Vows Faded, Memories Tarnished Chapter 1

At eight months pregnant, my long-distance husband, worried I’d get jealous, replaced his young, beautiful secretary with an old woman.

Then, for our anniversary, he sent a nine-carat diamond ring from overseas.

Everyone gushed, telling me how lucky I was.

But I only needed one glance at the ring before I coldly dialed Zachary’s number.

“I don’t want this ring. And I don’t want to see you again. We’re getting a divorce.”

A hush fell over the room. On the other end of the line, Zachary’s voice trembled.

“What? What did I do wrong? I’ve spent years flying back and forth for you, showering you with gifts.”

“You’re pregnant and sensitive, so I even fired the secretary I’d had for years and hired a woman old enough to be my mother.”

“And this ring… Jane, it’s one-of-a-kind. Have I not been good enough to you?”

My face was a mask. “Then you can give the ring to your new secretary and spend the rest of your life with her. We’re done.”

* * *

That night, Zachary boarded a red-eye flight, enduring more than ten hours in the air to come back. He came straight to my hospital room.

The moment he appeared, I pulled the divorce papers from my bag and laid them in front of him. “Since you’re here,” I said calmly, “you can just sign these.”

Zachary’s face was ashen, his voice raspy. “Honey, you’re just saying this to get me to come home, right? I’m here now. You can stop.”

The other patients in the ward started whispering.

“A divorce? What a shame. Look at her belly, she’s about to pop!”

“I know her. Her husband works abroad, but he’s always sending gifts to the hospital. He treats her like a queen.”

“She’s just being difficult. I heard he sent her a nine-carat diamond yesterday, and she wasn’t happy with it!”

The murmurs of condemnation grew louder, and the glares of disgust became impossible to ignore.

Everyone saw me as a spoiled, ungrateful wife, taking a stand for the poor, wronged Zachary.

And why wouldn’t they? For years, Zachary had been the perfect husband.

We were childhood sweethearts, each other’s first love. He spent every day finding new ways to make me smile.

When the company needed someone to manage the new branch in the States, I was hesitant to send anyone else. He volunteered immediately. After that, he practically lived on red-eye flights, shuttling between two countries, collecting hundreds of boarding passes just for a few hours with me.

When I got pregnant, he replaced his young, gorgeous secretary with an older woman, just to put my mind at ease.

My friends and family all said I’d hit the jackpot.

But that was all in the past.

I turned away from him, my voice unwavering. “Think whatever you want. This divorce is happening today.”

His eyes reddened. He grabbed my hand, his voice cracking as he begged, “Jane, please, don't do this. If you don’t like the ring, I’ll buy you something else. I’ll quit my job, I’ll stay here with you until the baby comes, okay?”

“Not okay.” I pulled my hand from his grasp, my gaze like ice. “The only thing I want from you is a divorce.”

Seeing my resolve, Zachary’s new secretary, Linda, rushed forward, her voice shrill.

“Mrs. Lewis, how can you do this to him?”

“He dropped a multi-million dollar contract and flew for over ten hours on a red-eye just to appease your little tantrum!”

“And that ring! Do you have any idea what he went through to have a top designer create that for you? Are you just going to throw his devotion away like it’s trash?”

I shot her a look of pure contempt. “You’re just a secretary. What gives you the right to speak here?”

“And since you feel so sorry for him, why don’t you marry him instead?”