Eunice’s POVI laid my hands gently on my stomach. Sometimes, the air carries whispers of the past, doesn’t it? It brushes against your skin, and suddenly, you remember the important things you’ve lost—things that once defined your very existence.I sighed deeply, the memories weighing heavily on my chest. I remembered I used to be pregnant for Tyler. As I continued rubbing my stomach, the ache returned—not just physical, but emotional.If he had not betrayed me—if he hadn’t allowed the unfortunate to happen by letting another woman come between us—I would have birthed that child. I would have been a mother by now, rocking my baby to sleep, singing lullabies, and watching them grow.But life doesn’t come with a manual, does it? I remembered how I lost the pregnancy... and how I had no choice but to move forward after that heartbreaking scenario. It shattered me, but I survived.Now, I sat behind the desk in my office at Velvet Aura. The company was now fully functional, thriving even.
Eunice’ POV"Congratulations, you are two weeks pregnant!" Doctor Miranda beamed as she passed my test results across the desk.I couldn't contain my happiness. A wide smile spread across my face as I looked at Dr. Miranda, my heart swelling with joy."Thank you so much!" I said, my voice brimming with excitement.My husband, Tyler, and I had been trying for two years—two long years of disappointment and heartbreak. Just when I had begun to lose hope, I was finally pregnant. The realization sent a wave of relief through me.Eager to share the news, I headed straight to the mall to pick up fresh ingredients. I wanted to surprise Tyler over a well-prepared dinner—his favorite meal, paired with the best news of our lives.I carefully selected everything I needed: filet mignon, vibrant asparagus, golden Yukon potatoes, and a basket of ripe strawberries. A bottle of red wine caught my eye, but after a brief hesitation, I opted for sparkling grape juice instead. Tonight was special, and I w
Eunice’ POVI faked a smile at him, unwilling to let him know that I had detected a foreign perfume on him. My mind was still processing it, but there was no mistaking it. I was the one who always went to the mall to help Tyler choose a new cologne whenever he needed one. I knew the scent he always wore like the back of my hand. This wasn’t it. This scent on him now—it was definitely a woman’s. My heart clenched, sinking like a ship struck by torpedoes. The excitement I had carried moments ago, eager to share my news with Tyler, evaporated in an instant. We gently pulled away from the hug, and I collected his briefcase, helping him remove the long coat draped over his suit. This had always been my routine whenever he returned home. In the past, I would have done it with a bright smile, carrying his briefcase upstairs with lighthearted joy. But tonight, sadness weighed heavily on me. “Is that seared steak and roasted asparagus?!” he exclaimed, his excitement evident as he made hi
Eunice's POVI didn’t give Tyler the slightest thought that I was going to go to the company today. After all, it was our company, the one we both built from scratch. I also had the right to visit, didn’t I? After Tyler left for work, I walked downstairs and headed to Diana’s room, making sure I prepared her some breakfast and fed her before she’d take her medication.“I’m going to the grocery stall,” I told her..I slid into my car, drove out of the driveway, and headed straight to the company. The moment I arrived, I could feel that something had changed. The atmosphere at the company felt different.Six months ago, before I left to fully take care of Tyler’s mother, Sonya and Tasha were our receptionists. But now, I was seeing new faces—new faces Tyler never mentioned to me.Since they didn’t know me, I decided to act as if I were just a regular customer. I knew the CEO’s office was always upstairs, and Tyler would be coming downstairs soon. This was the usual practice—employees w
Eunice’s POVHearing this, a knot grew in my stomach. My fingers twitched, itching to raise my hand and slap her, the sound of it cracking through the air like a whip. But I only clenched my fist instead. A young bitch who knew nothing but how to snatch people’s husbands would not make me become someone I was not. I refused to stoop to her level.Taking a deep breath, I turned on my heel, ready to return home immediately. Tyler would come back home to meet me. To explain this nonsense I had just witnessed.But then, a second thought hit me. If I walked out of the salon just like that, this husband snatcher would think she had won. She would smirk, reveling in her false victory, and I could already picture her issuing a direct threat to the employees, forbidding them from ever letting me step foot in this building again.I couldn’t risk that. I had to assert my dominance as the real madam of this beautiful company.“Get out of my way,” I said, my voice sharp and commanding. With a swif
Eunice’s POVTyler reached for my hand the second time as we walked upstairs, but I didn’t hold on too tightly. The weight of our argument still lingered in my chest. I had told him I would believe his words when I saw action, and nothing had changed. We lay in bed together, but my mind kept replaying the moment I saw Lola smirking at me. Even when Tyler wrapped his arms around me, whispering soft reassurances, I couldn’t shake the doubt gnawing at my thoughts.Morning came quickly, the golden hues of the rising sun spilling into our room. I stretched beneath the sheets, glancing at Tyler, who was still asleep beside me. For a brief moment, I allowed myself to hope that today would be different—that I would wake up to proof of his loyalty, not just empty promises.I slid out of bed, pushing aside the warmth of his embrace. There were things I needed to take care of today—things that didn’t involve waiting around for Tyler to prove himself.I made my way to the kitchen, determined to
