Adrian stared at the certificate until the letters seemed to stop making sense.

“Where is our baby?”

I pulled the blanket higher over my legs.

“Gone.”

His face emptied.

“What do you mean, gone?”

“You know exactly what it means.”

He crossed the room in two steps and grabbed the hospital paper with trembling fingers.

Pregnancy induction.

Patient: Vanny Lin.

Date: three days ago.

His eyes moved over the page again and again, as though reading it enough times might change the result.

“No.”

The word came out almost soundless.

Then louder.

“No. You wouldn’t.”

I looked at him.

“Why wouldn’t I?”

“Because that was our child.”

“And yesterday I was your wife.”

His fingers stopped moving.

I continued quietly.

“Then, by nine in the morning, Jessica was.”

Adrian’s expression hardened.

“I explained that.”

“No. You justified it.”

“Jessica is ill.”

“And I was pregnant.”

“Her condition is dangerous.”

“So was mine.”

He froze.

I pointed toward the certificate.

“I went to the hospital alone, Adrian. I signed alone. I woke up alone.”

His gaze dropped to the medication beside my bed.

For the first time, he seemed to notice it.

Painkillers.

Antibiotics.

Discharge instructions.

Things that had been sitting there for three days while he was somewhere else comforting Jessica.

He sat on the edge of the bed.

“Why didn’t you call me?”

I almost laughed.

“I did.”

His head snapped up.

“The hospital called too.”

Silence.

“Three times.”

Adrian reached for his phone.

His movements became frantic as he searched through his call history.

Then he stopped.

I knew the exact moment he found them.

Three missed calls.

All from the hospital.

His face turned white.

“I was with Jessica. She had an episode and—”

“I know.”

“I didn’t recognize the number.”

“You didn’t recognize my favorite food either.”

His eyes closed.

“Vanny…”

“Please leave.”

Instead, he reached for my hand.

I pulled it away.

That small movement seemed to frighten him more than anything else.

For years, I had always reached back.

This time I didn’t.

“I’ll have the marriage with Jessica annulled tomorrow.”

“It doesn’t matter.”

“It does.”

“No.”

I finally looked directly at him.

“You still think this is about a certificate.”

Adrian stared at me.

“It’s about the fact that you believed I would wait while you became another woman’s husband.”

Before he could answer, the doorbell rang.

Once.

Then again.

Adrian stood.

A moment later, voices came from downstairs.

One belonged to Elena.

The other belonged to a woman I recognized immediately.

Jessica.

I closed my eyes.

Of course.

Adrian had left her crying and rushed home.

Naturally, she had followed him.

Jessica entered the bedroom supported by Elena.

She wore a pale dress and Adrian’s jacket around her shoulders.

Her eyes were swollen.

“Adrian…”

Then she saw the hospital certificate in his hand.

Her expression changed.

“What happened?”

Nobody answered.

Jessica looked at me.

Then at the medicine.

Her lips parted.

“Vanny… the baby?”

“Gone,” Adrian said.

Jessica covered her mouth.

“Oh my God.”

She began crying.

“I’m so sorry. If I’d known, I never would have called Adrian. This is all because of me.”

Adrian immediately turned toward her.

“Jessica, don’t blame yourself.”

That sentence told me everything.

Even now.

Even standing beside the bed where I was recovering from losing our child, his first instinct was still to protect her feelings.

I smiled.

Adrian saw it.

And somehow that smile terrified him.

“Vanny…”

“Take her downstairs.”

Jessica shook her head.

“No. I need to explain. Adrian only married me because everyone was afraid I might hurt myself again. I know he’s yours. I never wanted to steal him.”

I looked at her.

“Then give him back.”

She froze.

Adrian frowned.

“What?”

“Divorce him today.”

Jessica’s fingers tightened around his jacket.

“I…”

“You said you don’t want him.”

Her face slowly lost color.

“So divorce him.”

Elena stepped forward.

“Vanny, she has just stabilized emotionally. Don’t provoke her.”

I turned to Adrian.

“There.”

He said nothing.

“That’s your answer.”

I reached beside the bed and removed another envelope.

Adrian watched me open it.

Inside was a signed document.

His expression changed when he saw the heading.

DIVORCE AGREEMENT.

“You prepared this already?”

“Before the procedure.”

“You planned to leave me?”

“The moment I saw Jessica’s marriage certificate.”

He took the papers.

Then tore them in half.

Jessica gasped.

Elena stared.

I simply watched the pieces fall.

Adrian’s breathing was uneven.

“I won’t sign.”

“You don’t need to.”

He looked at me.

I took another document from the envelope.

His eyes narrowed.

“What is that?”

“An application challenging the validity of our marriage registration.”

The room became completely still.

