Chapter 9
After that day, I cut off all contact with him.
I deleted our mutual friends, and the company no longer allowed him to
enter.
But Paulina created a new account and added me.
She started constantly showing off her relationship in the most provocative ways.
On Instagram, she was either cooking for Emmett or clinging to him at amusement parks.
She made a point of revisiting every city that Emmett and I had been to together.
I kept her around like a digital pet.
I never liked any of her posts.
She seemed to be getting a little frustrated.
On the first day of spring, they had a fight.
Emmett no longer had my support.
The small share of the company and business he got left him exhausted.
He was never as capable as I was, but he never saw it.
Paulina hung up on a big client call that Emmett had been chasing for a month, just to celebrate her birthday.
Chapter 9
Emmett snapped.
Paulina was blocked by him, and Emmett also left their group chat.
That night, Emmett got drunk and waited downstairs at my place.
“Rina, I can’t live without…”
Before he could finish, he froze.
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I stepped out of the driver’s seat, my belly visibly rounded, with a young man by my side.
Emmett broke down.
“Rina, whose child is it?”
I didn’t answer and turned to leave.
Gaige, my newly hired bodyguard, followed me as Emmett’s cries echoed behind us.
But what did any of that have to do with me anymore?
That night, Paulina was as excited as if she had received a great favor.
She posted more than a dozen Instagram stories to show off.
“My first time will only be for my first love. That’s right, the man who marries me.”
“Some people are even more casual than stray dogs on the street.”
She flaunted her supposed purity in a roundabout way, trying to make me look cheap by comparison.
But everyone in our circle who knew me just saw her as a joke.
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Chapter 9
Except Emmett.
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Everyone knew the truth: the child’s father was someone I had paid for.
This child belonged to me alone, not to anyone else.
When Emmett learned the truth, he seemed even more devastated.
L
That night, in the early hours, he finally got through to me after trying five different numbers.
“Marina.”
On the phone, his voice was choked with emotion as he questioned me.
“You’d rather have a child on your own than have one with me?”
That scene reminded me of the past.
In the past ten years, there had been moments of unexpected joy.
But back then, he always felt he wasn’t good enough.
He didn’t want to rely on me, and he didn’t want my mother to look down on him.
“Just wait a little longer, just a little longer and I’ll marry you.”
“Rina, let’s keep the baby for now.”
But I refused.
Yo
What was the point of having a child under those circumstances?
Later, after my mother passed away, I changed my mind.
I just wanted to have a child, but then I was hit with a devastating truth.
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12:31
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Chapter 9
Years of socializing, late nights, and exhausting myself had taken their toll.
My body was worn out, and it became very difficult for me to conceive.
At that time, I was so devastated that I wanted to break up with him.
I even considered moving abroad alone and adopting a child.
Emmett knelt down and begged me not to leave.
He swore that he would love me for the rest of his life, even if we never had children.
Back then, I softened in the end–I couldn’t bear to leave him, and I couldn’t bear not having a child.
I went through countless injections and tried every possible method.
Until this year, when I finally got pregnant.
We had agreed to register our marriage at the beginning of March, in early spring.
But then came a call from Paulina, and a breakup.
So this child was left in the cold winter.
His name appeared on a marriage certificate, but with someone else.
I moved to a new place, avoiding every occasion where he might be.
I thought he would give up after that.
But I never expected-
He actually barged into our company’s cocktail party.
