His Pregnant Ex Cost Him Everything

My boyfriend, Vincent, ordered three expensive takeout meals at the office every single day. The money was spent, but he never seemed to eat any of it. "There are a lot of stray cats and dogs downstairs," he explained. "Poor things. I’ve been feeding them." Then, on my birthday, Vincent told me he was too busy to take me out to dinner. So I went to his office myself and ordered an extravagant spread of food worth thousands of dollars, planning to surprise him. After waiting for what felt like forever, I learned that someone else had eaten it. A young woman in a raincoat stood at the entrance, crying as she apologized. "I thought… I thought my boyfriend had ordered it for me. So I ate it…" "I’m sorry. I’ll call him right now and have him sort this out…" The man on the other end of the phone scolded her, but every word was threaded with concern. "Are you an actual pig? I ordered you all that food and you still weren’t full enough, so you had to eat someone else’s?" "You never cried this hard when you broke up with me back then. Now you’re falling apart over a meal? What a wimp!" "Wait there. I’m driving over right now." An hour later, Vincent appeared outside his office, despite supposedly being in a meeting in the neighboring city. At last, I understood where all those mysteriously disappearing meals had gone. I looked at the young woman, who was standing a little taller now that he had arrived. "It seems we have the same boyfriend." … Vincent stiffened and instinctively stepped in front of the young woman, shielding her from me. "Claire? W-what are you doing here?" My eyes fell on the bag of desserts in his hand. I never ate sweets like those. He must have bought them to cheer her up. "It's my birthday today," I said. "I reminded you a week ago." Vincent simply hadn't cared enough to remember. That morning, he'd told me he had to attend a meeting in the neighboring city and might not make it home that night. I hadn't wanted to interfere with his work, so I'd stopped bringing up my birthday and gone to his office instead, ordering dinner and waiting for him there. Apparently, a phone call from this woman mattered more than every reminder I'd given him in person. He'd abandoned his clients and rushed straight back to her. "Are you going to introduce us?" I asked, looking at the woman. "She's Lily. My ex." Vincent hurried to explain, as though the explanation itself could somehow make everything look innocent. "She just moved back to Fairmont. She doesn't have any money, not even enough to rent a place. She was doing food deliveries when I ran into her. I felt bad for her, so I thought I'd help out an old acquaintance. Just get her something to eat every day." Before I could respond, Lily tugged at his sleeve. "Vincent, isn't she one of your clients? Why does she get to ask so many questions about us?" I froze. So Vincent had been telling everyone that I was his client? No wonder the receptionist had made me sign in before allowing me upstairs. Something inside me sank. My emotions rose like a tide, but I swallowed the questions burning on my tongue and forced a smile. "So she's the stray cat or dog you've been taking care of?" Vincent's expression changed instantly. "Claire, watch your mouth." "This is my workplace. Whatever problem you have, we can discuss it at home. Don't come here looking for a fight." I couldn't believe he was speaking to me like that. Five years together, and this was the first time he'd ever said anything so cruel. Lily looked from me to Vincent. Her eyes turned red, and tears gathered until they spilled over. "She's your girlfriend?" "I'm sorry. I should've known better. I'll leave right now." She picked up her helmet, brushed the mud from her knees, and righted her little electric scooter. Vincent panicked. Before he could think better of it, he grabbed her wrist. "I'm not blaming you." Then he caught my icy stare and let go. With a frustrated step backward, he tossed the bag of desserts into Lily's scooter basket and pulled two disposable heat packs from his pocket, handing them to her. "Fine. I'll let you off the hook for the food delivery this time." "Now go. Just go already." He turned away in a hurry. Apparently, seeing Lily looking so miserable was more than he could bear. But what about me? Vincent hadn't noticed, not once, that I was standing outside in the dead of winter wearing nothing but a thin shirt. He hadn't always been like this. He used to drape his coat over my shoulders before I even had to ask. Now he'd given that same kind of care to another woman, disguising it as charity. The tip of my nose was red from the cold. My fingers had gone stiff. Even my gaze felt sluggish as I slowly lifted my eyes to Lily's neck. There, hanging against her skin, was the protective amulet I'd prayed for at a temple the previous month, hoping it would keep Vincent safe. That hurt more than the winter wind ever could. Vincent didn't look away until the taillight of Lily's scooter disappeared into the distance. "What do you want to eat? I'll take you somewhere." He helped me into his car, turned the heat all the way up, then wrapped one warm hand around mine. "Honestly, you're