Their Secret Child, My Sterile Husband Chapter 01
Chapter 1 A Marriage That Had Quietly Become a Cage
I had been married to Jayden Richardson for three years, and from the very beginning, he had said he wanted a child. He used to talk about it in that soft, patient voice, as if fatherhood were the only missing, piece in his life.
I believed him so completely that I built my future around that promise, stitching hope into every ordinary day. Back then, I thought love meant walking toward the same dream.
To get pregnant, I endured five uterine punctures, each needle leaving bruises that lingered longer than the pain itself. I swallowed bowls of bitter herbal medicine until the taste clung stubbornly to my tongue, and my abdomen became a map of tiny scars. I told myself suffering was temporary, that joy would come in could just endure a little more. For him, I was willing to turn my body into a battlefield.
Today, cheeks flushed with shy happiness, I brought a pregnancy test to his office. The two pink lines trembled in my hand like a fragile secret I couldn’t wait to share. I had imagined his reaction a hundred times-shock first, then relief, then that rare, unguarded smile. But before I could knock on the lounge door, laughter spilled out from inside.
“Jayden, your kid with Ariella Lee, Rebecca’s sister, is already three, and you even got a vasectomy for her. It Rebecca finds out, what kind of face do you think she’ll make?”
“Right? I even saw her asking around about positions to make it easier to conceive. Bet you’ve been enjoying that, huh?”
Then I heard Jayden’s voice, calm and unmistakable.
“So? You want a try?”
The other man laughed nervously. “Are you insane? You grew up with Rebecca. You really have the heart for that?”
“If Rebecca hadn’t begged the old man to let her marry me, I wouldn’t have failed Ariella,” Jayden replied, his tone stripped of warmth. “I only love Ariella. As for Rebecca, I already gave her the title of Mrs. Richardson. I don’t owe her anything. Why would I feel bad?”
My mind went completely blank. The plastic pregnancy test bit into my palm, but I felt nothing at all. I had thought our marriage was imperfect, maybe distant-but still real. I never imagined it had quietly become a cage he resented.
Fine. If that was how he saw it, then I would free him.
1…
1
My hand hovered over the doorknob, trembling, too afraid to push it open. I didn’t know how long I stood there before the door suddenly swung inward. The laughter inside snapped off instantly, replaced by suffocating silence.
Jayden stood among them, tall and composed, his brows knitting slightly. “When did you get here?” he asked.
I swallowed the storm clawing at my throat. “Just now. I was about to knock when you opened the door.” The lie slid out smoothly, and I hated myself for it.
He exhaled-subtle, but unmistakable. Relief.
“Well, look at that,” one of his friends said with a smirk. “Rebecca must’ve missed you. Came to pick you up after work.”
As he spoke, his eyes dragged slowly over me, shameless and mocking. I recognized his voice immediately -it was the same one that had laughed about my humiliation. Ignoring the way my skin crawled, I walked toward Jayden.
That face—so familiar, so painfully known. The same brows and eyes I had traced with my fingers in the dark. There was no guilt in them, no panic, not even shame, as if those cruel words had never been spoken.
Three years of marriage. His child with my own sister already three years old.
And I had been the fool, soaking in my carefully staged happiness, never noticing the cracks beneath it.
Someone jeered, and I don’t know who shoved me, but the pregnancy test slipped out of my hand and hi the floor. The tiny sound echoed loudly in the room. “In such a rush?” someone laughed. “Jayden, you’d better calm your wife down.”
My knee slammed into the corner of a table, pain shooting up sharply. But it didn’t even reach a fraction of the pain spreading through my chest. That wound was deeper, quieter, and infinitely crueler.
Jayden Richardson, you really deserve to rot.
You lied to me for three years. You kept it from me for three years. You kept telling me you loved children- turns out, you just didn’t love having one with me.
“Enough,” Jayden said.
Jayden’s voice cut through my thoughts.
He stepped forward and reached for me carefully, as if I were something fragile. “Rebecca, I’m sorry. He didn’t mean it.”
I shook off his hand and forced a brittle smile. “It’s fine. They’re your friends.”
And I’m just your mistake.
The tension in his eyes eased instantly. Then he noticed the pregnancy test on the floor, and his shoulders gave the slightest twitch.
“You… you’re pregnant?”
Yes. I was. It should have been the happiest moment of my life after months of pain and silent prayers. But the truth had already torn apart the fragile illusion I’d been living in.
I sniffed and nodded. “Yeah.”
He opened his mouth as if he wanted to say something meaningful, then stopped. Around us, the looks were curious, mocking, pitying. I suddenly felt like a spectacle.
“Anyway, get back to what you were doing,” I said quietly. “I just came to tell you. I’ll head home.”
I didn’t wait for his answer. I lowered my head and walked away.
I knew I’d chosen the wrong person; I shouldn’t have clung to Jayden.
Some things aren’t meant for you. No matter how tightly you lace your fingers around them, they will slip away. Maybe love was like that too.
The stares behind me clung to my back, refusing to let me go. I hadn’t gone far when laughter followed behind me again.
“Damn, Jayden, she really got pregnant. Think she did it behind your back?”
“Bet she did. Jayden had a vasectomy ages ago. Everyone knows that.”
“But what if there’s a rare failure? Medicine’s weird. Sometimes fertility comes back.”
