Chapter 3

When Jasper saw that I was not moved by the gesture, he slammed the soup heavily down on the coffee table. It splashed everywhere.

"Aria, don't be so stubborn! If you keep causing a fuss, you'll never see the baby or me again!"

I was so stunned that I momentarily forgot the pain. I had never imagined that the man I had loved for so many years would threaten me with my own child.

"I want to see the baby." I thought about the birth and how difficult it had been, and I hadn't even gotten to see the baby before it was taken away.

It made my heart hurt so much that I felt like I was suffocating.

Jasper seized the chance as if he had found my fatal weakness. He became smug at once and pulled out his phone, getting ready to dial Nicole's number.

"Apologize to Nicole first! If you apologize to her and sign the agreement, I'll let Nicole allow you to see the child, which already belongs to her."

"Apologize? The child that belongs to her?" My disbelief was growing. "You snatched my baby away to give to her, and you want me to apologize to her? What gives you the right to do that?"

Jasper looked displeased at once. He grabbed me by the collar and said menacingly, "That baby is born with my genes. Without me, where would you have gotten a child from? Since it's mine, I'll decide who gets to raise it.

"Keep giving me attitude if you dare. You're not willing to call and apologize to Nicole? Then go straight to her and apologize to her face!"

He yanked me up by the collar and dragged me away.

"Jasper! Let go! It hurts!" The wound on my collarbone was covered with gauze, and as it chafed against my clothes, blood and pus oozed out. The gauze had slipped off.

I'd gotten the wound a month after he went to get Nicole from the airport. He hadn't returned home for ages, but he must have remembered that he had a pregnant wife at home, because he suddenly came home after being gone for a month.

He had cooked me a pot of soup, which he had never done before, and bought me several gifts. He'd apologized to me in a soft voice and told me that things had been very busy at work and that he hadn't had time to send me a message.

Could anyone be so busy with work that they didn't even have a few seconds' time to send a message?

Despite this, I still believed his clumsy excuse, like an idiot. I even felt sorry that he was working so hard whenever he came back smelling like perfume. It was just that, at the time, I had never imagined such a thing.

From the time I got pregnant, he never attended even a single doctor's appointment with me. I was understanding because he worked hard, and I never let him see any discomfort I was suffering from pregnancy.

Now I knew that on all those days when he didn't come home or didn't reply to my messages, he had been meticulously taking care of another pregnant woman.

He had served up the soup he made and said that he wanted to feed me, but then he was interrupted by a call from Nicole. When he heard her crying, he panicked at once and spilled the scalding hot soup all over me.

However, he didn't have any time for me. He'd grabbed his keys and rushed out.

Jasper finally noticed the wounds on my face and the blood and pus that was oozing out relentlessly. He stopped pulling at me and stared at the wounds. The look in his eyes grew less ferocious.

"Why hasn't your wound healed yet?" He crouched down and brushed his fingers over my wound. He swallowed with difficulty. "I'm sorry. I-I didn't know."

I swatted his hand away, feeling only disgust. It seemed that he really had forgotten. He had forgotten that my injuries always healed slowly.

When we were dating, he had announced that he would protect me thoroughly and never let me get hurt. He had even laughed and said that I was like a porcelain statue that had to be handled with care.

However, now he had forgotten it completely.

"I'll take you to the hospital."

My breathing quickened, and I could not even refuse before he pushed me into the car.