Emma POV

I walked out of the hospital clutching the test results, my hands trembling so badly I could barely keep hold of the paper. Tears blurred my vision, but honestly, I couldn't tell you if they were from joy or sadness.

"Mrs. Bennett, you're pregnant." The doctor's words kept echoing in my head, over and over again.

It had only been three months since I married Dylan Carter. He came from the most powerful family in Riverside, the kind of family everyone knew about, the kind people whispered about with a mixture of respect and envy.

Our wedding day felt like something out of a fairy tale. Every woman in town seemed to hate me just a little bit that day. And I'd be lying if I said I didn't feel like the luckiest girl alive.

I'd known Dylan since I was ten years old. That's when it started, this feeling that grew roots deep in my chest and never let go.

For twelve years, I worked on myself, pushed myself to be better, smarter, more confident. All so I could stand beside him without feeling completely out of place, so I could catch his eye even for just a second when we were in the same room.

Deep down, I always knew we came from completely different worlds. I was nobody special, just a girl who grew up with barely enough to get by. How was someone like me supposed to end up with someone like him?

But then, three months ago, something unbelievable happened. Maybe God was watching out for me, or maybe fate just decided to mess with me for fun. I went to my friend's birthday party one night. The next morning, I woke up and found Dylan lying right there next to me.

The red stain on the white sheets told the whole story. It showed exactly what had happened between us the night before.

Before I could even process what was going on, there was this loud knock at the door. Then suddenly the room was flooded with reporters, blocking every exit. They couldn't wait to break the news that Dylan Carter had spent the night with some mystery woman.

The Carters were the most respected family in Riverside. They had this reputation: old money, refined taste, connections everywhere. Mr. Carter Sr. was traditional in every sense of the word. When he found out what happened, he announced our wedding that same day.

It felt like a dream come true. Except it wasn't a dream at all. It was a nightmare.

Dylan didn't love me. Not even a little bit. He hated me, actually. Despised me. And I knew exactly why, because marrying me meant he had to let go of the woman he truly loved, Sophie Bennett.

And here's the twisted part: Sophie is my sister. My own flesh and blood.

Still, I gathered every bit of courage I had and called him.

He didn't pick up. So I sent a text instead, telling him I had something important to talk about and really hoping he'd come home that night.

We'd been married for three months, but he'd never spent a single night at home with me. Every evening, I'd lie alone in our bedroom, knowing exactly where he was. With her.

He didn't answer his phone. He didn't reply to my text either. My heart sank like a stone. I already knew Dylan wasn't coming home tonight. He never did.

I decided to take a shower and was just about to lie down when I heard it: the bedroom door flying open with this violent, ear-splitting bang that made my whole body jolt.

I looked up, and my breath caught in my throat. There he was. Dylan. His face was cold as ice but still devastatingly handsome in that unfair way of his. My heart started hammering so hard I thought it might burst right out of my chest.

"Dylan, you came home," I said softly, trying his name out carefully like I was afraid it might break something. I couldn't help the small smile that crept onto my face.

But when I moved closer to him, everything changed in an instant. He grabbed my arm, hard, and just threw me onto the bed like I was nothing. Like I weighed nothing and meant even less.

I could feel each of his fingers digging into my chin as he gripped my face. His eyes were bloodshot and wild, filled with this mix of alcohol and pure rage that made my stomach turn.

"So tell me something, Emma," he said, and even drunk, his voice had this smooth, almost seductive quality to it. But underneath, I could hear the mockery. The hatred. "Do you really want me that badly? So badly that you'd pull some disgusting stunt just to trap me in your bed?"

All the blood drained from my face. I stared at the man I'd loved for twelve years, and my heart felt like someone was squeezing it in their fist.

"Dylan, no... you've got it all wrong…"

"Got it wrong?" He let out this harsh laugh and stared down at me with complete disgust. "Emma, why are you still acting? When are you going to drop this pathetic innocent act?"

Then he said something that made my world tilt sideways.

？

Emma POV

The next morning, I woke up feeling like I'd been hit by a truck.

My whole body ached- my arms, my legs, even my neck. Everything hurt. For a second, I just lay there with my eyes closed, trying to remember how I'd ended up feeling this broken. Then it all came rushing back. Last night, I was with Dylan. The way he'd looked at me with so much hate.

Before I could even fully process it all or figure out what time it was, something landed on the bed with a dull thump right next to my head.

I flinched. My eyes flew open.

