Chapter 3 She is pregnant.

Dessa had told Alvie that Audrey got drunk and disappeared the moment Dessa stepped away to take a call. Alvie had been frantic with worry, while Dessa patiently comforted him in her pre-booked room all night. It wasn't until this morning that they saw Audrey walking out of the adjacent penthouse. The sheer proximity of the rooms made the betrayal feel all the more calculated and deeply humiliating to him.

Under Alvie's furious interrogation, Audrey's tears fell instantly. "I..." she choked on her sobs, unable to form a sentence. Her throat felt like it was lined with broken glass, every attempt at speech tearing at her vocal cords.

"Heh... what? Can't speak?" Alvie laughed bitterly. "I worried about you all night, and you were busy having a wild night with some random guy!" His voice echoed sharply down the pristine hotel corridor, laced with a venom she had never heard from him before.

It seemed Dessa was right—Audrey wasn't the good girl she pretended to be. He had asked to book a room with her so many times and was always rejected, yet she easily climbed into another man's bed. The betrayal was agonizing. He couldn't accept a girlfriend who wasn't pure. His fragile ego was entirely shattered by the visual evidence of another man's claim on her skin.

"I didn't..." Audrey tried to explain, but the words died in her throat. What could she say? That she got drunk and walked into the wrong room? He wouldn't believe it. And even if he did, she was already ruined; he wouldn't want her anyway. The truth sounded like a cheap, fabricated excuse even in her own mind.

"You didn't? Still trying to lie?" Alvie suddenly reached out and violently yanked the collar of her dress down, exposing the expansive canvas of bruises and her pale skin. The fabric tore slightly at the seam, the sound ripping through the tense silence between them.

"Don't!" Audrey immediately covered herself with her hands. She never expected the usually gentle Alvie to do something so aggressive. She was the one who had been hurt and needed comfort, but the man she loved was rubbing salt in her wounds. She didn't expect forgiveness, but she didn't want to be humiliated either. She shrank back against the textured wallpaper, feeling entirely exposed and utterly defenseless.

"You only ever say 'don't' to me, you slut!" Alvie swung his arm and delivered a vicious slap across Audrey's face.

The sharp *smack* shattered their one-year relationship and obliterated the last of Audrey's dignity. She was stunned by the blow, standing motionless for a long time. Her cheek burned with a fierce, radiating heat, her vision blurring as the physical pain merged with her absolute emotional devastation.

"We're done. It's over. Get lost, I never want to see you again!" Alvie's voice was absolute ice. He turned on his heel and walked away, disgusted by the sight of the "dirty" woman. His retreating footsteps sounded like nails being hammered into the coffin of her first love.

Audrey stood frozen. She didn't look at him, nor did she beg for his forgiveness. But then, a sickeningly familiar voice drifted into her ears.

"Alvie, please don't be so angry, it's bad for your health and not worth it. Let me take you to breakfast, okay..." The voice was dripping with a sickly sweet, artificial sympathy that made Audrey's stomach turn.

The voices faded down the hall. It was Dessa—the "best friend" who had invited her out, gotten her drunk, and vanished. Dessa hadn't shown a shred of concern for Audrey's current state, yet was overly attentive to her heartbroken boyfriend. The way Dessa had smoothly linked her arm through Alvie's was a visual that burned itself into Audrey's retinas.

A chilling realization crept up Audrey's spine. For a moment, she suspected Dessa had orchestrated this entire nightmare just to steal Alvie. With friends like this, who needed enemies? If Dessa really did this, she would face karma! Audrey struggled to accept that she had been framed by her closest friend, but the harsh reality left her no choice. The betrayal was a double-edged sword, slicing away both her lover and her confidante in one brutal stroke.

Pulling herself together, a physically and mentally exhausted Audrey dragged herself to a pharmacy, bought a Plan B pill, and swallowed it, pretending nothing had happened. The bitter taste of the pill on her tongue felt like the final, definitive end to the worst night of her life.

She thought the pill would solve everything, but a month later, disaster struck.

Walking out of the hospital with a lab report in hand, Audrey was completely dazed. Over the past few days, she had been fatigued, lethargic, running a slight fever, and her period was late. She assumed the trauma of that night, the breakup, and her heavy workload had simply made her sick. She only went to the hospital when she couldn't bear it anymore. The sterile, bleach-scented hallways of the clinic felt like a surreal dreamscape as she stumbled toward the exit.

The doctor's diagnosis was a thunderbolt: she was perfectly healthy, just pregnant.

She had taken the emergency pill! But the doctor explained that the medication wasn't a 100% guarantee. The statistics the doctor quoted had buzzed in her ears like angry hornets, drowning out all rational thought.