The Fireworks Weren’t for Me, the Baby Wasn’t Mine Chapter 01
It was our eighth wedding anniversary.
Harrison held me close as we watched the city-wide fireworks display he had arranged for me over Brighton Bay.
Then, he pulled out a woman’s prenatal exam report.
He said calmly, “Scarlett is pregnant.”
“I’m bringing her into the house to spend the rest of her pregnancy there.”
The smile was still frozen on my face.
“Wha… what?”
“Harrison, you and your secretary… are having a child?”
“Why wouldn’t we?” he countered.
“Am I supposed to have another broken one with you?”
…
As the last firework faded away.
My heart sank into the silence of the endless dark night.
“Harrison Sterling, what is the meaning of this!”
I shoved him away.
I was the one who stumbled back a few steps.
Harrison nonchalantly straightened his suit, looked up, and said in a flat voice, “Am I wrong?”
“Maybe our genes just don’t match, which is why we produced that… thing.”
Thing.
He wouldn’t even refer to our child as a human being.
My eyes turned red with rage, and I smashed the antique vase he had given me tonight onto the floor.
Crash—
Shards flew everywhere.
“Harrison, do you even deserve to be a father?!”
“Leo is sick, do you think he wanted…”
“And you,” Harrison interrupted, “I got you a membership at the medical spa; go there more often.”
“The skin on your waist felt a bit loose when I held you today.”
My voice died in my throat.
It was true; I couldn’t compete with the young secretary.
Especially the year I gave birth; I suffered a severe hemorrhage and walked through the gates of hell. Since then, my energy and complexion have never been the same.
Even though Harrison spent a fortune on high-end treatments and specialists for me.
I was no longer what I used to be.
“Harrison, that is no excuse for your affair!”
The sting in my eyes grew hotter.
I walked up to him, poking his chest with my finger.
“You owe me an explanation.”
Harrison brushed my hand away. “Haven’t you sensed it for a long time?”
“Madeline, your intuition has always been right.”
“Too bad you trusted me too much.”
It started when he stopped coming home most nights.
The phone password changed, his shirts smelled of unfamiliar perfume, and on the rear windows of the car, there were footprints left by a woman in the heat of passion.
Yet Harrison always found an excuse.
His nonchalant attitude made me swing wildly on the scales of suspicion and trust.
Ultimately, eight years of history weighed the scale down to one side.
I never expected that trust would become a knife plunged into my chest, bloodily carving out a gaping hole.
“I still love you, which is why I don’t want to keep you in the dark anymore.”
“Maddy, let’s go home. Leo is waiting for you to give him his medication.”
Harrison reached out his hand to me.
I stared at him. He was someone I knew so well it was etched into my bones, yet the more I looked, the more like a stranger he became.
I kept shaking my head.
Tears flew off my face like beads of a broken necklace.
“No.”
“Harrison, I want a divorce.”