A small box sat there on the white sheets. I stared at it, confused and still half-asleep.

"Take it."

That voice, it was cold and commanding. I knew it instantly.

My head jerked up so fast my neck cracked. Dylan was standing at the foot of the bed, and he looked... completely different from last night. His suit was perfectly tailored and crisp, not a wrinkle anywhere. His hair was styled just right. He looked like he'd stepped out of a magazine, all polished and put-together and intimidatingly handsome.

Like last night had never even happened. Like he hadn't thrown me onto this same bed with violence in his eyes just hours ago.

I looked back down at the box, my brain still foggy and slow. Then I saw what it was.

Birth control pills.

My heart stopped. Actually stopped for a beat before it started racing double-time.

No. No, no, no. I couldn't take those. I was pregnant. The pills could hurt the baby, or worse. Way worse. My hand instinctively moved to my stomach, protective, before I caught myself and let it drop.

"What are you waiting for?" Dylan's voice cut through my panic. "You need me to spell it out? Or do you want me to shove them down your throat myself?"

I couldn't move. My body felt frozen, my mind screaming at me to do something, say something, but nothing came out.

I saw his jaw tighten. That little muscle that always twitched when he was getting angry. His patience, what little he had for me, was running out.

"Emma." He said my name like it tasted bad in his mouth. "Listen to me very carefully, and don't make me repeat myself."

I looked up at him. His eyes were like stone. Hard and cold and completely unfeeling.

"Don't even think about having my baby. Don't you dare try to trap me with some pregnancy scheme." He took a step closer, and I had to fight the urge to shrink back. "You're nothing but a pathetic, shameless gold-digger who'd bite the hand that feeds her. You don't deserve to carry my child. You don't deserve anything from me."

Each word landed like a physical blow. I felt them in my chest, in my throat, in that place behind my eyes where tears were building up but I refused to let fall.

It was July. The middle of summer. Hot and humid outside with the sun already blazing through the curtains. But I felt cold. So, so cold. Like someone had injected ice water directly into my veins and it was spreading through every part of me.

I'd been so stupid. So ridiculously, painfully stupid. I'd actually thought that maybe, just maybe, the baby would change things between us. That it would be this breakthrough moment, this thing that finally made him see me as more than just an obligation or a mistake. That maybe he'd put his hand on my stomach and smile, and we'd start over.

God, I wanted to laugh at myself or cry. Maybe both.

Now I couldn't even tell him the truth. The words were stuck somewhere deep in my throat, tangled up with fear and shame and heartbreak.

So with Dylan standing there, watching me like a warden watching a prisoner, I didn't have any choice.

My hand shook as I reached for the box. I popped one of the pills out of its foil wrapper, brought it to my mouth, and pretended to swallow it. But at the last second, I tucked it under my tongue instead, letting it sit there bitter and dissolving slowly.

I felt disgusting doing it. Guilty and terrified all at once. My heart was pounding so hard I was sure he could hear it. What if he noticed? What if he made me open my mouth to check?

But right at that moment, like some twisted miracle, his phone started buzzing on the nightstand.

He grabbed it immediately, glanced at the screen, and his whole face transformed. The cold mask cracked. His eyebrows pulled together with actual emotion. Worry. Fear, even.

"What?" he barked into the phone. Then his face went pale. "Sophie tried to kill herself? I'm coming right now!"

Emma's POV

The words hit me like a sledgehammer.

Sophie. My sister. Tried to kill herself.

The shock made everything else disappear for a second. The pills, the lies, the hurt, all of it just evaporated. All I could think was: Sophie tried to die. My sister wanted to die.

I didn't even think. I just moved. Pushed through the pain in my body, ignored the way my legs felt weak and shaky. I grabbed the first clothes I saw jeans, a T-shirt- didn't even care if they matched, and threw them on while practically running down the stairs.

By the time I got outside, Dylan had already started the car. The engine was humming, exhaust coming out the back. He was about to leave without me.

I ran to the passenger side and yanked the door open.

"Get your filthy hands off my car."

His voice stopped me dead. I looked at him through the open door. His face was twisted with disgust, like I was something dirty he'd stepped in.

"Who the hell said you could sit there?"

My hand fell away from the door handle as it had burned me. I stood there on the driveway, feeling about two inches tall. Like dirt. Like trash. Like nothing.

"Dylan, please," I heard myself say, and I hated how small my voice sounded. "I'm worried about Sophie too. She's my sister. Let me come with you."

