My husband, Ronan Knight, CEO of the Knight Group, cheated on me with an influencer named Sienna Lowe while I was pregnant with his child. The tabloids plastered photos of them kissing on a private yacht across every front page.

To appease me and my powerful family, the Prescotts, Ronan claimed he had sent Sienna away for good, bound by a strict non-disclosure agreement.

But the damage was done. I developed a severe, crippling mysophobia. Any form of physical contact would make me gag uncontrollably.

The pregnancy meant I couldn't take sedatives, so my only relief from the crushing anxiety was a daily, obsessive ritual: demanding that everything be sterilized before it touched me.

Ronan, a man known for his volatile temper, now washed his hands with disinfectant over and over in a hollow performance of penance. If he needed to touch me, he wore medical gloves.

Whenever he entered my bedroom, he had to change into a full isolation gown. He never complained, no matter how suffocating it was under the plastic.

"It's okay," he'd say. "I was the one who broke our promise first."

The fragile peace shattered the day I ordered him to disinfect himself one more time. He finally snapped. He hurled a crystal glass against the wall right in front of me.

"Enough! I made one mistake—the same mistake every rich man on the planet makes! Why do you have to humiliate me like this? When did I become so filthy in your eyes?"

As punishment for my condition, Ronan threw a massive pool party at our lakeside estate, filling the air with the cloying stench of alcohol and sweat. He intended to use our unborn child's safety as leverage to break me.

Amidst the chaos and shoving, I was knocked to the ground. A searing pain tore through my abdomen. Soon, blood soaked my dress, a warm tide seeping down my inner thighs.

But in that moment, all I felt was an overwhelming, shocking sense of relief.

"Let's get a divorce, Ronan."

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1

Curled on the cold marble floor, I felt the warmth slowly drain from my body, stolen by the wet patch spreading beneath my dress. The cloying scent of Ronan Knight's cologne mingling with the pool's chlorine made my stomach churn.

I still remembered the day I saw the photos. Rain was lashing against the windows. I'd burst into his study, ecstatic, ready to share the joyous news of my pregnancy. But I found him smiling at his screen—at her. The influencer famous for her body.

Their intimacy was a physical blow.

From that day forward, any contact with the outside world filled me with a primal revulsion. I scrubbed my hands raw, took scalding showers, and refused to touch anything that hadn't been sterilized.

Ronan blamed it on pregnancy hormones. He indulged what he called my "condition," playing his part in our little farce of repentance—until tonight. Tonight, he'd finally grown tired of the performance.

"Look at you—you're a lunatic!" he had roared by the poolside, goading his guests into a drunken frenzy. Then he ordered his security to shove a drunken guest toward me.

"I want you to see that the world is inherently dirty!"

In that instant, a sharp, tearing pain ripped through my abdomen. Ronan watched me collapse. He watched me wail as my white dress bloomed red, but his face remained a mask of irritation.

"Stop acting, Cordelia," he said coldly. "The baby isn't that fragile."

He stepped around the growing pool of blood, pushed open the glass door, and strode away without a backward glance. The door slammed shut, the sound echoing across the suddenly quiet patio. The rowdy crowd melted away, leaving nothing but a mess in their wake.

With a trembling hand, I dialed our private doctor's emergency line. Not Ronan's. "Save me…" I sobbed into the phone, my voice cracking. "No… save the baby… Oh, God, it's too late."

As I waited, my consciousness began to fray at the edges. My mind drifted back to our wedding day. In the ancient, cavernous church, Ronan knelt on one knee, pressing a kiss to my fingertips.

Before God and our families, he swore he would be faithful to me, to our vows. Through my veil, his face was a blur. I couldn't tell if I was looking at love or a business deal.

By the time the doctor arrived, the blood on the floor had begun to congeal into a dark, ugly stain. He took one look at the scene and shook his head, his expression grim. "I'm so sorry, Mrs. Knight… the baby is gone."

"I know."

I closed my eyes as a single, cold tear traced a path down my temple.

Because of my condition, I couldn't have general anesthesia. I was awake for the entire procedure, feeling the cold, metallic instruments scrape away what was left of my baby, and my heart.

My baby, five months along—a small, budding life—was gone. His heart would never beat again. He would never hear mine. He never even got the chance to open his eyes.

"Should we send the ashes to the Knight family cemetery?" the doctor asked cautiously.

"No," I said after a long silence. "That's Ronan's place. It's too dirty."

