Chapter 5

You won't be able to have children.

Those words were like an ice-dipped spike, driving straight into her eardrums, freezing every drop of blood in her body.

The door opened.

Julian walked in. He gestured for the nurse to leave, and the door clicked softly behind her, sealing the two of them into their own separate world.

He crossed to the bedside. He looked at Lily's face, paper-white, and paused — something complex flickering across his expression before he could hide it.

"Lily," he started, voice slightly rough. "Let me explain."

"When Scarlett was hurt, I had the hospital run a full check on her. They found… she has a congenital uterine condition. She can't have children."

"When she found out, she fell apart. She was convinced I'd leave her because she couldn't give me a child. She kept threatening to hurt herself. I couldn't get through to her, I couldn't calm her down…"

He drew a slow breath, as if settling something final in his mind, and met her empty eyes.

"So… to show Scarlett that I'd never judge her for that — to give her some peace of mind — I asked the doctor to… during your procedure…"

"Also remove your uterus."

Each word was a brand pressed into flesh that had already been burned beyond recognition.

Lily's eyes flew wide. She stared at the man in front of her — the man she had loved for ten years, the man she had once believed she would spend her life with.

So that his mistress could feel better.

So that he could prove he would never think less of Scarlett.

He had ordered a doctor to remove his wife's uterus.

He had stripped her — his wife — of the possibility of ever becoming a mother.

Because Scarlett couldn't have children. So his wife shouldn't be allowed to either.

That made it fair. That gave Scarlett peace of mind. That was how he kept his other woman from threatening to kill herself.

Grotesque. Obscene. A cruelty so absolute it defied comprehension.

"Hgh—" Lily opened her mouth but the sounds that came out were broken, barely sounds at all — just breath escaping from a throat being slowly crushed. She wanted to scream. Wanted to shatter something. But the extremity of her grief and fury had closed off her airway entirely, and all she could do was press both hands over her heart and let the tears come in floods — soaking the pillow the moment they fell.

The pain in her chest was physical. It felt like something had been scooped out from inside her, leaving a hole that the cold air howled through.

Julian was frightened by the sight of her. He reached for her hand. "Lily — Lily, look at me. I know I was wrong. Hit me if you want, yell at me, I won't fight back. Just don't—"

Lily's whole body convulsed. She was trembling so hard her teeth chattered, and her eyes — full of a devastation she had no words for — held something else too: deep, drowning regret.

She regretted it.

Mum. Dad.

Loving Julian Sterling — she regretted it with everything she had.

A long time passed. Then, with the last scraps of strength she possessed, she pushed his hand away. And looked at him. Steadily. From somewhere very far away.

"Pay me."

Julian went still. "I'm sorry?"

Lily raised her head, tear-stained, cold as stone.

"You had my uterus removed. Pay me two hundred million."

Julian stared.

Lily had never cared about money. When he was too busy for her and sent expensive gifts as compensation, she'd always turned them down. I don't want things, Julian. I just want you to spend time with me.

And now — after he'd stolen from her the only thing that couldn't be bought back — she asked for money?

Two hundred million meant nothing to him. But what it signified…

The dread in his chest deepened.

"Lily, I—" He started to say something.

But she had already closed her eyes. The tears were still running. She didn't look at him. Only repeated, in a voice of terrifying, utter calm: "Two hundred million. Transfer it to my account. Now."

He stared at her — fragile, pale, unreachable — and swallowed.

Then he took out his phone and called his assistant.

"Transfer two hundred million from my personal account to my wife's. Immediately."

He hung up. He looked at her. All the explanations he'd prepared, all the reassurances — they crumbled in the face of her silence.

A knock at the door. The nurse's head appeared: "Mr. Sterling — Ms. Whitmore is getting very upset again. She keeps asking for you…"

Julian was on his feet almost before she'd finished speaking.

"The money's on its way. Rest now. I'll… check on you again when I can."

Then he turned and walked out, as if staying one more second would allow the despair in that room to reach him.

The door closed.

Lily finally opened her eyes. She lifted her trembling hand and pressed it, softly, against the flat place below her navel.

That was where their child had been, briefly.

That was where every hope she'd carried for the future — for a family, for a life, for the chance to be a mother — had also lived.

All of it, gone.

Taken by the man she had once loved more than herself.

She bit down on her lower lip until she tasted iron — and somehow, barely, kept herself from making the sound that was building inside her.