He actually laughed at that. This short, bitter sound that had no real humor in it.

"Worried?" He looked at me with something close to amusement, but cruel. "Shouldn't you be throwing a party if she's dead? Isn't that what you wanted all along?”

He gave me one last look, full of pure contempt, and then he just floored it. The car peeled out of the driveway so fast it left tire marks on the pavement.

I stood there watching the car disappear down the street, my face drained of all color. I felt numb. Completely numb.

After standing there like an idiot for what felt like forever but was probably only a few seconds, I finally snapped out of it. I pulled out my phone with shaking hands and called for a ride, then spent the whole drive following the route Dylan's car had taken.

---

Riverside General Hospital. That's where they'd taken her.

I walked through those sterile white hallways, following the room numbers until I found the right one. The door was partially open, and I could see inside.

My feet stopped moving. I just stood there in the doorway, frozen.

Dylan was walking toward the hospital bed, and I watched with this sick, twisting feeling in my stomach as Sophie looked up and saw him. Her whole face just... crumpled. She was already pale, so pale she looked almost ghostly against the white sheets, but when she saw him, tears started streaming down her cheeks.

Then she practically threw herself into his arms.

At least she wasn't in danger. Thank God for that. I felt some of the crushing weight lift off my chest. She was okay. She was alive.

"Dylan..." Sophie's voice was so soft, so sweet. Like honey.

She said his name the way I wished I could say it, with affection, with the certainty that he'd catch her. And he did. She told him everything that had been hurting her, all her pain and sadness, and he just held her through it all. His arms wrapped around her like she was something precious. Something worth protecting.

Standing there watching them, they looked perfect together. Like one of those couples you see in movies, beautiful, tragic, meant to be. And me? I was just some random person standing in the doorway. An intruder. Someone who didn't belong in this picture.

I swallowed hard, trying to push down all the hurt that was bubbling up in my chest, and forced myself to walk into the room.

"Sophie..." I started to say.

"Emma, you ungrateful wretch! How dare you show your face here to see Sophie!"

The voice came from behind me, sharp and furious. I barely had time to process it before I was about to turn around.

I knew that voice. Mrs. Patricia Morgan, Sophie's mother. Well, her adoptive mother. Same as mine, technically, since they'd adopted me too.

But I never got the chance to turn around fully.

SLAP.

The sound cracked through the room like a whip. Pain exploded across my left cheek, so sharp and sudden that my vision actually blurred. Little spots of light danced in front of my eyes. My head snapped to the side from the force of it, and I stumbled, nearly losing my balance.

"You shameless little harlot!" Mrs. Morgan's face was twisted with rage, her carefully applied makeup doing nothing to hide the pure hatred in her eyes. "We took you in out of the goodness of our hearts. We fed you. We clothed you. We gave you a roof over your head. And this is how you repay us? By stealing Sophie's fiancé?"

My cheek was burning. Throbbing. I could feel it starting to swell already.

She started going off about that night three months ago, the night everything changed. The night I woke up next to Dylan. But she was making it sound like I'd planned the whole thing. Like I'd orchestrated some elaborate scheme to trap him.

I wanted to explain. God, I wanted to explain so badly. It wasn't like that. I didn't plan it. I didn't even know how it happened.

But before I could get a single word out, her hand flew again.

SLAP.

The other side of my face this time. The impact was even harder than the first one, and I felt something warm and wet in my mouth. The metallic taste of blood. My lip had split open, and I could feel the blood starting to trickle down my chin.

The room spun. My legs felt like jelly. I swayed on my feet, the floor tilting under me, and I was about to go down. I could feel myself falling.

Then a voice, loud, booming, and furious, cut through everything.

"Emma, from this day forward, you are no longer a Bennett! You hear me? We don't have a daughter who's shameless enough to do whatever it takes to get what she wants!"

Dad, Mr. Richard Bennett. My adoptive father.

I looked up at him through blurry eyes, my vision still wonky from the slaps. His face was red, veins bulging in his neck. He looked like he wanted to hit me too.

And then he did.

Not a slap this time. A kick. His foot connected with my side, and I felt something in my ribcage protest with a sharp spike of pain. The force sent me stumbling backward. I crashed into the wall, then slid down to the floor in a heap.

Everything hurt. My face, my side, my heart.

I sat there on the cold hospital floor, tasting blood, feeling like my whole world had just shattered into a million pieces that I'd never be able to put back together.