Emma's POV
The champagne bottle slipped from my hand and shattered across the marble floor.
I stared at the mess—pink liquid spreading like blood, glass glittering like broken promises. My hands were shaking so badly I couldn't even hold a stupid bottle anymore. Five years. Five whole years of marriage, and I was spending my anniversary alone, drunk, and talking to myself in a penthouse that cost more than most people made in a lifetime.
Happy anniversary to me.
I grabbed my phone from the counter, reading Adrian's text for the hundredth time tonight.
"Stuck at office. Don't wait up."
Four words. That's all my husband could give me on the day we were supposed to celebrate five years together. Not even a "sorry" or "I love you." Just a cold order not to bother him.
I laughed, and it sounded crazy even to my own ears. When had I become this person? This sad woman who waited by the phone like a puppy hoping for scraps of attention?
The answer hit me hard: I'd always been this person. Even before I married Adrian Hartwell.
My phone buzzed. My heart jumped—maybe Adrian remembered, maybe he was coming home—but it was just my sister Vivian calling from Paris. I let it go to voicemail. I couldn't handle Vivian's perfect life story tonight. Not when mine was falling apart in my hands.
I walked to the bedroom, carefully avoiding the broken glass. The anniversary gift I'd bought Adrian sat on his pillow, wrapped in expensive blue paper—his favorite color. I'd spent weeks finding the perfect vintage watch, the kind he collected but never wore because he was always too busy working.
Too busy for everything. Too busy for dinner. Too busy for conversations. Too busy to notice his wife was dying inside.
I picked up the gift and threw it across the room. It hit the wall with a satisfying thud.
"Five years!" I shouted to the empty apartment. "Five years and you can't even come home for ONE night!"
Silence answered me. It always did.
I collapsed on the bed—our bed, though Adrian rarely slept in it anymore. He claimed he worked late and didn't want to wake me. What a gentleman. What a lie.
The truth was simpler and crueler: my husband didn't want to be near me.
I closed my eyes and let myself remember the night this all started. Vivian's going-away party, five years ago. She was leaving for Paris to become a famous fashion designer, leaving behind her whole family and her boyfriend—Adrian.
I'd found him on the balcony, drunk and broken. Vivian had just rejected his proposal. She chose Paris over him, and Adrian looked like someone had ripped out his heart.
"She doesn't love me," he'd whispered. "I'm not enough."
I'd touched his shoulder, trying to comfort him. "You're more than enough. She's just... Vivian always chooses herself first."
He'd looked at me then, really looked at me for the first time ever. Emma Chen, Vivian's boring little sister. The invisible one.
"You're kind," he'd said. "Why can't she be more like you?"
One thing led to another. Grief plus alcohol plus loneliness equals a huge mistake. We slept together that night, and I woke up knowing I'd done something terrible and wonderful at the same time.
Because here's the truth nobody knew: I'd been in love with Adrian Hartwell since the day Vivian first brought him home. I'd loved him quietly, secretly, knowing he'd never see me. Not when perfect, beautiful Vivian existed.
But that night, he saw me. And three weeks later, when my period was late and I took a pregnancy test, I saw a chance.
The test was negative. But Adrian's mother found the empty box in the bathroom trash before I could hide it. She demanded we get married immediately to "avoid scandal." Adrian, still numb from Vivian's rejection, agreed.
And I—God help me—I said yes.
I knew the pregnancy was false. I could have told them. But I wanted Adrian so desperately that I let them think I might be pregnant. I let him marry me out of duty instead of love.
I thought I could make him love me eventually. I thought if I was perfect enough, patient enough, good enough—he'd finally see me the way he saw Vivian.
I was so stupid.
My phone buzzed again. Another text, but not from Adrian.
It was from Vivian: "Big news! Coming home tomorrow. Can I stay with you guys for a while? Going through a divorce, need family. Miss you, little sis!"
My blood turned to ice.
Vivian was coming back. The woman Adrian had actually loved. The woman he'd proposed to. The woman he'd wanted before he got stuck with me instead.
I looked around the bedroom—the separate closets, the cold space between the pillows, the anniversary gift broken on the floor. This wasn't a marriage. It was a prison sentence we were both serving.
And now Vivian was coming home.
I sat up slowly, my mind suddenly crystal clear despite the champagne. I walked to my closet and pulled out a suitcase. My hands weren't shaking anymore.
For five years, I'd been waiting for Adrian to love me. Waiting for him to choose me. Waiting for him to see me as something more than the consolation prize when Vivian left.
But Vivian wasn't gone anymore. She was coming back. And when she did, Adrian would finally have a choice: the woman he married out of duty, or the woman he'd actually loved.
I already knew which one he'd pick. Everyone always picked Vivian.
I started pulling clothes from hangers, throwing them in the suitcase. Dresses I'd bought hoping Adrian would notice. Shoes I'd worn to fancy parties where he'd barely looked at me. A whole wardrobe of trying too hard.
My phone rang. This time it was Adrian.
I stared at his name on the screen, my finger hovering over the answer button. Part of me—the pathetic part that still loved him—wanted to answer. Wanted to hear his voice and pretend everything was fine.
But everything wasn't fine. It never had been.
I let it ring until it went to voicemail.
Thirty seconds later, a text came through: "Emma, I'm coming home. We need to talk. Stay there."
My heart stopped.
In five years of marriage, Adrian had never said "we need to talk." He barely said anything to me at all. And now, the same day Vivian announced she was coming home, suddenly my husband wanted to have a conversation?
I looked at the half-packed suitcase, then at the door, then back at my phone.
The lock clicked in the front door. Adrian was home.
My husband—who never came home, who forgot our anniversary, who'd ignored me for five solid years—was walking into the penthouse right now.
And I had no idea if he was here to finally fight for our marriage... or to ask me for a divorce so he could have Vivian back.
I heard his footsteps in the hallway, getting closer to the bedroom.
The door handle started to turn.
I grabbed the suitcase and shoved it under the bed, my heart pounding so loud I could barely breathe.
The door opened, and Adrian stood there, his tie loose and his eyes wild with something I'd never seen before.
He looked at me, really looked at me, and said four words that changed everything:
"Emma, are you pregnant?"