All because I didn’t bleed on our wedding night. Damon, crippled by a pathological obsession with purity, decided right then that I was damaged goods. Unclean. Every night after that, he forced me into the clawfoot tub, holding me down while scalding water—nearly a hundred and sixty degrees—blistered my skin. He wouldn’t let me out until my body was violently raw and peeling. No matter how many times I tried to explain human anatomy, he refused to listen. "Taryn told me every virgin bleeds the first time," he would say, his voice flat, his knuckles white against the edge of the porcelain. "She’s a woman. Why would she lie to me? If you’re afraid of the water, Summer, it just proves you have something to hide." I told myself it was trauma. His mother had wrecked their family, leaving him and his father for another man, scarring Damon with a twisted, suffocating dread of betrayal. So I endured it. I took the burns, believing my patience could heal his broken mind. Until the night of my birthday. I walked into our bedroom and found Damon tangled in our sheets with Taryn, the girl he’d grown up with. Seeing me in the doorway, Taryn didn't flinch. Instead, she deliberately pulled back the duvet, showing off a stark crimson smudge on the white linen. "See?" she murmured, tilting her head. "I told you. A real virgin always bleeds." Damon didn’t look guilty. He didn't even scramble to cover himself. "Summer," he said, sounding almost relieved, "now we're even. I can finally forgive you." He actually thought we were even. He thought he was being generous. But looking at him, the last ember inside me died. I would never forgive him. And I would never, ever let him touch me again. 1 I didn’t scream. I didn’t cry. I simply turned around, walked to the closet, pulled down my suitcase, and began packing. Behind me, Taryn let out a soft, mocking tut. "Uh-oh. The wifey’s mad. Better go coax her, Damon, before she runs off with all her bags." Damon frowned. He swung his legs out of bed, marched over, and violently wrenched my arm, dragging me back toward him. "What are you throwing a tantrum for?" he demanded, his grip bruising. "Didn't I just say I forgive you for what you did? What more do you want?" My eyes burned, but I swallowed the bile rising in my throat. I stared right into his face. "You brought another woman into our bed, into our home, and you have the audacity to ask what I want?" Damon didn't flinch. Instead, he hauled me toward the mattress, forcing my face down toward that glaring red stain. "You spent months hiding behind medical excuses, telling me adult women rarely bleed," he snarled. "Taryn is a year older than you. If she bled, why didn’t you? What right do you have to be angry with me? You came to me tainted. Who are you to take the moral high ground?" A soft snicker broke from the bed. Taryn leaned against the pillows, smiling. "Oh, let her be angry, Damon. It’s natural. She promised you she’d never been with anyone else just to get you to marry her, and now that her lie’s out in the open, she’s embarrassed." She paused, placing a delicate hand over her mouth in mock horror. "Well... maybe she didn't technically date anyone. Some girls just sleep around without labels, right? Oh, sorry, Summer, don't mind me. I’m just thinking out loud. I’m sure you’re not that kind of girl." Damon’s jaw clenched so tight a muscle ticked in his cheek. He turned that dark, poisoned gaze back onto me. "Summer. Tell me the truth. Before me, how many men have touched you?" I stared at the man I had loved for half my life, and a solitary tear finally betrayed me, slipping down my cheek. I had known Damon since we were kids. I fell for him before I even understood what love was. When I pursued him, I learned all about his mother's abandonment, how it left him so hollowed out that he couldn't stomach the thought of being with someone who had a past. Back then, I considered myself blessed. We were young, and I had all the time in the world to prove I was entirely his. And in college, my devotion finally cracked his armor. The day we made it official, I teased him: "With all the girls chasing you, why pick me?" He had looked at me with absolute sincerity and said: "Because you're the only one whose world revolves around me. You make me feel safe." He knew. Deep down, he knew the truth of my heart. Yet here he was, unraveling years of devotion over a few poisoned whispers from Taryn. Seeing my tears, a flicker of discomfort passed through his