hopeless. Why didn't you wear something warmer? It's freezing out there." I turned my head slightly. Thinking I was looking at him, Vincent smiled. "And don't get any ideas. There's nothing between Lily and me anymore." But I wasn't looking at him. I was looking at the phone mounted on his dashboard. He'd forgotten to turn off the screen. Every time the car jolted, it lit up again, revealing a contact with a special alert setting. Someone had appeared above my name. Lily. "Claire? What's on your mind?" I came back to myself and realized we'd stopped outside a private dining restaurant. I'd seen its name countless times on Vincent's takeout orders. Expensive. Exclusive. A membership required. "You have to put down fifty thousand dollars just to dine here, don't you?" I asked. He nodded, picking up the conversation as though it were nothing. "I did. There's still over a hundred thousand on the account." The owner recognized Vincent's car and hurried over to greet us. "Mr. Vincent! Your friend has been dining with us quite a bit lately. As you instructed, we've been charging everything to your account." "Since this is your first time dining here yourself, we'll prepare the same custom menu we designed for your friend—" Vincent cut him off. "All right, all right. You talk too much." Then he turned to me. "Claire, what are you waiting for? Get out of the car." I ignored the hand he offered and looked straight into his eyes. "Vincent, let's break up." At the table, Vincent tried every trick he could think of to coax me into forgiving him. First, a bouquet of flowers arrived. Then a cake. After that came one gift after another, until the table was buried beneath them. He was practically one step away from getting on his knees. "Baby, don't be mad. You'll upset our little one." "Our baby wouldn't want to hear Mommy and Daddy fighting, would he?" Vincent crouched beside me, pretending to listen to my belly. "Listen. He's saying…" His phone suddenly rang. Lily. He snatched it up. "Hello?" I couldn't hear what she said, but his expression changed dramatically. He grabbed his keys and headed for the door. "Don't be scared. I'm coming right now." And just like that, he was gone. The private dining room fell silent. I sat alone, staring blankly at the pile of gifts. Soon, the owner came in with a serving cart and began arranging the dishes on the table. Seeing that Vincent was gone, he kindly offered to explain the menu. "These are some of Mr. Vincent's original creations." He pointed to several spicy dishes. "He developed them around a close friend's tastes. We never expected them to become so popular here." "When did he create them?" I asked, my voice barely audible. "About a year ago," the owner replied. I remembered that period. Vincent had been emotionally volatile for months. I'd found him drunk in a bar, surrounded by empty bottles. Several newly opened packs of cigarettes lay on the table, all smoked down to the last one. He barely spoke. He'd pick up his phone, stare at it, then put it down again. So every bottle he'd emptied into himself had been because of Lily. After the owner left, I tasted every dish on the table. At last, I discovered the identity of the friend Vincent had spent five years smiling about whenever he mentioned someone who couldn't live without spicy food. It had always been her. I walked out of the restaurant and hailed a cab, telling the driver to take me anywhere through the city. I was going to leave. I was going to leave the city where I'd stood beside Vincent while he clawed his way back from nothing, where we'd struggled through every hardship together. Then a familiar car appeared in the traffic. Vincent was driving. Lily sat in the passenger seat, and the back was filled with takeout orders waiting to be delivered. "Follow that car," I told the driver. For four hours that night, Vincent drove his gas-guzzling car around the city, spending time that had once been worth a fortune, helping Lily deliver eighty-four orders. Near dawn, I stood behind a billboard and watched without blinking as the two of them sat by the roadside, sharing a roasted sweet potato. "Stop riding that piece-of-junk scooter to make deliveries." "Today you sprained your ankle. Tomorrow someone might break your leg. You can't even afford the medical bills. What are you going to do then, just die?" His words were harsh, but he gave her the larger half of the sweet potato. Lily stared at the money displayed on her phone, grinning like a child. "Hehe! I made three hundred dollars delivering more than eighty orders!" Vincent smiled, too. He didn't tell her that, for the sake of helping her earn those three hundred dollars, he'd sacrificed thousands upon thousands of his own. I took a deep breath. The cold air scraped down my throat and burned my lungs. My feet felt frozen to the pavement, as though I'd forgotten how to walk. "Crap!" Vincent suddenly slapped a hand against his forehead. "I left Claire at the restaurant!" Only then did Lily turn to look at him. "Vincent…" Her voice was small and hesitant. "The lights at my place have been broken for two days. I'm scared of the dark. Could you take me home first and then go pick