Chapter 3

Natalie POV

I moved to the cold guest room.

New York autumns were bone-chillingly cold. The guest room's heating was broken. I curled up under thin blankets, sharp pains radiating from my lower abdomen.

These were side effects from the ovulation drugs, combined with hormonal withdrawal after the embryo destruction. I started hemorrhaging heavily.

Blood stained the sheets. The pain left me drenched in cold sweat, without even the strength to reach for my phone.

Outside the door came Sophie's delicate laughter, mixed with Adrian's low, indulgent voice.

"Adrian, this carabiner is so beautiful. It even has letters engraved on it."

"That was something I casually carved ages ago. If you like it, it's yours."

I bit my lip until I tasted rust.

That carabiner was made of pure titanium, custom-made for me the year Adrian won the world championship. Our initials were engraved on it. He said it was proof that he'd entrusted his life to me.

Now, he'd casually given it to Sophie.

The severe pain began blurring my consciousness. I struggled to crawl out of bed, wanting to find painkillers in the living room.

Just as I pushed open the door, I saw Adrian half-kneeling on the floor, holding Sophie's ankle, carefully applying ice to it.

Hearing the noise, Adrian turned his head.

Seeing my ashen face and the bloodstains on the hem of my nightgown, his pupils constricted sharply. He stood abruptly. "What happened to you?"

I leaned against the doorframe, lacking even the strength to speak.

But Sophie cried out, covering her mouth. "Oh my God, Natalie, you... you didn't have a miscarriage, did you? But Adrian is..."

She deliberately left the sentence half-finished, her eyes full of malicious insinuation.

Adrian's face instantly turned iron-gray.

He strode over, grabbing my wrist with force nearly crushing my bones. "Natalie, what's with the blood? What have you been doing behind my back?!"

A man with azoospermia, seeing his wife bleeding from below. His first reaction would always be suspicion.

The pain made me gasp. Looking at Adrian's eyes full of doubt and rage, my heart completely died.

"What do you think I've been doing?" I laughed weakly, my eyes full of mockery. "Adrian, do you think that to have a child, I went and found some random man?"

"What else?!" Adrian's eyes were bloodshot, like an enraged beast. "I can't have children! Unless you're telling me you're on your period?!"

He shouted loud enough for even the servants in the living room to hear clearly.

To humiliate me, he didn't even hesitate to publicly expose his own condition.

I felt so tired, too tired to even desire explaining.

"Yes, I found someone else." I looked at him, speaking in despair. "Because you're worthless, Adrian. Not only is your body worthless, your heart has rotted too."

Crack!

Adrian slammed his palm against the wall beside me, his knuckles instantly bloody.

He stared at me intently, chest heaving violently. "Natalie, you disgust me. You claim to love me, but you actually despise me! All that IVF was just to satisfy your vanity as Mrs. Sterling!"

He released his grip abruptly, flinging me aside like discarded trash.

I lost my balance, falling hard to the floor. The cramping in my lower abdomen instantly intensified as another warm flow gushed out.

"Adrian, don't be like this. Natalie might just have hormonal imbalance..." Sophie rolled her wheelchair over with false concern, looking down at me on the floor.

"Leave her alone!" Adrian coldly glanced at the blood on the floor, his eyes devoid of any compassion. "Since she wants a child so badly, let her lie here in pain until she dies!"

With that, he pushed Sophie's wheelchair and left the townhouse without looking back.

The front door slammed shut with a bang.

I curled up on the cold floor, staring at that glaring pool of blood, tears silently falling.

Adrian, you'll never know that this pool of blood represents the last drop of blood I shed for loving you.