eyes. His voice softened, but the condescension remained. "Look, we’ve been together a long time. We’re married. Just be honest with me, and I swear I won't leave you." A bleak, empty laugh escaped my lips. I pulled my wrist from his grasp. "Damon... I’m the one leaving you." 2 In all the years we had known each other, I had never once spoken of walking away. A flash of genuine panic flickered across Damon’s face. But before it could take root, Taryn chimed in, leaning over the edge of the mattress. "Wait, you’re ending the marriage just like that?" She let out a sharp laugh. "Damon, don't say I didn't warn you. When a woman drops the D-word that fast, it usually means she’s already lined up her next option. Think about it. She was obsessed with you. Why else would she walk away so easily?" The panic in Damon’s eyes instantly hardened into something venomous. Before I could breathe, his hand clamped around my throat, shoving me violently backward until my spine slammed into the closet door. "Tell me!" he hissed, his face inches from mine, nostrils flared. "Who is he? Who the hell are you sleeping with behind my back?" I clawed at his fingers, gasping for air. "I... never... betrayed you." "Liar!" he roared. "If you didn't have someone else, you wouldn't dare leave me!" With a vicious snarl, he threw me aside. My body struck the hardwood floor hard. I curled into a ball, coughing violently, dragging ragged breaths into my bruised chest. When I finally found the strength to look up, tears blurred my vision, but my heart had gone completely cold. "You're the one who cheated," I whispered, the words trembling with absolute disgust. "I want out, and you think that makes me guilty? Damon, you're not the only one who can't stand filth. I can't stomach it either." "Filth." The word was a landmine for Damon. It dug straight into the rotting wound of his childhood. I braced myself for him to strike me again. But he didn't move. He stood frozen, his eyes glued to the floor between my legs. Frowning, I followed his gaze. A dark, warm pool of crimson was soaking through the hem of my shorts, staining the pale oak beneath me. Panic fluttered through my chest. Had I torn something when I hit the floor? Because of the scalding baths he had subjected me to night after night, the nerve endings across my lower abdomen and thighs were severely deadened. I couldn't feel where the pain was coming from. I couldn't feel anything except a heavy, frightening warmth. Terrified, I looked up at him. "Damon..." Something in him snapped back to reality. The fury vanished, replaced by sudden dread. He lunged forward, scooped me into his arms, and sprinted out the door toward the car. At the emergency room, the doctors rushed me into triage. When the physician finally came out to deliver the results, the words felt surreal: I was six weeks pregnant. Against all odds, the bleeding had slowed. With emergency progesterone and immediate bed rest, they had miraculously saved the fetus. When Damon returned to my room, he pulled up a chair in absolute silence. He reached out, his hand hesitating before resting against my stomach. "Summer," he murmured, staring at his shoes. "Now that there's a baby... let's just turn the page. I won't hold your past against you anymore. We'll call it even." I didn't answer. I lay motionless on the stiff hospital bed, staring at the ceiling, feeling the faint, tender throb beneath my skin. A child. It was a terrifying, delicate anchor. For a fraction of a second, the primal instinct of motherhood made me hesitate about walking away. But then I remembered the boiling water. I remembered his fingers wrapped around my throat. I remembered the red stain on our matrimonial bed. The nausea came back tenfold. While I was still drowning in my thoughts, Taryn—who had followed us to the hospital and hovered in the corner the whole time—spoke up softly. "Six weeks?" She tilted her head, tapping a polished nail against her lip. "Wait. Weren't you in Chicago on business six weeks ago, Damon? The entire week?" She looked at me, her eyes wide with feigned innocence. "Is that baby really yours?" Before either of us could react, she waved her hands frantically. "Oh, Summer, don't get the wrong idea! I'm just doing the math. I'm definitely not saying you cheated or anything." I slowly turned my head toward Damon. Sure enough, his brows were knotted together, his gaze turning rigid and calculating as he swallowed every drop of her poison. He pulled his hand back from my stomach as if he had just touched a corpse. "Get rid of it, Summer," he said, his voice flat. "I’m not raising another man’s bastard." 