By the second trimester, excruciating sciatica flared up, sending sharp, needle-like pains radiating from her lower back down her legs, rendering even a simple walk a grueling chore.

And as she entered the final months, severe acid reflux plagued her nights while her limbs began to swell heavily; her once slender fingers grew thick, and her feet could no longer fit into any of her shoes, making every step feel like bearing a crushing weight.

Yet despite it all, Clara grit her teeth and endured, living solely for the day she could safely bring their child into the world.

Midway through her pregnancy, Clara’s body underwent stark changes as those vexing stretch marks began to spread across her abdomen and thighs like creeping vines, multiplying with each passing day.

Staring at the jagged, overlapping lines tracing her skin in the mirror, a wave of profound sorrow washed over Clara’s eyes.

She let out a soft, heavy sigh, whispering to herself, "So ugly."

Overhearing her words, Ethan instantly frowned, stepping forward to gather her tenderly into his embrace, fiercely forbidding her from speaking of herself in such a manner.

"I don't think it's ugly at all," he said, staring directly into her eyes with intense gentleness. "These are the sacred marks of everything you've sacrificed for our angel. Every single line holds your love for our baby."

Sheltered by Ethan's reassurance, Clara found a fragile measure of comfort, forcing herself to overlook the changing texture of her skin, focusing entirely on the hope of a safe delivery.

Yet destiny seemed to delight in cruel games.

Just as she was approaching full term, the beautiful future they had envisioned shattered into absolute nothingness in a single afternoon.

On that routine day, Clara went in for a standard prenatal checkup, but as the doctor ran the scanner across her abdomen, the medical professional's expression grew intensely grave.

Slowly setting the equipment aside, the doctor delivered the devastating verdict with a heavy heart: the fetal heartbeat had vanished.

The news hit Clara like a sudden bolt of lightning, sending her world spinning into a hollow, pitch-black void.

Refusing to believe her own ears, she wept and begged the doctor to check just one more time, pleading that the machinery must be broken.

But after multiple exhaustive re-examinations, the brutal reality remained unchanged.

Left with no choice, Clara was forced to submit to the harrowing reality of an induced labor.

Chapter 14

The grueling process of that induced labor was physically indistinguishable from giving birth to a living child.

In truth, because the boundless anticipation had curdled into absolute despair, the physical agony and psychological torment were infinitely worse.

Lying on the cold operating table, Clara’s mind fractured into a chaotic swarm of thoughts.

She even allowed herself to fantasize that the machines had simply committed a massive error—that once the baby was delivered, he would draw a breath, he would be healthy, and their beautiful world would remain intact.

But that was merely a desperate delusion born from a breaking mind; reality remained unyielding and cold, leaving her to endure the devastating grief in absolute, silent isolation.

Following that nightmare of a surgery, Clara slipped into a profound, suffocating silence, looking entirely like a woman whose soul had been violently extracted from her flesh.

Throughout the entire post-partum recovery period, she simply lay motionless on the mattress, her vacant eyes staring blankly at the ceiling, offering no words, completely detached from the world moving outside.

And Ethan remained steadfastly by her side during these dark weeks, tending to her with immense care.

He woke up at the crack of dawn every morning, heading to the markets to select the finest, most nourishing ingredients before returning to spend hours in the kitchen, brewing restorative broths to replenish her blood and vitality.

Those bowls of steaming soup were thick with his desperate concern and guilt, a silent plea for her body to heal and return to him.

Finally, under his relentless, daily devotion, a day arrived when Clara seemed to clear the surface of her dark abyss.

Her lips parted, and she was finally able to speak.

In that exact heartbeat, the mountain of grief and desperate longing locked inside her chest erupted all at once.

She launched herself at Ethan, her arms wrapping fiercely around his frame as her entire body shook with violent, uncontrollable tremors, tears pouring down her face like a collapsed dam as she wept against his shoulder, "Ethan, let's try for another baby. Please."

In that chapter of her life, Clara truly believed this was the absolute only way to rescue herself from the quicksand of her sorrow.

