Chapter 1: The Wager of Dignity

Eight months pregnant, and Dominic had forced me to stand in the kitchen all day, cooking a massive feast from scratch.

He had invited all his friends over to celebrate his birthday. During a rowdy game of Truth or Dare, Natalie deliberately lost so she could choose “Truth.” She pointed a manicured finger directly at my massive, protruding belly and smirked.

“Audrey’s stretch marks are absolutely hideous,” she giggled. “It looks like a colony of maggots crawled all over her stomach.”

The room erupted into cruel, mocking laughter. A wave of intense humiliation washed over me, crushing the last shreds of my self-respect. Trembling, I held onto the dining table and demanded an apology.

Dominic’s face immediately turned stone-cold. “Natalie was just making a joke, Audrey. Why do you always have to be so damn dramatic? If you don’t want to eat, then don’t!”

In the middle of a torrential storm, he dragged me to the front door and threw me out of our apartment, leaving me in nothing but a thin pair of pajamas. Turning back to his cheering friends, he sneered loudly enough for me to hear through the cracking thunder:

“Eight months pregnant and she still thinks she’s some high-society princess! She’s as fat as a pig. Who else would even want her besides me? Just wait. She won’t last ten minutes out there before she comes crawling back on her knees to beg for my forgiveness.”

But this time, his calculations were dead wrong.

I didn’t wait. I turned around, walked down the stairs into the freezing rain, and hailed a taxi straight to the hospital. I was going to schedule an immediate termination of my pregnancy. A man like him did not deserve to be a father.

Chapter 2: The Cold Reality

The night-shift doctor looked at my visibly heavy bump, her eyes wide with hesitation. “You look very far along. Are you absolutely certain you want to terminate? Does the child’s father know about this?”

“He’s dead,” I replied flatly.

A wave of profound sympathy crossed the doctor’s face. Since Dominic had never shown up to a single prenatal check-up, and because we were cohabiting without a legal marriage certificate, the hospital database showed no linked father. After confirming my decision multiple times, she scheduled the induction surgery for two days later.

By the time I returned to the apartment to gather my legal documents, the storm had soaked my pajamas to the skin. The freezing wind bit into my bones, but my soul felt entirely numb.

The party was over. Dominic was sitting on the sofa, smoking a cigarette. Hearing the front door click, his expression darkened instantly. He grabbed a heavy throw pillow and hurled it directly at me.

“It was just a harmless party game! Do you really need to take it so seriously that you run away in the middle of the night?” he barked. “Natalie is practically a child; what does she know? You’re about to become a mother—do you really have to be so petty and insecure?”

To him, her calling my body a swarm of maggots was just a joke. To him, calling me a pig was just banter. Every toxic arrow she aimed at me was justified in his eyes. He claimed Natalie was just a young, naive girl—but he conveniently chose to forget that I was only a single year older than her.

I didn’t argue. Arguments were for people who still cared.

The pillow struck my lower back, sending a dull ache through my spine. I turned the handle to the master bedroom, only for the door to swing open from the inside. Natalie stepped out, wearing one of my silk nightgowns.

Seeing me, she gasped with exaggerated innocence. “Oh, Audrey! I’m so sorry, I didn’t think you’d come back tonight. The storm was so bad, so Dominic let me crash here. I didn’t have clothes, so I borrowed yours. Since you’re pregnant and bloated anyway, you can’t fit into them, so I figured you wouldn’t mind?”

I looked at Dominic, my face completely expressionless.

Through the haze of cigarette smoke, his voice was dismissive. “It’s dangerous for a young girl to travel in this weather. I let her stay. You’re not going to start another pathetic fight over this, are you?”

He completely ignored his shivering, heavily pregnant wife who had just walked out of a storm, yet his heart bled for his “little sister.” I walked past them, locking myself in the guest room.

Chapter 3: The Breaking Point

An hour before dawn, the door clicked open. Dominic snuck into the bed, his warm hands wrapping around my waist with a hint of guilt. “Are you still sore?” he murmured. “Look, why couldn’t you just swallow your pride for once? There were so many guys there tonight; you ruined the vibe over a joke. It’s bad for the baby. Stop throwing a tantrum.”

“Do you actually care about this baby?” I asked, my voice dripping with pure ice.