3 I didn't scream. I didn't cry out in agony. I just stared at him. The fact that those words had come out of his mouth didn't even surprise me anymore. "She says a single word, and that's all it takes for you?" I asked quietly. Damon’s jaw set defensively. "Is she wrong? I was gone for ten days. How could you possibly be six weeks along?" "Pregnancy is calculated from the first day of the last menstrual cycle, Damon," I said, exhausted. "Not the day of conception. Ask the doctor." His scowl only deepened. "I don't care about technicalities. I'm not playing Russian roulette with my life. Abort it. We can always have another one later." A broken laugh slipped past my lips. How pathetic I was. All those years of blind sacrifice, reduced to a joke. My marriage, my body, and my unborn child—all weighed against a few careless sentences from Taryn, and discarded without a second thought. "Fine," I said, my voice eerily steady. "Let's terminate." Damon’s expression instantly relaxed. He reached out and stroked my hair, his touch sending a shudder of repulsion down my spine. "Good girl. I'll go sign the papers and have them prep the procedure. Don't be scared. It's just a minor surgery." "Just a minor surgery." My mind drifted, unmoored, pulling me back to senior year of high school. Back then, I had nearly killed myself studying, desperate to get into the same prestigious university as Damon. The crushing stress had wreaked havoc on my body, resulting in a thyroid tumor that required immediate surgery. I had been seventeen, terrified out of my mind. When Damon found out, he skipped his prep classes to sit outside the operating room with me. Right before they wheeled me in, he held my trembling hand and said the exact same words: "Don't be scared. It's just a tiny incision. It'll be over before you know it." His warmth back then had kept the darkness at bay. Today, those very same words plunged me into an endless, suffocating grave. I let my palm rest gently over my lower belly, offering a silent, tragic goodbye to the spark of life fading inside me. "I'm sorry, little one," I whispered in my mind. "I can't bring you into this nightmare. When Mommy finally breaks free... if there is an afterlife, please find me again." Two hours later, the procedure was done. Damon was helping me toward the exit when Taryn playfully hooked her arm through his, leaning her head on his shoulder. "Damon, it's so late," she whined. "Drive me home first, will you? Between helping you verify that 'experiment' earlier and sitting around this depressing hospital, I'm utterly exhausted." Damon paused, glancing back at me. "Taryn, I should probably take Summer..." "Oh, come on!" Taryn brushed it off, rolling her eyes. "It was an outpatient scrape, not a C-section. Besides, I gave you my virginity today—the one thing I saved for years. Don't you think you owe me a ride home?" Damon sighed softly, but the look in his eyes was sickeningly fond. He turned to me. "Summer, call an Uber. You'll be fine." I leaned heavily against the cold hospital corridor wall, my pelvis throbbing with a dull, hollow ache. My body felt drained of blood, but I simply nodded. "Okay." I watched them walk out together, his coat draped over her shoulders. I didn't order a car home. Instead, I had the driver take me to my private ballet studio in the arts district. I couldn't go back to that penthouse. The mere thought of that master bed—still carrying the sickening, metallic scent of their betrayal—made me want to tear my stomach out. I curled up on the leather sofa in my office, opened my laptop, and drafted a divorce settlement. No alimony. No division of his family assets. I just wanted my studio, my car, and my life back. I printed it out, signed my name in clean, unwavering ink, and set it on the desk. At sunrise, my phone buzzed incessantly against the glass table. Groggy, I picked it up. My studio's client group chat was completely blowing up. Dozens of notifications were rolling in, all tagging me. "Miss Summer, is it true what people are saying online? Did you really have a secret abortion after sleeping around?" 