When my fiancee, Gwen Blanchard, insists on giving birth to a child belonging to her ex-boyfriend of many years, Keith Davila, everyone can't wait to see me object to her decision.

But now, Gwen's child is officially one month old, and yet I've never kicked up a ruckus about the whole incident. Instead, I focus on preparing my wedding.

Thinking that I've finally accepted my position as her caretaker, Gwen decides to show me sympathy, though she does so in a smug manner.

"Since you've already learned your place, I shall attend the wedding and let you become my baby's father in name. I'm giving you a chance to take care of the baby and me."

But Gwen seems to be overthinking it. I've only mentioned that I'm going to hold a wedding, but I've never said anything about wanting to marry her at all.

When I got home, ready to have it out with Gwen, I found the house decked out for Quintin's baby shower.

In the living room, all the photos of Gwen and me from the past ten years, along with our pre-wedding pictures, had been torn down. In their place were family portraits of Gwen, Keith, and Quintin—chronicling from pregnancy, labor, and delivery, right through to Quintin turning one month old.

In the bottom right corner of every photo, Gwen had carefully handwritten the date with a pen and for eleven months, not a single day had been missed. The photos were plastered all over the house, so dense they completely covered the walls.

That was when it all clicked. During the year I was abroad for further studies, I'd deliberately worked around the time difference to call her when she should have been free. But she always turned down my video calls, claiming she was busy.

I had naively thought her workload was piling up, and I even felt guilty for putting her through so much. It never crossed my mind that she was actually busy becoming someone else's wife.

Inside the house, everyone was fussing over Quintin.

"Quintin is so delicate and handsome. His eyes look exactly like Keith's—he's going to be a heartthrob when he grows up!"

"Yeah, lucky for Quintin, his dad is someone like Keith—you know, good stock. Not like those short-lived folks in Ernest's family. Ernest spends all day holed up in Gwen's company lab, yet I don't see him bringing home any real money."

Everyone there was from Gwen's side of the family, so it went without saying that no one was going to speak up for me. After all, Gwen was now a successful, well-known CEO, and her relatives were all busy sucking up to her. Even though they all knew I existed, they treated me as nothing more than a punchline to laugh about over dinner.

I was just about to step inside when Keith spotted me. Cradling Quintin in his arms, he smiled with undisguised smugness. "Ernest, you're back! Why didn't you say anything? Come in and have a seat."

Keith ushered me into the house, acting as if he were the master of the home. Only then did Gwen's family notice me.

The moment Gwen's father, Bobby Blanchard, saw I'd come empty-handed, his expression darkened considerably.

"You really have no sense at all. Today is Quintin's debut. Even Keith knew to buy thousands of dollars' worth of supplements and toys for him, yet you show up empty-handed?

"You're not only bad at making money, but you've got zero emotional intelligence too. I must've been blind to ever agree to you and Gwen being together."

But all I felt was bitter irony.

When Gwen first brought me home to meet her parents, they had sympathized with me for being an orphan. They had taken my hands and told me that from then on, this would be my home.

Even when they found out I worked in a lab and only made five thousand dollars a month, Mr. Blanchard hadn't looked down on me.

Instead, he had kept pouring me drinks, saying that in his generation, the people they respected the most were scientists. It didn't matter how much I earned—as long as my work benefited humanity, I was bringing honor to the family name.

That was until three years ago, when Gwen's company was on the verge of bankruptcy because their products couldn't compete. I took a huge risk, breaching my contract to use my latest research findings to pull Gwen's company back from the brink.

I even helped them secure tens of millions of dollars in funding from an industry giant in one fell swoop.

The price I paid? I was blacklisted and completely shut out of the industry for violating my confidentiality agreement. No other company would hire me, leaving me with no choice but to stay on as a researcher at Gwen's company.

At first, Mr. and Mrs. Blanchard were effusively grateful, saying the company wouldn't be where it was today without me.

But as the business grew bigger and stronger, they gradually came to see me only as a burden—someone who survived solely because they were charitable enough to give me a job and keep me fed.