her up?" I stood there, so stunned that I forgot to blink. Her place. The house in the upscale Willow Park neighborhood that Vincent and I had bought with the first real money we ever made. He'd given it to Lily. And he'd never even discussed it with me. Vincent hesitated for a moment before making his decision. "It's the middle of the night. It's not safe for a woman to take a cab home alone. I'll drop you off first." Right. He understood that being alone at night could be dangerous. During the four hours he'd left me waiting at the restaurant, had he ever once worried about whether I was safe? I doubted it. Otherwise, he wouldn't have climbed into his car with Lily without even sending me a single message. I rubbed my frozen hands together and called the person in charge of the overseas assignment at my company. "I've made up my mind," I said. "I'll accept the transfer." By the time I returned home, I'd already decided to end my pregnancy. I'd planned to go to the hospital to have the procedure done, and now I was finally ready to sleep. I lay motionless on the enormous bed, one hand resting on my stomach, my eyes fixed on the red paper wedding decoration still only half attached to the window. Tears slipped silently down my cheeks. In just one more month, I was supposed to have a family of my own. Instead, my unborn child would never see the light of day. I'd spent four years struggling alongside Vincent. Happiness had seemed so close I could almost touch it, only to watch it slip through my fingers at the last moment. What a shame. Much later, the bedroom door opened. Vincent climbed into bed quietly and wrapped his arms around me. A strange perfume drifted toward me. My stomach turned. Vincent sighed several times behind me. Then he rolled over, sat up, and began sending voice messages on his phone. "I'm sorry I kissed you tonight. I got carried away." "But my answer is still the same. I'm not getting back together with you. We can't be together anymore." "What's over is over, Lily. If you hadn't left me for money back then, I wouldn't have settled for someone who meant nothing to me. You destroyed what we had." My entire body went rigid. A high-pitched ringing filled my ears. My hands and feet began to tingle, and pain spread from my heart all the way into my brain. It kept coming, forcing every sweet and bitter memory of our past to flash before my eyes. Living with him beneath bridges. Sharing cheap takeout meals. Revising one proposal after another. Staying up through countless sleepless nights. Then, when the worst was finally over, Vincent had held me and cried for a long, long time. He'd told me I was the person he was most grateful to have in his life. He'd promised to spend the rest of his life treating me well, turning every hardship we'd endured into sweetness for the years ahead. Yet now, all I could taste was a bitterness so profound it made me shiver. Soon, Lily's voice came through the phone. "Vincent, I'm on the roof right now. I'll give you half an hour. After that, we're done for good." "Come if you want. It's up to you." Vincent hurled his phone onto the carpet. He lay back down, pulled the covers over his head, and tightened his arm around my waist until his hold became almost painful. The baby inside me seemed to sense my distress. A restless ache stirred in my abdomen. "Damn it!" Vincent swore under his breath and suddenly sat up. But this time, I caught his arm. The bedroom light snapped on. I saw the bloodshot red in his eyes, the marks of kisses on his neck, and the lipstick still smeared across his lips. Something inside me broke. Slap! My palm struck his face with all the force I could muster. I'd never been someone who wore her emotions on the outside. But now I was screaming at him, utterly out of control. "You are not going!" He stared at me in shock. Then he seemed to recover and tried to shove me away. "Lily's going to jump! I have to stop her!" He could reason with me, curse me for being heartless, accuse me of having no compassion for another human being. I didn't care. I refused to let go. Tears flew from my face as I struggled to hold on to him. I couldn't find the words for everything I was feeling. One question was all I could force out. "Why?" Why was I always the one who had to be abandoned? "Let go! What the hell is wrong with you? I'm going to save someone's life!" "Do you understand that someone could die?" Vincent tried to pry my fingers loose. He wrenched my hand open, his fingernails scraping painfully across my palm. A sharp, burning sting shot through my skin. I cried out, shaking with pain. He shoved me away. I fell hard onto the floor. "Vincent! If you walk out that door, I'll hate you for the rest of my life!" Breathing heavily, he snatched up his phone. Only ten minutes remained before Lily's deadline. He called her again and again, but she wouldn't answer. Furious, he pointed at me. "You're nothing but a hysterical shrew!" "I'm warning you. If anything happens to Lily, I'll never forgive you!" Then Vincent stormed out. Half an hour later, a friend of mine who worked in traffic enforcement sent me a message. Traffic officer: Vincent just ran six red lights tonight and