4 My chest seized. My fingers shook as I scrolled furiously to the top of the chat, clicking on the link one of the students had shared. It was an anonymous post on a local lifestyle forum, trending fast. Attached was a photo of me—pale, ghostly, curled up on a hospital gurney right after my D&C. The caption was framed as a self-righteous public service announcement, warning young women about "the consequences of a promiscuous lifestyle." The poster wrote: "Ladies, please respect yourselves. Don't end up like this girl, playing around with random men until you're forced onto an operating table, breaking an innocent man's heart." And at the bottom: [My poor friend lived his entire life with a clean conscience, waiting for a pure woman to build a future with, only to end up with a used-up party girl.] [Trash belongs with trash. Why do used newspapers always try to pass themselves off as blank paper?] A violent shudder ran through me. My phone kept buzzing. Parents of my younger ballet students were already demanding full refunds, declaring they couldn't possibly let their daughters learn from a woman with "such vile morals." My blood turned to ice, and then to fire. I knew Taryn’s apartment. I had helped Damon drop off a housewarming gift there six months ago. I hailed a cab, marched up to her floor, and pounded on the door. When it swung open, it wasn't Taryn standing there. It was Damon. Shirt unbuttoned, hair disheveled. The realization that my husband had spent the night in her apartment didn't even sting anymore; it just left a sour, metallic taste on my tongue. I pushed past him, storming into the living room. Taryn was sitting on the sofa in a silk robe, sipping tea. I threw my phone straight at her chest. "Why did you post that filth about me?" Before the phone even hit the cushions, a heavy hand struck the side of my face. The slap cracked across the quiet room. My head snapped to the side, my cheek erupting in blistering heat. Damon shoved me back, stepping protectively in front of Taryn. "Summer! Have you lost your goddamn mind? Coming in here and attacking her?" I clutched my burning face, forcing the tears back into my skull. My voice shook with pure fury. "I lost my mind? Look at what she posted! Look at what she did to my livelihood!" Damon picked up the phone, his eyes scanning the thread. Instead of remorse, a cruel, mocking smirk touched his lips. "Did she lie?" I stared at him, the air fleeing my lungs. "What?" "You didn't bleed on our wedding night," he said, each word cold and deliberate. "You got pregnant while I was out of town. Tell me, Summer, which line in this post is actually false?" He stepped toward me, towering over me with cold disgust. "Why are you so furious? If anyone has the right to tear this city apart, shouldn't it be me?" I had known he didn't trust me. But a foolish, naive sliver of my soul had hoped that, faced with blatant public humiliation, he would stand by his wife. What an idiot I was. I swallowed the bitter taste in my mouth, let out a hollow breath, and pulled the folded divorce agreement from my bag, shoving it against his chest. "Since you're so convinced I betrayed you, sign it." Damon glanced at the paper, his expression twisting into pure derision. "You think pulling this stunt will make me grovel? You think I'm going to beg you to stay?" From behind him, Taryn giggled into her teacup. "She probably reads too many romance novels. She thinks a dramatic exit will trigger your deep, buried regret." Damon scoffed. He snatched a pen from the console table, clicked it open, and slashed his signature across the bottom of the page without reading a single clause. "Take it." He thrust the papers back at me. I took the envelope, turned on my heel, and walked out. Behind me, Taryn’s honeyed voice drifted down the hallway. "You actually signed it? What if she really leaves? You'll be miserable." Damon’s dismissive chuckle followed me toward the elevator. "Leave? She endured nearly a hundred and sixty-degree water for weeks just to prove herself to me. She's not going anywhere. Besides, with her reputation in the gutter, who else would ever want her? Give her three days. She'll come crawling back to this door, begging on her knees for my forgiveness." I stepped into the elevator, my hand resting on the cool metal wall. He was right about one thing: I had endured that scalding water because I loved him. But Damon was fundamentally wrong about the rest. I didn't love him anymore. And my one-way ticket to Paris was booked for that evening. I was leaving, and I was never coming back.
? Continue the story here ?? ? Download the "MotoNovel" app ? search for "563908", and watch the full series ✨! #MotoNovel