She felt that only by nurturing a new life could she ever hope to fill the massive, aching crater left by the loss of her child, and find a reason to continue surviving.

Hearing her plea, Ethan did not offer an immediate response.

Instead, his gaze drifted slowly downward, his fingertips lightly tracing the uneven, raised texture of the stretch marks slicing across her abdomen.

Those lines remained like permanent, silver scars of sorrow etched into her flesh, a stark testament to the brutality of what she had endured to carry his child.

After a long, heavy beat, Ethan lifted his head to face her tear-stained face, his voice soft but carrying a rigid note of finality. "Clara, that procedure tore your body apart. We need to wait until you are completely, fully recovered before we ever think about another child."

Back then, Clara truly believed he was speaking out of pure, protective devotion for her health, assuming he was making a massive personal sacrifice by delaying his own deep longing for an heir solely for her sake.

Deeply moved by his apparent tenderness, her gratitude toward him deepened significantly.

She had absolutely no idea that while she was drowning in the grief of their lost angel, desperately clinging to a fragile dream of a future, Ethan was already seeking sordid, secret thrills in the arms of another woman.

All of his soft concern and meticulous tenderness during those weeks were nothing more than a calculated disguise, a beautiful veneer to mask his disgusting betrayal.

She had been kept entirely in the dark, swallowing his rehearsed lies with absolute devotion—a realization that was utterly tragic.

Sasha’s eyes were bloodshot and overflowing with fresh tears.

Wiping at her cheeks with the back of her hand, she slowly stepped out from the inner rooms of the precinct.

Her gaze pointedly avoided Clara, locking instead onto Ethan, her eyes dripping with a desperate, submissive need for protection.

"Ethan, I want to go home," Sasha whimpered, her voice catching in a pathetic, trembling sob.

Ethan remained anchored perfectly beside Clara, acting for all the world as though that was the only position he belonged in, refusing to offer Sasha even a glance, treating her entirely as a completely irrelevant stranger.

Sasha froze, a flicker of profound shock and devastating betrayal crossing her features.

But she recovered quickly, launching into a desperate plea. "The taxi I called just arrived. Please ride back with me, Ethan. I'm terrified."

Ethan merely furrowed his brows, a look of sharp impatience hardening his features as his voice cut through the air, freezing and cold. "Where you go has absolutely nothing to do with me. I am going home with my wife."

His words slammed into Sasha like blocks of ice, instantly crushing the final shred of hope she was clinging to, sending her spiraling into total humiliation.

Sasha’s gaze snapped violently toward Clara, her eyes instantly filling with a venomous, burning hatred.

"Sasha, what do you think you're doing?" Detecting the lethal intent in her eyes, Ethan snapped, his tone sharp with warning. He wanted nothing more than to silence the girl before she dragged the situation into an even more uncontrollable disaster.

"I'm so sorry, I..."

Sasha seemed genuinely terrified by his harsh rebuke. She bit her lip fiercely, fighting to hold back her tears as her voice trembled violently. "I didn't mean to, I just lost control. I'm sorry."

Right then, her car pulled up to the curb.

Chapter 15

Treating the vehicle like an absolute lifeline, Sasha spun on her heel and practically fled inside.

Her frantic, retreating figure radiated the bitter sting of rejection and total humiliation.

As the car door slammed shut, it seemed to lock away the volatile cocktail of her resentment and burning hatred inside the vehicle, leaving Ethan and Clara standing alone in the heavy quiet.

"Clara, I swear to you, I will never have a single drop of contact with her again."

Ethan looked down at her, his face a mask of absolute earnestness, his eyes burning with a desperate hunger to be trusted.

"I swear, you are the only woman I love."

He clamped his fingers tightly around Clara's hand, applying a level of force that felt like a physical attempt to drive his resolve into her skin. Throughout the entire ride back, he repeated those exact guarantees like a mantra, desperate to carve the words into her mind and force her to believe in his reformation.