I refused to let my child lie next to a traitor. In a secluded clearing on the estate overlooking the lake, I held a funeral only I attended. There was no priest, no flowers, only the heavy silence of the woods.

All the while, Finn, Ronan's COO, was blowing up his phone. No answer. Ronan had cut off all contact, vanishing without a trace.

I pictured him somewhere warm and comfortable, smugly satisfied with this little "punishment" he'd dealt me.

He thought I'd come crawling back, begging for forgiveness. That was a lesson he still had to learn. Some things, once broken, can never be mended.

As the first shovel of dirt landed on the small, simple urn, I suddenly realized my mysophobia wasn't just a sickness. It was my armor.

In a world of lies, money, and betrayal, it was the only thing I had left. The only thing that made me feel remotely safe.

I stood and brushed the dirt from my dress. This time, I didn't feel the urge to wash my hands.

I took out my phone, bypassed the family lawyers who always preached reconciliation, and dialed a top divorce attorney in New York City.

"I need you to draft an agreement for me."

In the sterile silence of the private hospital room, my phone shrieked. It was my father, Arthur Prescott, calling from Seattle. The second I answered, his authoritative voice boomed, thick with reprimand.

"You're being reckless, Cordelia! Ronan is the CEO of the Knight Group! A man like that is bound to have a temper. You're jeopardizing our family's position!"

In his world, my dignity, my child, my life—it was all just dust compared to the bottom line. I leaned back against the stiff hospital pillow and stared out at the oppressive gray sky.

"Dad," I interrupted, my voice unnervingly calm. "The child you were counting on to solidify our family's alliance? He's ash now."

The line went dead silent, filled only with a low hum of static, a fitting tribute to the tragedy.

Not long after, my uncles stormed the room. They murmured condolences, their faces etched with practiced sympathy, but their eyes kept darting to my now-flat stomach.

"Such a shame… I heard it was a boy."

"How could you have been so careless, Cordelia?"

"Ronan may have his faults, but as a mother, you failed to protect your own child."

Every word was a veiled accusation. Every sentence was a judgment. In their eyes, I hadn't lost a baby. I'd lost a bargaining chip.

"Don't you worry," one uncle said, patting my shoulder with forced familiarity. "We'll make him pay. Besides, you're young. You can have other children."

I stared coldly at these vultures, steeped in their own greed. "He doesn't need to pay for anything."

I slowly pushed myself upright, my gaze sweeping over each of their faces. "I'm ending the marriage."

The words hung in the air like a death sentence. Ronan's mother, Moira Knight, who had been lurking in the corner, finally sneered, "Can't even keep a child, and now you want a divorce? What a disgrace."

Ronan's father, Cormac Knight, looked equally displeased. He dialed Ronan's satellite phone. This time, it connected. The background was loud, filled with music and laughter.

"What is it?" Ronan snapped, his voice edged with annoyance at being interrupted.

Cormac put the phone on speaker and shoved it in my face. "You tell him."

I stared at the glowing screen. "The baby's gone."

There was a beat of silence, then Ronan's infuriated roar filled the room. "Enough, Cordelia! You'd sink low enough to lie about our child just to make me bend? I already dealt with the media!"

"I handled that whole mess to prove my loyalty to you! I buried it! Why can't you just let it go? Do you have any idea what a nightmare this has been? Can't you think of anyone but yourself for once?"

Not a single question about how I was. Not a single inquiry—if he thought it was true—about where our baby was buried.

I thought of the last five months. The long nights I'd spent staring at the ceiling, unable to take sleeping pills for the baby's sake, fighting off the crushing weight of depression while he slept soundly next door, sometimes to the faint sound of other women's laughter.

Tears pricked my eyes. Just then, my parents arrived. Instead of a hug, they immediately sided with my uncles.

"Divorce? You can forget it!" my mother, Eleanor, hissed. "If you dare leave him, I'll have you cut off from the Prescott Group's trust fund!"

This was my family. The people I had tried so hard to protect.

A white-hot rage erupted in my chest. I snatched a vase from the bedside table and hurled it against the far wall. It exploded in a shower of glass and water, shattering the pristine silence.

My uncles flinched back, staring at me as if I'd lost my mind.

I stood amidst the wreckage, my eyes burning. "Then cut me off!" I shrieked, my voice raw with a fury that stunned them into silence. "From this day on, my life is mine. No one will ever control me again. No one!"