was going 120 kilometers an hour. He's at the traffic bureau now. What the hell happened? Traffic officer: Isn't his company about to go public? If this gets out, his whole future could be ruined. Compared with Lily, the empire Vincent and I had built together apparently meant nothing. I typed a long response, deleted it, then typed another. In the end, I erased every word. Another message arrived. Traffic officer: But don't worry too much. He's got a friend here keeping him company. They seem pretty close. They've been holding hands the whole time. It's late, so don't bother coming. I'll let his friend handle everything. I replied with a single word. Me: Okay. Lily was safe that night. But the woman who had loved Vincent was gone for good. I sat alone in the hospital observation room. My body had just been through a major ordeal, and I stared at my phone in a daze, barely able to comprehend what I was seeing. Me: I'm terminating the pregnancy. I'd sent the message in the early hours of the morning. Vincent still hadn't replied. Then my flight confirmation appeared on the screen. My plane would leave that evening. I had very little time left in this city. "Hey, I heard that guy got into a car accident because he was rushing to save that woman. He broke his hand in the crash. Apparently, the two of them were holding hands even while they slept." "I heard they used to date. The man kept hugging her and saying he'd been wrong, begging her not to hurt herself just to punish him." "Honestly. Where was all that concern before?" I heard the nurses gossiping outside the room. I no longer had the strength to care. When my observation period ended, I picked up my bag and slowly made my way out. "Vincent, open your mouth." I lifted my head in a daze. Outside a nearby prenatal examination room sat Vincent and Lily. His hand was in a cast, so she was feeding him spoonfuls of porridge. "This is why I have to work so hard to make money," Lily said with a bitter smile. "I'm so stupid. I trusted him again. But the baby is innocent." "I'm just scared that my baby and I won't survive on our own… Vincent, I'm sorry. I really shouldn't have dragged you into this. It's just… it's just…" Her voice broke. She scrubbed at her tears with her sleeve. Vincent glanced at her stomach and remained silent for a long time. Then he took a black bank card from his wallet and handed it to her. "Have the baby. I'll take responsibility." "...But I'm getting married next month. We need to keep our distance after this. I can't give you anything more than that, but at least I can make sure you have enough to live on." He'd agreed to take responsibility for her child. And he had no idea he'd already lost ours. I stood motionless, my mind completely blank. I didn't want to ask questions anymore. I didn't want to fight. What was the point? No matter how much I protested, the ending would be the same. I'd never been the only woman in Vincent's heart. It wasn't until noon that Vincent returned home. He'd brought the soup dumplings from the restaurant in the southern part of town, placing them in front of me as casually as if nothing had happened. "Eat them while they're hot." I picked up the container and dropped the dumplings straight into the trash. He didn't get angry. He simply sat down beside me, his lips opening and closing several times before he finally managed to speak. "Claire, could we postpone the wedding? I have some really important work next month. There's no way I can reschedule it." "Sure," I said. "I'll call the wedding planner and cancel everything." He looked stunned, as if he'd never imagined I'd agree so easily. "No, no. There's no need to cancel it. We've already paid the deposit. It wouldn't be fair to ask them to refund it." "Fine." Vincent relaxed, a smile spreading across his face. "That's my girl. You always understand me. Once things settle down, I promise I'll give you the grandest wedding imaginable." Then he turned and went into the bathroom. The jasmine perfume that belonged to Lily still lingered in the living room. I picked up Vincent's phone, unlocked it, and opened his messages. Lily was the only contact he'd pinned to the top. A new message appeared. Lily: Well? Did she agree? What I saw next was the entire history of their conversation. Lily: Vincent, could you have a fake wedding with me? Just something to show my family back home. If they find out I'm pregnant and unmarried, they'll never let me hear the end of it. Lily: You're all I have left. Please help me. Vincent had replied: Vincent: Okay. Vincent: Weddings take a long time to arrange. We might as well do it next month and use the venue Claire and I booked. Lily had asked: Lily: Will she agree to that? Vincent had answered: Vincent: I'll tell her whatever she needs to hear. She'll believe me. I smiled. Then, using Vincent's voice, I replied to Lily's message. Me: She agreed. Me: We can get married whenever we want. She won't interfere anymore. I turned off the phone, walked into the bedroom, picked up the suitcase I'd already packed, and left the house. Above the airport, planes crossed paths, each heading in a different direction. It was time for me to find my own way home.