Chapter 1
When I got pregnant, my notorious playboy husband suddenly reformed-cutting off all his mistresses and treating me like a queen.
Then, the day before my due date, I overheard him talking with his friend:
“Mason, that orphan girl you’ve been supporting keeps hanging around. She’s younger and hotter than your wife. You seriously not tempted?”
Mason’s face twisted with disgust. “That trash? She can’t even compare to my wife’s pinky toe. I’m only helping her to score some karma points for my family. She needs to stay the hell away from me.”
I was floating on cloud nine, believing I’d finally won the jackpot in love.
But the next day, as I headed to the hospital to deliver, the orphan girl rammed her car into mine, sobbing as she waved medical papers in Mason’s face:
“Mason, I’m dying! Are you really abandoning me? I might as well die!”
Hemorrhaging badly, I begged Mason to take me to the hospital. Instead, he kicked me away and locked me in the car.
“Get lost! If anything happens to Ivy, I’ll make you and that bastard inside you pay with your lives!”
I was trapped for 24 hours. By the time I was rescued, my baby had died in my womb.
As I clung to life, Mason called: “We need to divorce. Ivy’s condition is critical-I’m taking her abroad for treatment as her husband.”
Through my tears, I agreed and left town with my baby’s ashes.
Five years later, I was collecting recyclables in a small coastal town when I ran into Mason again.
Seeing the three-year-old daughter in my arms, his eyes suddenly blazed with rage.
“Didn’t I tell you to wait at home for me? And here you are dragging MY child around picking through garbage! Look how malnourished she is—what kind of mother are you?”
“A five-year-old child this small and skinny? Natalie, what kind of mother are you?”
“I thought you had more dignity-not contacting me for five years. But apparently, you’ve been collecting trash with my child. Huh, did you deliberately set this up knowing I’d be inspecting the area today?”
I held my little daughter close, momentarily stunned by the sudden appearance of this man.
After staring at him for a long moment, I finally recognized him as Mason Wilde, my ex-husband of five years.
And the woman clutching his arm, dressed head-to-toe in luxury brands, was Ivy Jenkins-the orphan girl he’d once supported.
Seeing them so intimate made me instinctively tighten my hold on my daughter as my mind flashed back to five years ago.
Back then, I had just become pregnant when Mason, normally cold and indifferent, suddenly began supporting a high school girl from an orphanage and even moved her into our home.
When I first saw Ivy-thin, pale, and dressed in rags-my maternal instincts kicked in.
Despite my pregnancy, I prepared nutritious meals for her and stayed up late helping her with schoolwork.
Under my care, Ivy blossomed into a vibrant, beautiful young woman.
Her grades improved dramatically, going from the bottom of her class to the top of the entire school, eventually earning her admission to Princeton.
But I never imagined that Ivy’s first act after turning eighteen would be to crawl into Mason’s bed, stabbing me in the back in the worst possible way.
Seeing that I wasn’t responding. Mason fixed his gaze on my daughter, frowning deeply. “Why is it a girl? My mother has always wanted a grandson. She already disapproved of you-how are you going to explain giving her a granddaughter instead?“
That’s when I realized-Mason thought the child in my arms was his.
I couldn’t help but laugh bitterly.
How dare he assume?
That child-his child-had died five years ago, suffocated in my womb.
And the murderer was none other than the baby’s own father!
Anger surged in my chest as I took a deep breath and stepped back with my daughter.
“You’ve got it wrong. This child isn’t yours…”
