Two Hearts in Separate Bloom

When Levi Ezra and I got married, he had solemnly vowed he would love me for a lifetime.

Seven years later, he got another woman pregnant — a woman he had so carefully tucked away in a luxurious estate, complete with everything money could buy for a perfect, pampered delivery.

By the time I discovered the truth, his mistress's belly was already round and heavy. Her due date was just around the corner.

Levi had hesitated — for barely a second — before instinctively shielding her behind him, as though I were some threat.

He said, "Nikki, you're terrified of childbirth. Now that this baby is coming, the Ezra family will finally have an heir. You won't have to suffer anymore. We'll still be the same as before. Nothing will change."

I clutched the freshly issued pregnancy report in my hand — the one confirming my own child — and let out a laugh so sharp and brittle that it shattered into tears.

The day his mistress went into labor, I terminated my pregnancy. I left the divorce papers on his desk, packed my bags, and boarded the first flight to a foreign land.

The day my pregnancy was officially confirmed, I visited the estate Levi Ezra had prepared for my maternity care seven years earlier.

I never imagined I would stumble across a scene that would shatter me so completely: my husband, still dressed in the outfit I had so carefully selected for him, was walking side-by-side with another woman.

Her belly was swollen, heavy with child.

Levi reached out tenderly, his palm resting against her rounded stomach. His face was illuminated with an expression so soft, so full of adoration, it was as if the world around them did not exist.

There was a deafening roar inside my head. I froze, rooted to the spot, feeling the ground tilt under me.

When Levi finally noticed me standing there, his face turned deathly pale in an instant.

The woman, too, lifted her head in confusion, only for panic to sweep across her features when she saw me.

Levi recovered first. He quickly gestured for her to return inside the house, then hurried over to me, grasping my hand in his.

"You're wearing too little — your hands are freezing," he said. But the tremble in his hands betrayed the fear he was desperately trying to conceal.

After three years of dating and seven years of marriage, I knew exactly what such a reaction meant.

I tore through the fragile facade he had tried so hard to maintain, my voice quivering as I forced the question out, "When did this happen?"

He flinched, a flicker of guilt crossing his face, before he struggled to speak. "Last summer... when your grandmother passed away... you returned home for the funeral—"

It felt like a bolt of lightning had struck me. My mind blanked; it took a long moment before I could even find my voice again.

"So, when my grandmother died, and