

She gripped a nearby table immediately.

Someone noticed and asked,  "Ma'am, are you alright?"

Natalie smiled weakly. "I'm fine."

Another contraction.

This time...

Her water broke.

The glass she was holding fell to the floor.

CRASH!

Everyone turns, including the two people on the stage.

"Someone help, she's going into labor!"

Jullian looked toward the noise.

He saw Natalie and his eyes widened. She wasn't supposed to be here!

A wave of concern washed over his face.

Mirabel noticed it and panicked.

She immediately grabbed his arm. "Baby..." She called him. "I don't feel well..."

Jullian immediately turned back to Mirabel, examining her face before yelling into the crowd. "Someone take my wife to the hospital."

Then he walked away, holding Mirabel's hands like she was a fragile thing

Natalie heard every word.

She didn't know how to feel. She was already in so much pain.

She stumbled, and the table she held shifted under her grip. She missed her step, and began falling backwards.

Just when her body was about colliding harshly with the ground, someone caught her.

Natalie barely looked at him.

Her vision blurred from the unshed tears.

She whispered. "My husband..." Looking towards the direction Lucian had taken.

She didn't notice the way her savior's jaw tightened at her words.

Natalie heard the man who caught her voice,

"Call the ambulance." He said to someone she couldn't see. "And don't let anyone near her."

Those were words she had expected her husband to say.

But he wasn't here.

Natalie tried to hold on, but the second she was loaded into the ambulance, her eyes rolled backwards and she lost consciousness.

...

Lucian watched the ambulance until it disappeared from sight.

Even in that condition, even after all she saw, she was still waiting on Jullian.

"Boss..." Lucian's assistant, Alan called. "You know her?"

Silence.

He didn't answer at first and just keep staring into space. It took almost a minute before Lucian finally spoke. "I told you that there was two reasons for my return." He began.

Alan nodded immediately, he knew that. Lucian slowly turned to look at him, "She's the second one."

After nine months, he was finally seeing her again. But just like the first time, her eyes were still on his brother.

"And my idiot brother still has her."

Last time he had to leave in a hurry, but this time... This time he was going to make sure she sees him. Only him.

"Arghhh!" A woman's scream echoed in the ward. Strands of her long red hair stuck to her face, and sweat trailed down.

He should be there with her.

The woman, still in pain, tapped the nurse close to her, which caused the nurse to turn around.

"My... My husband." She incoherently muttered, but the nurse heard it anyway. "I want to call my husband."

As soon as the nurse made out the words from her request, she turned to look at the doctor, silently asking him with her eyes whether or not she should agree with the woman's request.

The doctor nodded in agreement, giving the nurse the go-ahead.

The nurse answered with a curt nod.

She went towards the woman's belongings, which were in the locker next to the bed, and located her phone.

She dialed the lady's husband's number and then placed the phone next to her ear.

"Dar... Darling, I'm..." The woman began, her tone sounding excited despite the amount of pain she was currently in. "I'm about to give birth to our children, I'm at..."

Her husband barley allowed her to speak before cutting her off. "I'm busy." His words echoed in the room. The nurse had accidentally placed the call on speaker phone, so everyone present in the room, including the doctor, heard the woman's husband's rude words.

"What?" Natalie whispered. "What do you mean by busy? I'm..." She sniffled, the pain consuming her once more, before she could finish her sentence, the rude husband interrupted her again.

"Look here, Natalie, you're the one giving birth; my presence would do nothing there." He said, his tone sounding as though she was interrupting something important. "Plus, I'm too busy to leave my..." The man suddenly gasped, and Natalie heard his whisper. "Ah yes, that's the spot."

Her face turned whiter than it already was, and her body shook.

Still, the husband spoke again. "I can't do this, I have to go." Then he ended the call.

"Jullian?" Natalie called out her husband's name,

"Jull... Ahhh!" A scream tore through her throat.

The nurse immediately put the phone away to attend to the woman who suddenly screamed, and began shaking.

"Prep the OR!" The doctor commanded, "We are going to have to operate to get this baby out."

As soon as Natalie heard the woman 'operate' she shook her head.

No, that couldn't be possible.

