Chapter 1

The divorce agreement arrived while I was still bleeding.

I sat on the cold hospital bed, the gown still damp against my skin, and stared at the courier envelope with the Sterling & Associates letterhead. His secretary hadn't even bothered to hand-deliver it. She'd sent it by mail—standard postage, not even express.

Three years of marriage to Dominic Sterling, and this was how it ended.

I opened the envelope. The terms were clinical, efficient, and devastating: I would leave with nothing. No alimony. No property. Not even the car he'd bought under my name as a wedding prop. The only line that showed a shred of mercy read: "A one-time payment of $50,000 will be made upon signing."

Fifty thousand dollars.

That was what three years of my life were worth to the CEO of Sterling Group.

I laughed—quietly at first, then louder, until the nurse rushed in thinking something was wrong. She saw the papers in my hands and froze.

"Ms. Voss… are you alright?"

I wiped my eyes. "I'm fine. Can you bring me a pen?"

She hesitated, glancing at my chart. The chart she thought I hadn't read. The one that said: 6 weeks. Viable.

I had found out I was pregnant exactly forty-seven minutes ago.

And twenty minutes before that, I had found out why Dominic wanted a divorce.

It was all over the internet—a photo of him leaving a hotel with Isabelle Chen, his so-called "business partner." Her arms were wrapped around his neck, her red dress barely covering anything. The headline read: "Sterling Group CEO Spotted with Heiress—Wedding Bells Soon?"

The article detailed how Isabelle's father, Victor Chen, had offered Dominic a merger worth $2 billion—on the condition that Dominic married his daughter.

So that's what this was.

I was never his wife. I was a placeholder.

Three years ago, Dominic needed a wife to satisfy a clause in his grandfather's will: marry before thirty, or forfeit the company. I was the convenient option—a nobody with no family, no connections, no power to negotiate.

He'd laid it all out on our wedding night without a single trace of shame.

"This is a contract," he'd said, adjusting his cufflinks without looking at me. "You play the role. I'll make sure you're comfortable. Don't expect love. Don't cause trouble. And when I no longer need you, you leave quietly."

I had agreed to every word. Not because I was desperate, but because I had my own reasons.

My mother had died owing the hospital $200,000 for her cancer treatments. Dominic paid the debt as part of our deal. In exchange, I sold three years of my life.

I thought I could keep my heart out of it.

I was wrong.

Somewhere between the silent dinners and the nights I spent alone in that massive penthouse, I made the fatal mistake of falling in love with a man who saw me as furniture.

But today, sitting on this hospital bed with divorce papers in one hand and an ultrasound I'd never show him in the other, something inside me finally broke.

No—not broke. Shifted.

Like a bone resetting after being out of place for too long.

I picked up the pen the nurse brought back, flipped to the last page, and signed my name.

Sera Voss.

Then I crossed out the $50,000 and wrote in the margin: "Keep it. You'll need it more than I will."

I placed my hand on my stomach and whispered, "It's just us now."

When I walked out of the hospital, I didn't look back.