A Husband's Vengeance Chapter 1

The year I asked for a divorce, Caleb Thorne had only one request: give the Thorne family a child.

After five years of struggling, I finally got pregnant.

But instead of joy, he pinned me against the wall like a madman, eyes red, demanding to know whose bastard it was.

I stared at the vasectomy report he threw in my face, eyes stinging, voice gone.

No wonder it took so long to conceive.

It turns out he had cut off my path from the very beginning.

For a moment, I just wanted to laugh. Laugh until I cried.

"Yes, I cheated."

"I admitted it. Will you let me go now? Caleb."

* * *

Midnight.

The man I hadn't seen for two months pushed open the bedroom door, carrying the biting cold of the snowstorm outside.

I had just turned a page of my parenting book.

Suddenly, a shadow fell over me.

His icy hand grabbed my wrist, dragging me all the way to the bathroom and pinning me against the cold tiles.

"Explain."

The damp, freezing tiles made my back shiver.

I tried to get up, but he pinned my wrists back down.

"Explain what?" I stared straight back at him.

His dark pupils were full of mockery, his gaze dropping to my still-flat belly.

"What do you think?"

"While your husband is overseas, you couldn't wait to carry some wild man's seed just to complete your task?"

The bathroom light was dim.

In five years of a cold, distant marriage, this was the first time we faced each other with such hostility.

—Because of the unformed child in my belly.

I looked at the unmelted snow on his shoulder, my eyes suddenly reddening, a mocking smile on my lips.

I thought he rushed back overnight from New York, thousands of miles away, braving a blizzard.

Because he was moved by the new life inside me.

I even despicably hoped.

That the birth of this little life could ease our stalemate.

Unfortunately, I guessed wrong.

He imprisoned me here, staring at me with bloodshot eyes, to condemn me.

For a moment, I found it ridiculous: "You think I cheated?"

"What else?" He sneered, his tone even colder. "Five years of marriage and nothing. I leave, and you're pregnant?"

"Pearl, sometimes I really admire you. To be able to diligently act out the role of a woman desperate for a child for five years."

"Were you running to the hospital every day really to prepare your body? Or was it to lay the groundwork for this moment, making this pregnancy seem logical?"

Every word dripped with malicious speculation.

I listened to him in a daze.

After a long while, I clenched my white knuckles and suddenly laughed: "Is that what you've always thought of me?"

"The baby is eight weeks old. Before you left, we did it once. If it's not yours, whose is it?"

"When the baby is big enough, we can do an amniocentesis DNA test. Why label me a cheater now?"

Seeing me defend myself, he laughed aloud, his thumb grinding maliciously on my belly: "My child?"

"Then please explain, given that I had a vasectomy five years ago, how exactly did you get pregnant with this child!"

Smack! A dazzling white vasectomy report was slammed next to my face.

My eyes turned red, completely stunned.