CH001

Andrea's eyes darted across the walls of her sterile room, the stark white of the walls a harsh contrast to the chaos she felt within her.

Dante had gone, while she was still asleep, she remembered hearing her aunt's sharp voice in the afternoon , insisting he left as a man was not permitted to be the best friend of a married woman. She had scoffed at her archaic notion but had been too weak to open her eyes nor argue.

As her eyes continued to wander helplessly across the room, Andrea couldn’t help but ponder how she might have wronged the universe to be born into such a cruel fate. Lost in her thoughts, she was startled by the sound of the door opening. A young woman walked in, almost Andrea's age, if not older, but with a smaller frame.

"The doctor said that you lost your baby" the girl said to her. Her voice bearing no emotions or pity for what she might be feeling.

They had achieved their aims afterall.

" If I'm to give you an advice, I'll say you divorce Niklas" she continued.

" Did your mother send you to tell that to me?" Andrea asked her, voicing her words out as loud as she could despite the pains that racked her body as she lay on the bed.

"No, why would she. I am just telling you as a caring in-law" she continued but Andrea was no longer interested in what she had to say, her eyes darted to the door, hoping to signal her unwelcomed guest to leave, but the girl seemed bent on delivering her message.

" Look" she said and played a video recording, holding out her phone towards her so she could see it as well.

" While you were at the bathroom struggling, your husband was shopping for baby clothes with Serah!! Doesn't that tell you anything? I heard you called him asking telling him to come to your aid when you fell at the bathroom, but he didn't come. But then, he was at King's Store buying baby items with his ex lover. If I were you, I'd ask for a divorce and leave the marriage" she finished and ended the video she had held out to her to see.

" If I can recall, I called you countlessly as well but you answers none of the calls and did not return any. I think you should stop looking for whom to fool with your fake concerns and focus more on finding yourself a husband, like your mother wants you to" she shot back at the lady, visibly annoyed by her fake displays of concern.

" What?" She muttered, surprised at the sudden tone and choice of words she had spoken to her with.

She had always been quiet and never complained before in the past no matter what had been said nor done to her, but now he seemed almost like a different person.

Her phone began to ring and this distracted her attention, making her leave the room to answer the call.

Andrea seized the moment, stood up from the bed she was and went to the door, locking it as the lady left to answer the call.

Her insides rumbled with hate for her.

Struggling, she walked back to the bed and picked up her buzzing phone.

Dante had sent a message to her. Opening it and seeing the funny stickers he had sent to cheer her up, she couldn't bring herself to laugh at any of them. He was trying his best to cheer her up, even up to the point of sending her the newest designs of his new collections, telling her to pick any for herself, free of charge. But she was not in the mood to reply nor speak with any body.

Going off, her eyes locked with her screen saver. It was the ultrasound picture of her unborn child. The unborn child she had just lost.

Tears began to well up in her eyes.

If only. Why her. What did she do.

Only Dante's missed call was on her notification bar. He wasn't the first person she had called, it had been her husband Niklas.

She had fallen down at the bathroom when she went to take her bath in the morning. It wasn't a serious fall but then she had felt dizzy and tired and couldn't pick herself up, even when she noticed that she had began to bleed. Taking her phone, she had called her husband countless times but he didn't answer any of them. When he eventually did, she begged him to come to her aid. She was at the bathroom and had fallen buy couldn't get up because she felt sharp pains from inside her, but he dismissed her telling her that he was busy and that she should call the father of her unborn child. He was the father but because he always believed whatever he wanted to, he kept on with his notion that he was not the father.

She had called out for help from the nannies as well but it seemed as if all of them were miraculously super busy outside the house that day. Stranded and left with no other option than calling Dante whom she had not wanted to bother with her burden, he had come rushing into her room from his house almost immediately he went off the call.

But her husband's aunt had refused her being taken away from the house. She had been in all along without helping while she screamed for help.

She was already unconscious when the family doctor had come and gone.

But now according to what she had been told by the girl who left her room a while ago, it appeared her so called husband had not been busy all along like he had claimed but had been shopping for baby items with his ex lover who had returned to him not too long ago with a pregnancy she claimed was his.

Her insides burned. How could he. She continued to lament and cry for as long as she could.

The door got forcefully opened by a man who walked in, with a bunch of keys jingling as he walked in.

He looked at her angrily and without turning, she could already tell whom it was.

"Here, take this" she heard him say and she turned to face him, still lying on the bed.

He dropped a piece of paper with a pen on the bed beside her.

"I heard that you lost the baby. There's nothing holding us now. We can finally go out separate ways" he said and touched the baby he had dropped again, shifting it closer to where her hand was.

" Sign the divorce papers when you stand up. I'll pay you whatever amount you wish for after that" he said and that was all, he turned , meaning to leave.

But she knew why he had brought the divorce papers and she wasn't going to give him that.

His ex had returned and if the pregnancy she carried was his, she signing the divorce paper meant giving him the chance to live happily ever after with the woman he had always loved.

She wouldn't be stupid enough to do that and especially not with all the humiliations and mockery she had endured at his hands thinking he would change one day. She had lost their baby and there wasn't any other thing that could bind them, but she would not will him the freedom he wanted desperately at that moment.

"No Niklas, I will sign no divorce papers" she said and he abruptly halted in his steps and turned back.

" Did you say something?" He asked her because the tone she had used was not what he was used to. He knew her as a simple girl who could be made to do anything, especially if she would get paid by doing so but her change of tone had come as a surprise.

"We will remain married" she answered back and he found himself arching his eyebrows at her.

"Only your mother has the right to dissolve our marriage" she finished and looked him in the eyes, caring not about the cold stares he shot at her.

His eyes narrowed as he tried to gauge the sudden change in Andrea. She had always been the compliant one, the one who never questioned him. But now, something had shifted. The realization dawned on him that he might have underestimated her.

But she was ready for whatever would come, she won't be the girl they all knew in the past. If only she had been herself months ago after the wedding, no if only she had been her true self on the morning after the night of their stand........