Thinking back on all this, I took a deep breath. Then, ignoring Mr. Blanchard's mockery, I turned to Gwen and said, "I have something for you."

Gwen froze for a moment, then smiled with relief. "Now that's more like it. You're finally starting to act like a father. Are you planning to give Quintin a gold pendant or a gold bracelet?"

I handed her my resignation letter.

The moment they saw the words "resignation letter", every face in the room changed.

Gwen's mother, Martina Jensen, slammed her glass onto the floor. "My daughter didn't go out there and build a company just so you could sit around at home, doing nothing and living off her! Why can't you be more like Keith?

"Just last week he helped Gwen close a major deal with a profit of at least a few million dollars. He's younger than you and has way more drive. You're too old to be this shameless. What good are you?"

I looked at the floor covered in shattered glass, and all I could do was laugh at how absurd it all was.

I was only a year older than Keith, yet Mrs. Blanchard made it sound as if I were some washed-up middle-aged man who had squandered his life away.

Besides, when it came to actual ability, Keith was nowhere near my level.

When Keith first graduated from college, he went nearly half a year without finding a job. In the end, it was through Gwen's connections that he even got a job at the company.

But he kept messing up even the most basic formulations. He was on the verge of being fired when he came to me, crying and begging for help.

He swore he had no more designs on Gwen and just wanted to earn money to provide for his parents. Only then did I start to guide him through everything, step by step.

But within just half a year, he decided he'd learned everything he needed from me and began spreading lies behind my back. The next thing I knew, I was being frozen out by everyone.

Just last week, he screwed up the project by entering the wrong data. Yet, he insisted I had deliberately altered the numbers to get even with him. The client terminated the contract, and we lost a deal worth well over ten million dollars.

Gwen didn't even give me a chance to explain. Without a second word, she demoted me and slashed my salary until I was earning less than the newly hired interns.

So, I simply handed in my resignation. Given my research achievements, even if I were blacklisted domestically, there would be plenty of companies overseas that would fall over themselves to hire me.

I figured this was as good a chance as any to make a clean break from Gwen.

Seeing that I remained silent, Mrs. Blanchard grew even more disdainful. "Are you deaf? I'm talking to you! Can't you see Quintin has soiled his diaper and needs changing? Hurry up and deal with it—are you trying to suffocate us with the stench?"

Only then did Gwen finally look up at me. "Don't upset Mom on such a happy day. We'll talk about the resignation next week when HR is back in the office. Just go change Quintin's diaper now."

Still, I didn't move.

Seeing the tension mounting, Keith glanced around shiftily and suddenly said with feigned concern, "Mrs. Blanchard, please don't be angry. Ernest must be worn out from work. I'm young—I've got plenty of energy, and I actually like doing chores around the house when I'm off work. Let me change Quintin's diaper."

But before he could even make a move, Gwen cut him off.

"You don't have to do that," she said, a pained look on her face. "You're Quintin's father; you need to stay and watch him. Since Ernest wants to resign, let him do the grunt work. It'll be a good cure for his laziness and teach him just how hard it is to earn a living."

All I could feel was how utterly absurd it all was. Keith was all talk; he couldn't even be bothered to empty his own trash bin at work. In fact, it would sit there overflowing for a week straight.

And what about all those years? Both Mr. and Mrs. Blanchard had been in poor health, constantly shuttling back and forth to the hospital. After Mr. Blanchard's stroke left him incontinent, even the hired caregivers couldn't bring themselves to handle it. It was me who personally took care of everything.

But now, just because I wouldn't change Quintin's diaper, I was suddenly branded a good-for-nothing lazy bum.

It was so painfully clear whether Gwen loved me or not.

Snapping back to the moment, I threw the clean diaper onto the floor and said firmly, "I'm not going to change his diaper. Whoever's kid it is can deal with it. Besides, it's not like—"

Before I could finish, Gwen slapped me hard across the face, cutting me off.