Eunice' POVEverything Tyler told me was a lie. Every damn thing!The scent that lingered on him, the way he called Lola names, the insistence that they weren’t together—it was all a lie.If not, how was Lola pregnant for him?!My heart pounded as I turned to Tyler, my voice rising. “What is she talking about, Tyler?!” I needed an answer, and I needed it now.Lola scoffed darkly, crossing her arms. “I’ll tell you exactly what’s happening.” Her gaze locked onto mine, irritation flickering in her eyes.“Tyler—your husband—impregnated me,” she announced smugly. “Since you couldn’t even give him a baby, I did. And now, he’s going to be a father, and I’m going to be a mother.”The words hit me like a slap. My breath hitched as I turned to Tyler, searching his face for denial, for any sign that this wasn’t true. “Tell me this isn’t true, Tyler! Tell me she’s lying!”But he didn’t.Instead, he stared at the floor, dumbfounded, as if the words he needed had abandoned him.I let out a bitter c
Eunice’s POV“There is another thing I need to tell you, dear,” my mother, Josie Morgan, sounded again after telling me she needed me to follow her back home so that I could take my rightful place as the heir of her company.I furrowed my brow at what she wanted to tell me because there was a way in the manner in which she told me this. First, she clutched my left with her left since she was already holding my right hand with her hand.She pressed it hard like she was trying to comfort me before she told me something very importantly sad.“What is it, Mum?!” I raised my voice as my heart began to race. What could she be wanting to tell me that was so hard to say to this extent?My mother was not the one admitted to the hospital, but she already had reddening eyes from the news she was about to break to me.“Is it Tyler? Do you want me to go back to him after all of this?” I began to guess what she wanted to say. But her eyes only got redder, and she shook her head.“No, dear,” she sa
Eunice’s POVI laid my hands gently on my stomach. Sometimes, the air carries whispers of the past, doesn’t it? It brushes against your skin, and suddenly, you remember the important things you’ve lost—things that once defined your very existence.I sighed deeply, the memories weighing heavily on my chest. I remembered I used to be pregnant for Tyler. As I continued rubbing my stomach, the ache returned—not just physical, but emotional.If he had not betrayed me—if he hadn’t allowed the unfortunate to happen by letting another woman come between us—I would have birthed that child. I would have been a mother by now, rocking my baby to sleep, singing lullabies, and watching them grow.But life doesn’t come with a manual, does it? I remembered how I lost the pregnancy... and how I had no choice but to move forward after that heartbreaking scenario. It shattered me, but I survived.Now, I sat behind the desk in my office at Velvet Aura. The company was now fully functional, thriving even.
Tyler’s POVI arrived back at home, and the anger from the nonsense Dr. Joel told me was still sitting hard on my face. The drive hadn’t helped. My mind was a storm.How could he come up with something as ridiculous as that? What kind of doctor even says things like that without proof?As I opened the front door, the weight of my thoughts still dragging behind me, the first person to run with her little legs and open her tiny hands to hug my leg—right at her height level—was my little Jasmine.The moment I carried her up to my chest and played with her nose as I always did, something shifted. I didn’t know what happened, but I knew I was not feeling that level of anger again.Seeing my baby’s face always brought me some kind of solace—even in the midst of tension. It was like a balm I never knew I needed. And then it just hit me. I realized that I had been away from my family emotionally since burying my mother. Not physically, but something inside me had checked out.With that though
Tyler’s POVI arrived at the coffee shop, the place Dr. Joel had told me to catch up with him. It was a shop that always dressed their chairs and tables outdoors, and I so much hated going there because anyone could be seen sitting beside the room, having a cup of coffee, completely exposed to the public eye.Still, I went anyway.“Why that place, we could just go to…”“It’s the best place we can use. We will be able to see anyone who was catching up to us without our permission,” Dr. Joel had interrupted me, and well, I understood since he said he was going to tell me a secret. His tone was dead serious. So, I figured he cared deeply about his safety—and maybe mine too.Right from the parking lot where I parked my car, I saw Dr. Joel sitting up front in one of the chairs beside the wall. He was positioned facing the road and looking both to the right and the left with urgency, as if he was being extremely careful not to be followed or seen by someone else.This already felt differen