His movements stiffened. When he leaned in to kiss me, I took his hand and forcefully dragged it across the deep, jagged stretch marks on my stomach. Dominic flinched violently, pulling his hand away as if he had just touched a monster.

Before he could apologize for his instinctual disgust, his phone rang. In the quiet room, Natalie’s crying voice pierced the air. “I’m so sorry, Dominic… I know I made Audrey mad. I shouldn’t stay here and eyesore you both. I’ll just walk home in the dark, I don’t need you to worry about me, ah—!”

A sharp scream cut the line, followed by dead silence.

Dominic completely panicked. He threw on his jacket and violently dragged me out of bed by my arm. “If anything happens to Natalie tonight, I will never forgive you! You caused this!”

“I didn’t tell her to run out into the night,” I whispered, wincing as he dragged me down the stairs and threw me into the passenger seat of his car.

Ten minutes later, we found Natalie sitting by the curb, having tripped and scraped her knee. Dominic flew out of the car, scooped her into his arms like a tragic hero, and drove like a madman to the hospital.

After hours of being dragged around, a sharp, crushing contraction bloomed in my abdomen. The physical and emotional trauma of the night had pushed my body to the limit. Cold sweat poured down my face as I leaned heavily against the hospital wall to keep from collapsing.

When Dominic finally emerged from Natalie’s clinic room, he looked at me with utter contempt. “Stop faking your little dramas in front of me. She actually fell down; did you fall down? Audrey, I never realized you were this malicious. You look human on the outside, but you can’t even tolerate a young girl’s existence.”

The night-shift doctor walked past, recognizing me. She looked at Dominic, then at me, her face filled with confusion. “Wait, aren’t you the patient who just—”

“It’s nothing, Doctor,” I interrupted quickly, my voice raspy. “Just a minor family misunderstanding. They are tending to a relative.”

The doctor sighed heavily, shooting a stern look at Dominic. “Well, keep her away from the stress. Given her condition and the upcoming procedure, she needs absolute rest. If something happens before the scheduled date, it’ll be catastrophic.”

Dominic didn’t even process the word procedure. The moment Natalie whined from the room, he turned his back on me and walked right back inside.

Chapter 4: The Clean Slate

Two days later, I checked into the hospital alone and underwent the termination. When I woke up from the anesthesia, I felt an overwhelming, beautiful lightness. The burden of a toxic legacy was gone.

I packed my belongings, moved out of the apartment entirely, and severed all ties. I changed my number, blocked his email, and relocated to a bright, minimalist flat across the city.

Using my maiden name, I threw myself into my career. Within six months, I founded my own independent architectural design firm. My focus was unmatched, and my company quickly secured major commercial contracts, rising to become a prominent player in the regional market.

Meanwhile, Dominic and Natalie’s lives completely fell apart.

Without my family’s social connections and my quiet management of his business accounts, Dominic’s logistics company began to hemorrhage money. To appease Natalie’s expensive tastes, he took massive financial risks that completely backfired. Within a year, his company filed for bankruptcy, leaving him buried under millions in debt.

Natalie, realizing the gravy train had derailed, immediately packed her bags and abandoned him for a wealthier man, proving exactly how deep her “innocent affection” truly ran.

One evening, a year after that horrific rainy night, I walked out of my sleek corporate building toward my car. A ragged, disheveled figure stepped out from the shadows of the parking lot.

It was Dominic. His designer clothes were frayed, his face gaunt, his eyes hollowed out by misery.

“Audrey… please,” he wept, dropping to his knees on the asphalt. “I was an idiot. Natalie stripped me of everything and left. I ruined my life, I ruined our family… Please, let me see our child. Let me be a father. I want to make things right.”

I looked down at him, feeling absolutely nothing. Not anger, not satisfaction. Just a vast, empty void.

“There is no child, Dominic,” I said, my voice cutting through the evening air like a diamond. “I terminated the pregnancy the exact same night you threw me out into the storm.”

Dominic’s face drained of all color, his eyes widening in pure horror as the weight of his actions finally crushed him. He collapsed into the dirt, sobbing hysterically, realizing he had gambled away his business, his child, and the only woman who had ever truly loved him.

I stepped into my car, closed the door, and drove away into the brilliant, glowing city lights, completely focused on the beautiful, unburdened road ahead of me.