His Heir Was a LieChapter 1

I went to the hospital to get my IUD swapped out—and found my husband in the prenatal wing, standing beside a girl whose belly was just beginning to show.

I opened my mouth, but he spoke first, perfectly calm:

"Since you've seen it, I might as well come clean."

"Lucinda's a college girl I've been keeping on the side. She's a month along."

"Relax. She's a sweet girl—she doesn't want your position, and she's not coming for your family."

"But I'm not letting my firstborn grow up a bastard."

I stood frozen over my IUD replacement form, my voice shaking beyond my control:

"So you're going to divorce me and marry her?"

He wiped the tears from my face, smiling as he spoke:

"What are you talking about? I told you when I married you, you'd be my only wife for the rest of my life. Besides, you're an orphan. Where would you even go without me?"

"I'm just saying—since you can't have children, we adopt Lucinda's baby."

"Five years you've had that IUD in. Five years you wouldn't give me a child. So I found someone who would. Can you really blame me for wanting to carry on the family line?"

He tore the replacement form out of my hand, expression unchanged:

"One child is enough for me. Just have the IUD taken out."

"Be good. I promise, you'll still be the lady of this family. No one will ever rank above you."

I looked at him for a long time, then did as he wanted and changed the procedure from a replacement to a removal.

"Don't bother."

"Giles, I hope you never regret what you've decided today."

What he didn't know was that the IUD I'd worn for five years was the last shred of dignity I'd preserved for him, covering up his congenital infertility.

……

I woke seven days later.

Something low in my abdomen screamed with a pain I'd never felt before—raw, gutted, *empty*.

I reached for it instinctively, but ice-cold handcuffs bit into my wrists and jerked me short.

Outside the door, Giles's calm voice carried through. He was on the phone.

"It's done. The uterus is out."

"Mm. For the adoption of Lucinda's child, it had to be done."

"Her? What's she going to do when she wakes up? She's an orphan. She can't exactly turn the world upside down."

Everything went white. Just a high-pitched buzz and nothing behind it.

My uterus… gone?

How could he.

I fought the cuffs until they cut—thrashing, wrenching, the metal biting deep enough to leave blood smeared across both wrists.

The door opened.