Lola’s POVI didn’t know Tyler could be that much of a child. A child that crumbles at the loss of his mother. Even after many hours had passed since the burial had been completed, just because the news stations picked up the story and aired it, he broke down crying again?He cradled up to the wall and buried his head into his knees. He cried like a fucking baby who had been abandoned by everyone and couldn’t imagine what his life would turn out to be from now on.But the real truth remained: if he had loved his mother so much—so deeply that her death broke him this way—then why did he continue to let her hate me while she was alive?Why didn’t he ever put her in her place? When she started suspecting that Jasmine had some uniqueness—some traits different from either of us—why didn’t he say something to calm her down or correct her assumptions?Didn’t he know that the instinct of a woman to protect her child, to protect herself, can sometimes spiral into something worse?I said nothin
Eunice POVI watched her as if I watched a toothless dog barking—loud but harmless, just irritating.Purposely, I didn’t take any of my luxurious cars to the burial ceremony. In fact, I had rented this faded-looking sedan because I wanted to keep something far low—lower than low profile. I knew that going to Diana’s burial, Tyler would certainly see me. And when he did, I knew he would start calculating—trying to size me up. Was I doing better after the divorce, or was I doing poorly?I didn’t want him to know my real status after the divorce. Letting him find out that I was now the president of Maison Vivre could trigger some regret within him. And I knew Tyler—he might even try to come back to me.But I don’t want that. I don’t want anything close to that. I wanted him to pay for his actions. Still, at the same time, I needed to pay Diana my last respect. She didn’t deserve to be forgotten because of what her son had done.When you talk of a good and caring mother-in-law, you’d alwa
Tyler’s POVI carried my mother’s dead body into the coffin myself. I didn’t let no one else do this. She was my mother—the one who gave birth to me, breastfed me, raised me into a man. And even now, as she lay cold and lifeless, how could I not adore her? How could I let anyone else touch her now, in her final moments on earth?Today was the day she was going to be buried. Our culture didn’t allow the dead to be left unburied beyond three days. We believed that anyone who wasn’t laid to rest within that time was either a wicked person that their family had abandoned—or someone so lonely, with no one left to care for them, not even in death.In such cases, the government would step in. They would take over the burial process within a week and lay the person to rest along with others who had no one left. It was done appropriately, of course, but without intimacy. Without meaning.I didn’t want that for my mother.After all the motherly love she had shown me? After all she sacrificed to
Eunice’s POVI opened my eyes in shock when I heard the news of Diana’s death. My eyes welled up with tears.Did Tyler fail to take care of his mother properly after we ended things, and that has led to her death?Tears streamed down my face immediately. Diana was a good woman—the most loving mother-in-law anyone could ever have.“How did she pass?” I asked Julie slowly, as she brought the news to me.“According to our source, ma’am… she was rushed to the hospital, and she died twenty minutes after arrival,” she explained.I covered my eyes with my hand. I closed my eyes and let the tears fall freely, letting them run down my cheeks as much as they needed to.Diana was the very mother-in-law who never judged me for anything. Even when she didn’t know me before Tyler introduced me as the woman he was going to marry, she embraced me without hesitation.She didn’t judge me when she found out my mother had disowned me and wouldn't be attending our wedding because I disobeyed her by choosi
Lola’s POVI sat in the living room, my leg crossed upon the other. I poured myself a glass of champagne. What is life without victory? What is life when you cannot take matters into your own hands?The old devil opened the eyes of the fool to see the truth, and you expect that I wouldn’t consult the right pharmacy to give me the best poison and add it to her food? Of course, I would. It was only a matter of time before the truth unraveled, and I had to take action before it destroyed everything I had built.When Tyler asked me why Jasmine’s body tone was different from his, when her eyes were of different colors, I figured it wouldn’t take long before the big cat in the bag revealed itself. And I couldn’t allow that—not after everything I had done.I was a woman who had had to go through hell to get here. I even made sure Tyler ended his marriage with his ex-wife. And you think I would sit back and allow a dying mother to break my marriage?! Never.So, that day, as Tyler left to get
For some reason, her smile looked like a smirk. But I shook my head off that thought. I mean, why should I think she smirked in the first place?That was something about a man with an issue. My mind had been resolving around the drama that a business wrecker had made on my business. And even though subconsciously I had totally forgotten about it, my mind didn’t entirely let go.Maybe that’s why I was beginning to fabricate things in my head, right?Still lost in thought, I dashed upstairs just like Lola said and took off my clothes. In less than twenty minutes, I was done with my bath, so I walked back downstairs.Just as she said dinner would be ready before I finished bathing, I realized that dinner was indeed done.Standing behind the dining table, Lola smiled at me. She had already set the table.Two plates of big steaks sat at the edge of the table, and two chairs were directly facing them. And then, by the other side of the table, was a smaller big steak.I paused. I didn’t need