Chapter 2
567words
I'd barely slipped on my white coat when the emergency light flashed at the nurses' station—VIP bed 3, Vivian Woods, water broken, contractions started.
I rushed to the delivery room, the midwife falling in step beside me.
At the delivery room doors, a woman in designer clothes lunged forward, grabbing my arm with manicured fingers. Tears streaked her makeup as she introduced herself as Vivian's mother.
"Dr. Spencer!" she pleaded. "You have to save Vivian and the baby!"
"It's Dr. Kosters' baby—the child he's dreamed of for years!"
"...Ethan Kosters?"
The name fell from my lips as my blood turned to ice.
"Yes, your brilliant cardiac surgeon! They've been sweethearts since childhood. This baby means everything to him—more than his own life." She sobbed, blind to the color draining from my face.
Childhood sweethearts. Years of longing for a child. More precious than his own life.
Each word hammered another nail into my coffin.
Yesterday's betrayal was a paper cut. This was a knife to the heart. The pain crushed my chest until my knees nearly buckled.
So Rachel was just a plaything, while Vivian was his true love, carrying the heir he'd always wanted.
I'd been the perfect fool, believing in our marriage while he built a life with other women.
Hatred and heartbreak ripped through me like shrapnel.
"Dr. Spencer? Hey, you okay?" The midwife caught my elbow as I swayed.
I snapped back to reality, gulping air, forcing down the metallic taste of rage and the hot sting of tears.
Years of training took over. I gently removed the woman's hand, my voice rough but steady: "Wait outside, please. We'll do everything we can."
I pushed through the doors into the delivery room—a battlefield of life and death. Behind me lay the ruins of my life.
Then everything went to hell. Amniotic fluid embolism—the delivery room's nightmare.
For ten brutal hours, we fought death with everything we had. The hospital threw all its resources at us. I pushed myself beyond exhaustion.
In the end, the baby died in my hands—that precious child Ethan had "yearned for years." We barely managed to keep Vivian alive, rushing her to ICU on a ventilator.
I stumbled from the OR, soaked in sweat and blood, mask lines carved into my face like battle scars.
Before I could process the weight of death or the gut-punch of "Ethan's child," a figure barreled toward me down the corridor.
Ethan.
His face was ash-gray, his eyes wild with a fury I'd never seen, his famous composure shattered.
Without warning—
CRACK!
His hand connected with my cheek like a thunderclap.
The force knocked me sideways into the wall. My vision swam, ears ringing, the copper tang of blood filling my mouth.
"Sophia!" he roared, jabbing his finger toward the OR. "Why didn't you save the baby? That was MY CHILD!"
The corridor froze—doctors, nurses, visitors all staring in shocked silence.
In one moment, he'd destroyed my dignity and ripped away the façade of our marriage I'd desperately maintained.
I touched my burning cheek and looked up at him—his perfect face contorted with rage, his eyes blazing with grief for another woman's child.
Whatever remained of my heart turned to dust in that moment.
Without another glance, he shoved past a stunned nurse and stormed toward the ICU—toward his precious Vivian.