"Figures. What else do you expect from an orphan? No one ever taught you any manners. What gives you the right to talk back to my mother in front of everyone?"

When he saw me get slapped in public, Keith could barely keep from laughing.

Keith, seizing the moment while everyone's attention was elsewhere, sneakily pinched Quintin. The baby immediately burst into wailing cries.

Gwen's expression darkened instantly. As she tried to soothe Quintin, she demanded, "Ernest, what exactly are you trying to do? Ever since you got back, you've been causing one trouble after another—first the resignation, now the disrespect.

"I already heard from the hotel staff that you arranged the wedding setup. If you still want to marry me, then apologize to my mother right now! I can let bygones be bygones and allow you to continue as Quintin's father in name, to take care of us both."

Hearing this, I laughed inwardly.

Everyone believed I was hopelessly in love with Gwen that I would stick around even as her unpaid nanny just to stay by her side. However, they all overlooked one thing. It was true I had arranged the wedding setup, but I never said I was the one marrying her.

With that thought, I replied calmly, "Then let's not get married. Gwen, I'm breaking up with you."

A stunned silence fell over everyone.

Gwen froze for a second, then seemed to realize something and let out a contemptuous smirk. "You want to break up with me? Ernest, what kind of brain rot have you been watching online? Are you trying to play hard to get now? You think if you threaten to leave, I'll drop everything and come begging you to stay?

"Know your place. If it weren't for my family, you would've starved to death out there long ago. Instead of wasting energy on these pathetic schemes, how about you focus on serving my family properly? Maybe I'll consider giving you a chance, then."

I was utterly speechless.

"You told me you were afraid of getting married and having children. You asked me to wait, to give you a little more time. Well, I have been waiting for ten years now.

"I left to study abroad, and then you turned around and had Keith's baby. What, was I supposed to just roll over and accept being cheated on?"

At my question, Gwen put on a smile that said she'd seen this coming all along.

"I knew it—you really are just jealous of Keith! Only someone with a filthy mind would see it that way. You think everyone is as sleazy as you? Quintin was conceived through IVF, so I haven't done anything to betray you. Besides, your whole family is a bunch of short-lived, low-IQ, disease-ridden weaklings.

"Am I not even allowed to borrow superior, strong genes for Quintin? How can you be so selfish and not think about Quintin's future at all? As his mother, am I wrong for wanting him to be better and more exceptional?"

As Gwen spouted her twisted logic, her relatives began pointing fingers at me too. They belittled me as petty, narrow-minded, and completely worthless.

But instead of getting angry, I just found it laughable.

My parents died young because they were part of a classified national experiment back in the day. They were exposed to too many chemicals and passed away from cancer. They gave their lives for science, and the nation posthumously awarded them medals of honor for their sacrifice.

As for the wreck my body had become, Gwen had more than a little to do with that.

Back then, she had jumped into starting a business on a whim. She had no connections or understanding of corporate networking; in fact, all she had was a warehouse full of products and no clients in sight.

It was me who ran myself ragged day after day, swallowing my pride and handling the drinking and schmoozing at all those business dinners. Little by little, I built the company's reputation from nothing.

But over time, my health went to ruin. I developed a stomach condition so severe that even the slightest cold or spicy food would send me into uncontrollable spasms and vomiting. And Gwen? She never once noticed any of it.

Now, seeing that I had become the target of everyone's scorn, Keith could barely keep the smirk off his face. Yet, he still had the nerve to step forward, playing the part of the peacemaker.

"Ernest, this is all my fault. I don't know my place. I let myself start thinking I was part of this family. At the end of the day, I'm just an outsider who provided some genes for Quintin.

"Me staying here will only get in the way of your family's happiness. Just let me take one last look at Quintin, and I'll leave right away."

He even managed to squeeze out a few tears, putting on the perfect picture of wounded innocence.

Gwen's heart melted on the spot. She stopped him and said, "Keith, how could any of this be your fault? Ernest is the one who doesn't know what's good for him!"