Chapter 1
When I was hemorrhaging during my pregnancy, my Alpha male Leon Hale was at a parent–teacher conference for his first love’s son,
Noah.
He wouldn’t answer my calls, so I had no choice but to call Emma Leigh.
Before I could say a single word, Emma was already crying, apologizing on behalf of her son Noah.
Leon snatched the phone away, his voice tinged with anger. “You’re almost thirty years old. Are you really going to compete with a child for attention? Noah grew up without a father. What’s wrong with him calling me daddy?”
After the surgery, the healer brought me my dead baby and asked me to sign the cremation consent form.
I signed it calmly. “Please send the ashes to this address. The recipient is Leon”
This story began three days earlier.
When I noticed abnormal bleeding in the bathroom, I called Leon, begging him to come home and drive me to the pack hospital.
He scoffed, as if he’d heard something amusing. “Bleeding? Why not earlier or later? Why now, when I’m at Noah’s parent–teacher conference? You might as well just lie and say you’re having a miscarriage Julia, your attention–seeking tactics are getting more
pathetic.”
The coldness in his last sentence made me freeze.
Just as I was about to explain, I heard Emma’s son Noah call out in his sweet childish voice “Daddy, it’s your turn to speak next!”
My hand trembled, nearly dropping the phone. “How could you let him call you dad
“Enough! We’ll talk about whatever this is tomorrow! Leon cut me off impatiently and hung up.
When I tried calling back, It went straight to voicemail.
Noah’s kindergarten was less than a mile from our house. It would only take Leon ten minutes to get home.
Unwilling to give up, I called his first love, Emma, but she treated it like I was picking a fight.
After staying at the pack hospital for three days, I returned home to find everything exactly as it was when the ambulance took me
away.
Leon hadn’t come home once.
In the past, I would have cried and confronted him, demanding to know if he was staying at Emma’s house again. But this time, I didn’t even have the desire to call him.
That’s when he chose to coine home.
Seeing me, his eyes were mocking, “Weren’t you bleeding? Not bleeding anymore?”
I said nothing, not wanting to waste a single word on him.
He thought he had me figured out. “Alright, let’s just forget about it. I’m not angry with you, so don’t make a big deal out of nothing. You’re going to be a mother too. Put yourself in her shoes–at the parent–teacher conference, all the other kids have fathers, but her son doesn’t. How do you think Emma feels? Besides, going there was good practice for me to learn how to be a proper father.”
I stared at him for a moment, too tired to point out the absurdity in his words.
He added, “Oh, and I received the gift you sent me. You put a lot of thought into it. I really like it.”
Looking at his sincere expression, I was momentarily stunned, then quickly understood–he thought the package was a gift from me, begging for his forgiveness.
He hadn’t even opened it.
ching my fists until my nails dug into my paints. “I’m glad you like it.”
I lowered my eyes, clenching my
Leon walked to the kitchen doorway and looked inside, immediately frowning. “Julia, didn’t you get my message yesterday?”
I had received his message.
(Three lobster lunch boxes for tomorrow’s zoo trip. Light oil, mildly salty, freshest lobsters only.]
He expected me to rush to the imported seafood market early in the morning like I always did, buy three pounds of lobster, scrub each one clean, and prepare three lunch boxes according to his specifications.
He never expected the kitchen counter to be completely empty.
Meeting his questioning gaze, I lied without hesitation. “They were sold out of lobsters. I couldn’t buy any.”
He practically blurted out, “Couldn’t you have gone earlier? I told you yesterday at noon.
Only silence answered him.
