Chapter 1
At twelve weeks pregnant through IVF, I stumbled across a blogger named Sophie who looked almost exactly like me.
She casually revealed a man's pajamas in one of her videos, and embroidered on the cuff were the initials of my husband's name.
I kept scrolling. In another video, she gently stroked her still-flat belly and announced sweetly, "It's Charlie's baby."
Trembling, I made an appointment for chorionic villus sampling. The results left me stunned. The baby had absolutely no biological relation to me.
It turned out my husband had secretly switched the embryo samples from the very beginning. He planned to use my womb to carry a child for himself and his mistress.
I rested a hand on my belly, feeling the life that was supposed to be the fruit of someone else's love.
After a long silence, I laughed. If the two of them wanted this baby so badly, then we'd all go to hell together.
*****
The soft glow of my phone screen lit up my face as I scrolled through one surreal short video after another.
The waves of pregnancy symptoms kept crashing over me, leaving me so tired I could barely keep my eyes open.
Just half a month ago, Charles told me to quit my job and focus on the baby.
Now, with him out, the living room felt so empty, just me and the precious IVF baby growing inside me.
My fingers kept scrolling, and suddenly, a face popped up on my screen.
I froze. The girl in the video was sharing a pregnancy skincare product, her smile sickly sweet and her voice soft and gentle.
None of that mattered.
What really got me was her face, her eyes, her nose, and her lips. She looked eerily similar to me.
But she was younger, her skin plump and glowing, with that spoiled innocence and delicate naivety.
Instinctively, I touched my own face, swollen from morning sickness and hormones, and for a moment, I felt like a miserable fish stranded on the shore, awkward and pathetic.
As if drawn by some unseen force, I tapped into her profile. @SophieSafe.
The blogger's name was Sophie Andrews.
I scrolled through a dozen of her videos. Most of them were just her living the high life: checking out trendy spots, skincare routines, travel vlogs, and showing off her latest gifts.
The vibe was pure flex, and whenever someone dropped a jealous remark in the comments, her fans would clap back right away.
She really was like a canary in a gilded cage.
The thought flickered through my mind, and I laughed at myself for being so petty.
Just as I was about to swipe away, my gaze landed on a men's pajama top, casually tossed on the sofa in the corner of the video.
It was deep blue silk, with an intricate embroidery on the cuff.
My blood ran cold.
All of Charles's pajamas had that same mark on the cuff. I'd stitched it myself, turning his initials, "CS," into an entwined lotus motif.
He used to joke that it was our little secret, just between us.
My heart slammed against my chest, making it ache.
Charles was cheating on me. The thought hit me like a punch to the gut.
No, I shouldn't rush to judge him. He'd always been so good to me, so caring. Maybe it was all a mistake.
I took a deep breath, my fingers trembling as I kept scrolling.
Soon, a video posted a week ago sent my heart plummeting into an ice-cold abyss.
In the video, Sophie didn't show her face.
It was the camera pointing down as her slender fingers gently stroked her still-flat belly, her voice thick with anticipation and pride. "It's Charlie's baby, you know. He says he loves our baby and me the most."
At the end of the video, Sophie waved a sonogram in front of the camera.
I'd only suspected Charles was cheating, but the second I saw that sonogram, I realized reality was even more insane and horrifying than anything I'd ever imagined.
That sonogram, which only appeared for three seconds, was definitely mine.
Even though the name was blurred out, I'd obsessed over that sonogram all week, hoping to figure out if the baby looked more like me or Charles.
I'd seen it so many times that I could spot it in a heartbeat.
No way. I wasn't wrong. Sophie was waving my sonogram around, saying she was pregnant.
If she wanted to be my baby's stepmom, why would she need to use my sonogram to fake her own pregnancy?
A ridiculous and terrifying thought exploded in my mind before I could stop it.
The air felt thin, and I gasped for breath, but it was like I couldn't get enough.
My stomach gave a little twitch, and I clutched it, cold sweat soaking through my back.
After a long moment, my fingers trembling, I opened the appointment app.
Ignoring all the warnings about "not recommended during pregnancy" and "risks of invasive procedures," I went straight to that private hospital famous for DNA testing and booked the earliest possible chorionic villus sampling.