"Operate? No. I can't have an operation..." She cried, clenching her jaw. "I can't have an operation, my father would never allow it "

"You're too tired ma'am." The doctor tried to convince her. He had thought that the woman could still push before, but after that call to her husband, she was clearly disorganized and it seemed as though she had lost a lot of strength.

He couldn't put that on her. "We've been at this for..."

"No." Natalie refused.

"I'd push, I'd... Push." She forced herself to nod.

She would push.

The doctor hesitated for a few seconds, contemplating his options.

"Fine." He agreed. Then he got into position at the bottom of her legs, ready to take out the baby. "Push on the count of three..."

The nurse, the same one who had called Natalie's husband came to stand beside her. "Ma'am please, push as hard as you can." She said. Then she encouraged. "You can do it."

Natalie nodded.

She could do it... She had to do it.

"One..." The doctor began his count.

"Two..."

Natalie's heart kept beating faster with every number.

"Three..."

Natalie screamed and pushed with everything left in her.  "Ahhh!"

She pushed with everything left in her.

"She's out..." A loud cry of a baby could be heard, and Natalie let out a sigh of relief.

"She's out..." The doctor announced as he took out the baby before handing her to the nurse next to him.

But then when he got back down, he noticed something. "Oh wait, there are two?"

"What?" Natalie asked in shock. How... How was it two? She had gone for a scan before, and it showed only one baby... A girl.

Before she could understand what was going on, the doctor spoke again.

"You're going to have to push again."

Natalie nodded. She was weak and tired, but what was going on was the fact that she had done it before, and she could do it again.

"One, two, three... Push."

"Ahhhhh!"

...

Natalie sat on her bed, still in a hospital gown, holding her babies in her hands.

A girl and a boy... They were perfect.

She was still admiring her children when suddenly, a nurse walked into her room.

It was the same nurse who had shown her sympathy and encouraged her hours ago.

Natalie's lips pulled up as soon as she saw her. Before she could greet or even thank her, she noticed the nurse's gloomy expression.

The nurse, who looked no older than she was, explained. "Ma'am, there's a man outside who identified himself as your husband."

Her husband... Jullain?

"He's here?" Natalie's eyes twinkled. She had been expecting him for so long already.

"Please... Let him in." She told the nurse eagerly.

"Em..." The nurse hesitated. "Ma'am, he's here with a woman."

She was trying to give Natalie a hint of what she saw outside, but the excited woman didn't pick it up. "A woman? Maybe she's his sister." She thought, completely forgetting about what she had heard earlier when they had called him.

And the party hours ago where he claimed up the stage with another woman.

"Please, let them in."

The nurse wanted to explain further, but what was the use? She could only nod.

"Okay." Then she left to carry out the order.

Less than a minute after she left, a handsome man with blonde hair, walked in. He had a brown envelope in his hands, but Natalie thought  nothing of it.

Natalie's smile got even brighter. She gestured to him to come closer. "Jullian... Jullian, look." The joy spilling out of her words.

"Look at them," Natalie whispered. "They're beautiful. Two little humans that we both have created, and I... I love them so much." She rambled on. "I've thought of names for them, the girl is..."

The man had had enough, he suddenly reacted coldly. "Natalie..." He called her name.

His voice was emotionless as he called her name. Natalie felt a trickle down her spine, she slowly looked up at him, trying to force a smile to stay on her lips. "Yeah."

"Let's get a divorce."

Natalie's eyes widened at his words. "What?" Her voice broke. "What are you talking about? Why would we get a divorce?"

It was only after she said those words did she remember.

He was with another woman at the party and they had called them a couple.

Even the phone call... He was definitely with another woman then.

Natalie shut her eyes.

She should be the one suggesting the divorce, but no. She still needed him.

Natalie shook her head. "I just gave birth, I'm not divorcing you." She said before opening her eyes.

Then she pushed the children towards Jullian.

"Look at them. How can you think of abandoning your children now?"

But Jullian shook his head, he barely glanced at the children in Natalie's hands.

Children? He had thought it would be just one. And he had hoped that she would lose the baby, at least that way nothing would tie them together.

But instead, she gave birth to two of them!

"Natalie, I've wanted to get a divorce for a while now, but I held back because you were pregnant and I didn't want you to lose the baby."

