Chapter 7
She finished speaking and looked at Liam Harrison.
“And we do have a connection now. This baby in my belly was conceived with your donated sperm, so in a way, it’s our child.”
“No matter what, you’ll always be the father. That bond will never break.”
Liam nodded. “It’s the best decision I’ve ever made.”
Then they walked off together to the obstetrics department.
It was only then that I realized Liam had secretly gone through IVF with Amber behind my back. Amber was still carrying his child. No wonder he hadn’t shown the slightest concern for me since I gave birth.
After leaving the police station, he didn’t even bother to come home. He had no idea the house had been emptied. I had already sold it.
As I stepped outside, holding the baby, the sun was blazing, but I felt an icy chill deep in my bones, like I’d just been dragged out of an ice cellar. The baby in my arms cried, tiny and seemingly oblivious, but his wails felt strangely as though he understood something.
The moment I got into the car, Samuel sent me a message, photos of the two of them at the obstetrics check-up, so high-definition it looked like he had taken them with his professional camera.
He replied with a straightforward message, “An eye for an eye. And I took these openly.”
The angle was undeniable.
Then came a bombshell.
This wasn’t the first time Liam and Amber had tried IVF. They’d been attempting it since the day we got married, five times in total. This was the first one that had worked.
Since our wedding day.
Now it all made sense, Liam had been late to our ceremony, almost missing the bridal procession. I’d always wondered why. Now I knew, he’d been at the clinic, doing IVF.
Five times.
All these years, while we were together, he had been trying to have a child with Amber.
No wonder he wasn’t excited when I told him I was pregnant. If anything, he seemed frustrated. I thought he wasn’t ready to be a father.
Now I understood, he was upset that I was pregnant when Amber’s IVF had failed.
He resented that I was carrying his child.
The realization hit me like a punch to the gut, and I looked down at the baby in my arms with a surge of pity. His own father hadn’t wanted him to exist.
I collected the evidence Samuel sent me.
Not long after I got home, I received a message from Liam’s close friends.
[Jessica, about what happened last time, we were out of line. How about we treat you, Liam, and Amber to dinner tonight? Let’s clear the air, yeah?]
They hardly ever invited me out. Since Liam and I had gotten together, they either excluded him or made sure their plans clashed with mine.
This was no casual dinner. It was a setup.
But I needed it. I’d been waiting for this moment. I knew they’d eventually step up to defend Amber, after all, she was their “group darling,” as they liked to call her.
And I still had that chat log. The one I’d never gotten around to using. One of them had accidentally sent it to a group chat I was in. At the time, I’d brushed it off as a joke.
Now, I knew better.
