My Husband’s Secret Mistress Forced My Abortion,So I Broke the Time LoopChapter 1

I had just finished my prenatal checkup when a local help-wanted post popped up on my feed:

"My wife finally got pregnant after years of trying, but the college girl I've been keeping on the side doesn't like the idea of me having a kid with someone else. How do I convince my wife to get an abortion?"

The comments were a dumpster fire of outrage. But the original poster had liked one reply in particular:

"Easy. Just tell your wife the baby's deformed and won't survive anyway."

I never engage with these things. I'm a lurker by nature—grab my popcorn, read the drama, move on. But this time, my fingers moved before I could stop them:

"How do you people sleep at night? Karma's going to destroy you."

The moment I hit send, my husband walked in.

Edward Abbott was the chief of obstetrics at the hospital. He was holding a test report, and his face was a mask of grief.

"Sweetheart," he said softly, "there's something wrong with our baby. Severe deformities. Even if we carried to term, the child wouldn't survive." He paused, swallowing hard. "I've already scheduled the procedure. Tomorrow."

1.

I stared at him—at the anguish carved into his features, at the report trembling in his hands.

My phone screen was still glowing with the comment I'd just posted.

Coincidence, I told myself. It has to be.

Edward and I had been together for nine years. Four years of dating, five years of marriage. Nine years of him anticipating my every need, sheltering me from every storm.

But the year we married, he was diagnosed with severe oligospermia. Our chances of conceiving naturally were almost nonexistent.

His mother had collapsed on the spot. The Abbott line had been single-heir for three generations—it couldn't end with her son.

Edward's hair turned white overnight. Literally. I watched it happen.

After that, we began our long, desperate journey toward a child.

As chief of OB-GYN, he threw everything he had at the problem. Experimental treatments. Bitter herbal concoctions that made him gag with every swallow. Acupuncture sessions so frequent that his back became a roadmap of needle marks, not an inch of skin left untouched.

Every failed sperm retrieval, he'd look at me with red-rimmed eyes and whisper, "I'm sorry."