Lies...

"But... Now that you've delivered them, I can't keep this up anymore."

Of all the thoughts that crossed through her head when the nurse came to announce Jullian's arrival, she never expected that he would come with such terrible news.

How could she give up on the man she loved? No... Not loved, the man her father chose.

"Jullian please..." Natalie pleaded, shaking her head again.

Then, ignoring the bone-shrilling pain she felt in her lower abdomen, she lowered the twins to the bed and got off. Then she gritted her teeth hard before falling to her knees in front of him. "Please don't leave me," Natalie begged. "I'll change."

But Julian's reply was cold. He threw the brown envelope to her. "Here are the divorce papers sign them."

What?

D...divorce papers?

Jullian came fully prepared.

Still Natalie shook her head. Even if there was a tiny chance, a little one that Jullian wouldn't divorce her today, she would take it.

It was better to be humiliated than deal with her father's wrath.

But before she could open her mouth to speak again she heard a familiar voice, but the words were not familiar at all.

"Jullie? Baby? What's taking so long?" The person asked.

Natalie raised her head to see the lady as she walked into her room. She wore a red a short gown that stopped above her mid-thigh, with a blue jacket and red heels.

The jacket and heels... They belonged to her.

Her...

Instantly, Natalie's mind went back to the call yesterday, and the party.

"Baby? Baby?!" She yelled, the words tearing out of her throat. "Did you just call my husband baby?"

The woman who just walked in looked so calm, the complete opposite of Natalie at the moment, as she walked towards Jullian who received her with a smile.

"I'm going..." She struggled to get back up, "I'm going to murder you!" She charged towards the woman who had just walked in.

"Jullian!" The lady screamed, immediately hiding behind Jullian.

"Don't you dare touch her!" Jullian yelled, and Natalie couldn't help but stop in her tracks. "Or you'd be the one dead." he continued.

The lady, who saw that Jullian's wife couldn't do anything to her spoke freely. "Husband?" She asked Jullain, sounding annoyed. "Why does she still call you husband? She hasn't signed it yet?"

Of course.

Natalie knew this idea couldn't he Jullian's. He was too stupid.

It had to be this fucking witch.

She couldn't believe that it was this one... This lady who broke her home.

"I took you into my house, Mirabel," Natalie said in tears, reminiscing about the day she had brought Mirabel home just five months ago. "I helped you when you were at your fucking lowest. How could you do this to me! Why would you do this to me?"

She had done the lady a favor, and yet she was backstapped.

Mirabel, showed no remorse. She felt none either. "It's not my fault that you can't keep a man." She said before rolling her eyes. Then she gently brushed Jullian's upper arm with his. "And it definitely isn't my fault that he picked me over a smelly degraded thing like yourself."

Smelly? Degraded?

Natalie couldn't believe that someone used those words to qualify her.

"Take a look at yourself, Natalie." Mirabel continued. "Compared to me, you look... You look like someone's grandmother." Natalie's subconscious looked down at herself.

It was fatter than before, and a bit swollen, her hair... Unlike Mirabel's long blonde hair was pruned, her black hair was scattered everywhere on her head.

But she just gave birth!

What? She expected her to look like a model?!

"Look at yourself, Natalie," Mirabel sneered. "Compared to me, you look pathetic and disgusting. Jullian deserves better. He deserves me."

Mirabel's last words repeated in Natalie's head.

Jullian deserved better?

Mirabel thought she was better?

Natalie didn't even know when a loud laugher erupted from her lips

She was actually begging this scum to take her back?

Had she gone that low?

No.

Her father could go fuck himself.

She raised her hand to her face and wiped the tears in her eyes with her hands. Then she looked at Jullian. "You actually brought this bitch to the hospital to divorce me? What is she? Your handbag?"

"You..." Jullian fumed but Natalie didn't let him speak.

"You know what? Where are the papers?" She asked?

Her sudden change took Jullian by surprise. He thought he was going to beg a bit more. But he cleared his throat and pointed at the brown envelope near her feet.

Natalie picked up the papers, then she stretched her hand. "Pen."

"What?" Jullian's eyes widened. She was really doing it. He cleared his throat before shoving his hand into his pockets and taking out his pen.