Adrian stared at me as if I had begun speaking another language.

I continued.

“When I checked the civil registry, I discovered something interesting.”

His face slowly changed.

“The paperwork from our wedding was never finalized.”

Elena looked at Adrian.

“What?”

I held up the document.

“The ceremony happened. The guests came. The city saw the wedding.”

I paused.

“But legally, Adrian and I were never married.”

Jessica’s eyes widened.

That meant her marriage certificate wasn’t merely symbolic.

She was legally Adrian’s only wife.

Adrian grabbed the document from me.

“Impossible.”

“Call your lawyer.”

He did.

Right there.

His attorney answered after two rings.

Adrian switched to speaker.

“Check my marriage registration with Vanny Lin.”

Keyboard sounds followed.

Thirty seconds passed.

Then the lawyer’s voice changed.

“Mr. Chen… there appears to be a problem.”

Adrian stopped breathing.

“What problem?”

“The registration was submitted but never completed. One required signature is missing.”

“Whose?”

A pause.

“Yours.”

Adrian looked at me.

I remembered our wedding morning.

His assistant had brought documents backstage.

Adrian had received a call from Jessica and left before signing the final page.

Everyone assumed he would finish later.

Nobody reminded him.

Apparently, he never had.

His lawyer continued.

“Your marriage to Ms. Zhang, however, was formally registered yesterday morning.”

Jessica slowly sat down.

Elena looked horrified.

Adrian ended the call.

For several seconds, nobody moved.

Then he came toward me.

“We can fix this.”

I shook my head.

“There’s nothing to fix.”

“Vanny, listen to me.”

“No.”

“I’ll divorce Jessica immediately. We’ll register again.”

“We?”

His voice cracked.

“I love you.”

Those words should have mattered.

Yesterday they might have.

Today they sounded late.

I got out of bed carefully.

Pain shot through my abdomen, but I remained standing.

Adrian instinctively reached for me.

I stepped away.

“Don’t.”

His hand remained suspended in the air.

I picked up my suitcase.

“Where are you going?”

“Home.”

“This is your home.”

“No. This is the place where I almost became the mother of a child whose father was legally married to someone else.”

I walked toward the door.

Adrian blocked me.

“You’re not leaving in this condition.”

I looked at him.

“You don’t get to decide what happens to my body anymore.”

He moved aside.

Not because he wanted to.

Because he finally understood that stopping me would prove exactly why I needed to leave.

I reached the stairs.

Then Jessica suddenly spoke behind me.

“Wait.”

I turned.

She was no longer crying.

She was staring at the torn divorce agreement on the floor.

“There’s something you don’t know.”

Adrian’s expression changed instantly.

“Jessica.”

She ignored him.

Her eyes stayed on me.

“The reason Adrian married me wasn’t only because of my condition.”

Elena went pale.

“Jessica, stop.”

Now I knew.

There was something else.

Jessica reached into her handbag and removed a sealed medical envelope.

She held it with shaking fingers.

“I didn’t lose my uterus saving Adrian.”

Adrian’s jaw tightened.

“Enough.”

Jessica looked at him.

“You promised never to tell her.”

My suitcase slipped from my fingers.

I stared at the envelope.

“What are you talking about?”

Jessica’s voice trembled.

“The accident happened five years ago, yes.”

She swallowed.

“But Adrian wasn’t the person I saved.”

The room seemed to tilt.

“Then who?”

Jessica slowly turned toward Elena.

Elena backed away.

“Don’t.”

But Jessica had already opened the envelope.

She removed an old surgical report and placed it on the table.

At the bottom was a patient name.

Mine.

Vanny Lin.

I stopped breathing.

“I don’t understand.”

Jessica’s tears returned.

“You were in that accident too.”

I looked at Adrian.

He couldn’t meet my eyes.

Jessica whispered the next words.

“You don’t remember because your family asked the doctors not to tell you everything.”

My fingers went cold.

“What did they hide?”

No one answered.

I stepped toward the report.

Then I saw a line buried halfway down the page.

Previous pregnancy complications.

Five years ago.

Pregnancy.

My pregnancy.

I looked at Adrian.

Five years ago, Adrian and I hadn’t even started dating.

At least, that was what I remembered.

“Whose baby was it?”

Adrian finally raised his eyes.

There was something in his expression I had never seen before.

Guilt.

Not from yesterday.

Something much older.

“Vanny…”

I backed away.

“Whose baby was it?”

Jessica answered for him.

“His.”

The room went silent.

I stared at Adrian.

He had known me before I remembered meeting him.

I had been pregnant before the child I had just lost.

And everyone in that room had known except me.

Then Jessica said the sentence that changed everything.

“And that isn’t the worst thing they erased from your past.”