Cheating Ex-husbands

At eight months pregnant, I was in a car accident and delivered a stillborn child.

My husband, who had always been so gentle, turned on me. He called me useless. He said I couldn't even protect our baby.

He forced me into a divorce and, without looking back, rushed into a hasty marriage with his long-lost first love.

Just as despair threatened to swallow me whole, Grayson Brooke—my childhood friend who had been overseas for years—returned. He confessed his feelings and promised to cherish me for the rest of my life.

But in the third year of our marriage, I accidentally overheard a conversation between him and his closest friend that turned my blood to ice.

"That car accident you staged—just to get the cord blood—killing Lydia's innocent baby in the process… it was too cruel, even for you."

"It was a necessary evil. Only her child's cord blood could save Kayla."

"But Lydia had just one month left. Kayla could have held on a little longer—"

Grayson cut him off, his voice sharp and absolute.

"If there was a way, why would we wait? I couldn't stand by and let Kayla suffer for one second more."

My hand trembled as I clutched a pregnancy test.

Inside the room, Grayson Brooke's and his friend's voices carried, clear and damning.

Grayson let out a heavy sigh, his tone laced with bitterness. "Even if Kayla never loves me back, I'd still give her everything I have. Everything."

His friend Shawn Carson, sounded appalled. "And what about Lydia? That accident you orchestrated nearly destroyed her chance to ever have children. For years, she's endured those brutal procedures—the injections, the retrievals, the transfers—praying for a miracle just to give you a baby. And you're just going to let her keep suffering?

"She's your childhood friend, for God's sake. You set her up. Aren't you afraid she'll find out?"

I heard the faint click of a lighter, the slow draw of a breath. "She'll never know," Grayson said. "And I will take care of her for the rest of her life. As long as she doesn't get in the way of Kayla's happiness, she'll want for nothing."

The recording icon on my phone glowed red. I tapped it, ending the truth, and staggered back into the living room. My legs gave way, and I crumpled onto the rug beside the sofa, all the strength gone from my body.

I curled into myself, a low moan escaping as a familiar, stabbing pain lanced through my lower abdomen—a permanent souvenir from the accident, the stillbirth, and the countless medical invasions that followed. Now, my heart was being shredded just as thoroughly.

When I'd lost my first baby, my ex-husband had paraded Kayla in front of my hospital bed, their cruel happiness stabbing at me so seriously that I nearly hemorrhaged.

It was then that Grayson appeared. He dragged my ex-husband out of the ward, fists landing solid and merciless.

I had wept with gratitude, so broken I