Chapter 1
Seven years into her marriage, Irene Aldridge found out her husband had a six–year–old s
She was hiding behind the slide on the preschool playground, watching Charles Whitmore crouch down to lift a little boy into his arms, laughing and playing with him
“Daddy, you haven’t come to see me in forever,”
Charles ruffled the boy’s hair and said gently, “Be good, Aiden. Daddy’s just been busy with work. You have to listen to Mommy, okay?”
Boom. Irene froze, her mind going completely blank.
Daddy? Mommy?
The two figures–one big, one small–looked strikingly alike
Every detail screamed the same truth: the man who’d once promised to love her forever had been cheating on her all along
They had grown up together, childhood sweethearts who fell in love and stayed in love for years.
Irene had once taken a knife for him–stabbed straight through the abdomen. She lost the baby… and with it, the ability to ever have children again.
Back then, Charles had dropped to his knees beside her, eyes red with panic and pain. “I don’t care about kids. I only want you. Just
you
She could still hear that trembling voice echoing in her ears. But what she saw now was crushing those words into dust.
Irene stumbled backward. It felt like someone had taken a knife and torn her heart apart into bloody pieces.
She couldn’t look anymore. If she did, she’d run straight at Charles and demand answers- everyone, humiliated and discarded.
or worse, break down crying in front of
She turned and ran.
Outside the preschool, her best friend Diana Walsh was waiting by the car. The moment she saw Irene’s pale face, she rushed out, alarmed. “Irene, what happened? You look like death.”
“Noah said you forgot something and went back to get it. What really happened?”
Noah was Diana’s son. She’d begged Irene to come along to the parent–teacher meeting today.
Irene’s lips were bloodless. Tears welled up in her eyes. “Diana… I need you to look into someone for me.
“Who?”
“Gurles…” Her voice broke as she forced out the words. “He has a son.”
[Baby, I’ll be back in a werk. Miss me yet?]
Irene stared at the message Charles had just sent. Tears streamed down her face, dropping silently onto the screen.
Every July, he took a two week business trip to inspect International branches or so he said.
For six whole years, she never doubted him. Not once.
But reality but her like a punch to the gut, exposing just how foolish she’d been.
He wasn’t traveling for work. He was spending time with his mistress and their secret child.
If not for what she stumbled upon today, she might’ve gone on being blind forever.
Like some form of twisted self–punishment, she kept staring at the photos in her hand, flipping through them again and again. Outside, a torrential storm raged, Lightning occasionally illuminated her ghostly pale face.
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She should’ve seen this coming long ago.
The Whitmores were an old–fashioned family. There was no way they’d accept a woman who couldn’t have children as their daughter–in–law.
Unless… unless everything had been arranged from the very beginning.
So what role had Charles–the man who claimed to love her–really played in all this?
Irene’s heart throbbed like it had been flayed open. They’d grown up together. Everyone used to say she and Charles were destined for
each other.
When she was eight, she fell out of a tree, and he had caught her, breaking his arm in the process. He just laughed and said it didn’t
hurt.
At twelve, when she got her first period and stained her skirt, even though he knew what it was, he cried and said he’d die with her.
At eighteen, he snuck out to compete in an illegal street race. Nearly died but came back with a ring and proposed to her.
He said, “Irene, I’ll love you forever,”
Young love was always intense and reckless. It had already claimed Irene’s heart by then.
Just before their wedding, she was kidnapped by his enemies, Locked away for three days and nights. When they found her, she was barely alive
To save her, Charles had taken a brutal beating three ribs broken. And she’d taken a knife for him. That’s when she lost her ability to bear children.
His mother, Margaret Whitmore found out and had tried to break them up.
But Charles, covered in wounds, knelt beneath generations of Whitmore portraits for three days without food or water. “I don’t need the Whitmore name, I just want Irene.” Only then did his mother finally give in.
As soon as he recovered, they got married. Their love story had once brought the entire city of Halston to tears.
And now… he’d betrayed her.
Her phone rang. The contact read “My Love” – how those words mocked her now..
Numb, she answered the call. His voice came through warm and soft. “Baby, did you eat? You okay at home by yourself? Did you miss me?”
If this were before, she would’ve melted at his voice, diving headfirst into that sweet illusion.
But now… she was afraid. Afraid she’d start sobbing the second she spoke,
“Baby? Is something wrong? Don’t be scared–I’ll come back right now!”
Charles sounded panicked, already preparing to return.
But Irene didn’t want to see him. Not anymore.
“I’m fine.” She tried her best to keep steady, but her voice came out raw and hoarse. “Just a cold. Don’t come back. Focus on your work.”
This was the first time she’d led to him.
Re didn’t suspect a thing. Sounded like something on his end caught his attention, but he still murmured, “Okay… but rest up, alright? Call me if you need anything. Don’t make me worry.”
Irene responded with a soft “Mm.”
She was just about to hang up when she heard a woman’s voice over the phone–soft, flirtatious. “Charles… Alden’s asleep. Now we can
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finally…”
She noticed his breathing grow heavier–then the call cut off abruptly.
Irene clenched her phone, her knuckles white from the pressure. No matter how hard she tried, she couldn’t push back the chill spreading through her chest.
He was with her. That w
woman. She didn’t dare think any further.
A strangled sob escaped her lips, involuntary and broken–like someone had gripped her heart in their fist and squeezed until all the air and light vanished.
At one point, she tried convincing herself maybe Charles only stayed with that woman for the kid
But now?
No. He was the one who made the choice.
empty
sty look on Irene’s face. Loud and
Diana noticed something was wrong and rushed into the room–only to freeze when she saw the en brash as she usually was, even she hesitated for a moment.
“Irene… he’s not worth it. No man is.
Tears slid silently down Irene’s cheeks, landing one by one on the photo in her hands.
Diana wrapped her arms around her, her voice shaking with rage. “Charles is a goddamn bastard.”
“He promised you the world when he proposed–and now he’s out there with some other woman and a kid?”
Irene closed her eyes, letting the pain flow. Her decision was already made…
Chapter 1