"Don't you worry baby." Natalie heard Jullian comfort Mirabel. "Once this is gone, I'd apologize personally."

Natalie scoffed. His words fueled her. She signed her name on every paper quickly, then threw everything at Jullian.

"That's it right? That's all you came for right?" She asked and Jullian nodded absentmindly, staring at Natalie's signature on the papers.

"Good." Natalie walked towards the door and opened it. "Now get out! I don't want my children's eyes to be stained by the sight of you and that... Thing."

Mirabel eyes widened. 'Did she just call me a thing? Again?'

...

Natalie left the hospital just after midnight, quietly without telling anyone. The only thing she had with her was one small suitcase. Jullian had dropped it before leaving that bitch... Saying that it was all she had left after four years of marriage.

No way. After she was settled, she would return back there and take everything she owned... Not now.

The automatic hospital doors slid shut behind her with a soft hiss.

Cold air struck her immediately, and Natalie shivered.

Her body was still weak from childbirth. Every step sent pain shooting through her abdomen, but she forced herself to keep moving.

She had nowhere else to go.

The twins stirred softly against her, their tiny movements making her chest tighten painfully.

“I’m sorry,” she whispered, tears burning her eyes. “I’m so sorry…”

She didn’t even know which apology hurt more.

Apologizing to her children for failing them…

Or apologizing because she had brought them into a world where nobody wanted them.

The streets were nearly empty. They were dark and silent. A few distant streetlights flickered weakly against the pavement.

Natalie tightened her grip on the suitcase and kept walking slowly toward the main road.

She needed a taxi.

After that… she would figure things out somehow.

Even if it meant returning to her father.

The thought alone made her stomach twist violently. Her father didn’t tolerate failure.

And divorce? Divorce after being abandoned?

That was humiliation.

Natalie could already imagine the look on his face.

Disgust... Cold disappointment and punishment.

Natalie looked down at the twin in her arms. Her father wouldn't accept them.

Wouldn't it be better for her to just take them to an orphanage? Somewhere far away from the family?

No. She immediately shook her head.

She couldn't give up her children. She went through too much to give them up. She was selfish.

A tear left Natalie's eyes.

Her breathing became uneven.

The pain was getting worse.

She stopped walking beside the road, trembling slightly as she adjusted the baby in her arms.

For one terrifying second, her knees nearly gave out beneath her.

No.

Not now.

She couldn’t collapse now.

Not with the twins.

She forced herself to stand back up, ignoring the pain between her legs.

Headlights suddenly appeared in the distance.

Natalie looked up quickly.

A car.

Hope flickered inside her chest.

She stepped forward immediately, raising her hand desperately.

“Please!”

The vehicle slowed.

But before she could sigh in relief, another black car appeared behind it.

And another.

And another.

Natalie froze...

This was...

Her heart slammed hard against her chest.

Three black SUVs stopped in front of her one after another, their tinted windows reflecting the pale streetlights.

Her feet stumbled, and she held her suitcase tighter in her arms, while eyeing the three vehicles.

The back doors opened simultaneously.

Men dressed entirely in black stepped out from the first and last vehicles. They were all tall with broad shoulders and they had an expressionless look on their faces.

Natalie’s heartbeat spiked violently. Her grip tightened around the babies.

“W...Who are you?” she asked shakily, stepping backward.

Nobody answered.

The men spread out silently around her instead.

Blocking every possible escape.

Fear crawled up Natalie’s spine.

Her instincts screamed at her to run.

But how could she?

She turned around... she shook, they were everywhere.

“Please…” she whispered. “I just gave birth, I don’t have money…” she cried, her voice breaking. God, she couldn't afford to be mugged now.

But the men remained cold and unmoving, like statues.

Then...

The rear door of the middle SUV opened slowly.

And the atmosphere changed instantly.

With her heart beating loudly against her chest, Natalie turned to look at the man who stepped out slowly.

The first thing she noticed was his height. She noticed it from his tall legs. He was tall enough that the other men seemed smaller around him.

And then the dark tailored coat.

She noticed the aura around him.

It was dangerous. And worse, it seemed familiar.

"Jullian?"