Three Years Wasted I Married Mr. Right novel Chapter 37

Sophia’s pregnancy had never been a secret to Emily. She’d prodded and prodded at every opportunity, a silent prayer on her lips that the stress would be enough to shake that little parasite loose.

But the girl’s womb was a fortress. “Trash genes are so damn stubborn, Emily thought, ‘clinging to life like the weeds they

are.

Emily knew the second Lucas found out, the divorce papers were dead in the water. His head would fill with domestic bliss, a future where Emily had no place. She saw herself being erased, discarded.

Not on my watch, she thought, the sentence clicking into place like a safety catch. ‘Lucas is mine. If Sophia wants to play the baby card, I’ll shred it, cell by cell, until even biology can’t stitch it back together.’

It was the middle of the night. Sophia drifted in a shallow sleep when she felt the mattress sink beside her. Someone was sitting there.

Her eyes flew open. There was a dark silhouette that loomed in the shadows. Ice–cold panic shot through her veins.

She flicked on the lamp. Lucas sat on the edge of the bed, eyes rimmed red, face flushed like he’d been running uphill, the room smelling faintly of expensive whiskey.

“You realize you look like a horror–movie intruder?” she snapped, clutching her chest until the pulse in her throat steadied. Anger pushed the fatigue away.

Without warning, Lucas pulled her into a rough bear hug, squeezing so tightly she heard her ribs protest. “Sophie, let’s stop fighting, please?”

He smelled as though he’d been marinating in liquor. The fumes alone turned her stomach. “What is this, some kind of two- in–the–morning epiphany?”

“I’ve been absent, I know,” he murmured, his voice a fractured landscape of gravel and remorse, like a once–ferocious predator suddenly declawed, collapsing vulnerably against her shoulder. “When you shut me out, my heart dies a little each day.”

Human beings are hormones in motion. Sophia had loved this man for seven years, had poured herself dry. To claim indifference would have been false.

But then the brutal highlights of the past few months flashed through her mind, and that faint flicker of warmth snuffed out completely.

It had taken her three long years to pry his heart open even a crack. Emily had shattered it beyond repair in just two weeks.

Childhood sweethearts, it seemed, outranked wives, as though it were written into some unwritten law of the universe.

“Lucas,” she said, quiet now, “have you ever, even for one second, loved me?”

Whether the alcohol had numbed his mind or he was feigning ignorance, he didn’t answer. He just kept mumbling, slurred and stubborn, “Don’t leave me, don’t leave, don’t…”

A dry, hollow laugh escaped her. For a moment, she had wavered. Now the feeling was gone,

Eventually, he went limp, his breathing evening out into a drunken snore against her shoulder.

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She tucked him under the duvet and studied his face as if it were a map she no longer trusted. For an absurd, violent second. she imagined pressing a pillow to his mouth.

Three years, a thousand nights, everything she’d given, and he still would not give her back what she wanted.

She rose, eased the door shut, the click of the latch barely audible.

The moment the door latched, Lucas’s eyes snapped open, fixed on the ceiling, pupils bright in the dark.

‘Frank was right, he thought. ‘Sophia loves me. Tie her to a child and she’d be bound to me for life.

He reached for his phone, thumbs moving swiftly across the screen as he sent a message to Frank.

Lucas: [Find me the best fertility specialist in the state. I want the top reproductive endocrinologist money can buy. We’re starting IVF]

Footsteps creaked behind her. Lucas, still half–drunk from last night, descended the stairs. His eyes narrowed at the box.

Back inside, Rachel had breakfast prepared. Sophia sat across from the happy couple, mechanically eating.

One bite in, Emily’s voice dripped honey–coated poison. “Sophia… that’s the poached egg Rachel made specifically for me.”

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The room went still. Emily’s eyes glistened, already reddening, the perfect picture of a wounded dove.

Sophia scanned the table and saw the single perfect poached egg sitting only on her plate.

Lucas’s reaction was instantaneous. He snatched the plate away. “You couldn’t even ask? You just took Emily’s egg?”

Sophia stared, incredulous. “I didn’t-”

“Didn’t what?” Lucas cut her off, his words sharp as razor blades. “Deliberately target a sick woman? Take the last thing she

needs to recover?”

The accusation hung in the air, thick and suffocating. Lucas was utterly convinced Sophia was trying to humiliate Emily and drive her out. In his mind, she was being petty and vindictive, caught in the act.

Sophia didn’t bother getting angry. Her tone stayed even. “I didn’t know.”

Lucas’s jaw locked, and he thought, ‘Great, now she is shameless, unbothered, and impossible to reason with.’

Emily, right on cue, pressed herself closer to Lucas, her hand finding his arm. The picture of fragile vulnerability.

“It’s okay,” she whispered, her voice a perfect blend of martyrdom and grace. “Lucas, please. Let her enjoy it. Sophia probably doesn’t know any better. Growing up in a poor village… The unspoken judgment hung between them. Rural, unsophisticated, lesser.