He Faked Infertility, I Signed His Divorce Doom

Chapter 2

"Ava only has a mild threatening miscarriage from rough s*x. She doesn't even need a transfusion! Why the hell are you draining that much blood from Pia?"

A high, buzzing sound exploded inside Pia's head, like a firecracker had gone off right behind her eyes.

Ava was a viral dance influencer online, and once upon a time, she was Pia's backup dancer.

It was her stupid mistake that nearly sent Pia tumbling off a ten-meter-high lifting stage once.

Worse still, she was the little sister of the driver that hit Pia three years ago.

Arkin had hated Ava's guts for years, so for him to even have a child with her now?

It was completely unfathomable.

"Pia lost her leg to blood loss after that accident," Arkin's voice came out rough and gravelly. "That's why I'm stocking up on extra blood for Ava now, just in case something goes wrong and we need it in an emergency."

"I seriously don't get you. You're crazy in love with Pia, so why are you bending over backward for Ava?" Marco frowned, confused. "You faked being impotent for crying out loud! Now you've knocked up Ava and tricked Pia into signing divorce papers just for her. Don't you forget, if Pia hadn't pushed you out of the way that day, Ava's brother would have hit you too!"

"It was her brother. She's innocent," Arkin paused, his voice completely flat, impossible to read.

"Every time I look at Pia's missing leg, I remember she lost our baby and can never dance again because of me. It's a constant reminder of how useless I am. And yeah, she tries her hardest to act like nothing's wrong, but she's not the perfect Pia I fell for anymore. Even though she's not perfect, I love her too much. I can't live without her.

"Ava looks just like her. She fixes the gap Pia left; no leg, no baby. She lets me stop torturing myself over Pia's imperfection."

Outside the door, Pia turned ice-cold from head to toe. Her nails dug so deep into her palms, they pierced the skin.

So, all that crap about him being unable to perform was a lie. He'd just been disgusted by her broken body this whole time.

He says he loves her, but he needs another woman to fill the void he claims she left?

It was nothing but a cheap excuse Arkin made up to justify turning his back on her.

The memory flooded back, three years ago to that day.

She and Arkin had just walked out of a maternity and baby store, when Ava's brother, drunk off his face, came barreling straight toward her in his car.

She'd shoved Arkin out of the way, and the car dragged her right under its wheels.

Arkin had lost his mind, tearing her out from under the chassis, clutching her bleeding body to his chest as he peeled out for the hospital.

Waiting outside the ICU, that was the only time she'd ever seen him break down sobbing, unable to catch his breath.

In the end, wave after wave of top specialists, Arkin pulled in and fought tooth and nail to drag her back from the gates of death.

When she woke up, he held her tight, voice shaking as he said, "Pia, I'll be your legs from now on. We'll have another baby, I promise you. Just trust me."

He barely slept for a whole week, cramming to learn acupressure massage just to ease the throbbing pain in her residual limb on rainy days.

And thanks to his influence, Ava's brother got a twenty-year prison sentence.

For three years straight, every single rainy day, he'd cancel even billion-dollar contracts just to stay by her side and massage her leg to ease the pain.

Every banquet she attended, he stuck to her side the whole time. If even a single hair fell out of place, he'd fix it for her before she even noticed.

He bathed her, learned to cook all her favorite dishes, and even planted an entire sea of blooming flowers just for her.

Putting the lack of intimacy aside, he was the perfect husband everyone envies.

But the happy marriage she'd cherished all this time? It was nothing but a sick, cruel joke.

Marco let out a heavy sigh. "I still don't get it. But have you ever thought about it? Pia doesn't tolerate any crap. If she finds out, she'll never take you back, not even if you drop dead right in front of her."

Arkin went quiet for a moment. "She'll never find out. I promised Ava we'd get married once the cooling-off period for the divorce is over. But once she has the baby, I'll remarry Pia."

Pia froze solid outside the door. Her heart was shattered into a million pieces, and it went completely numb.

She'd thought she'd burst into tears, but not a single drop would come.

Well, she'd already signed the divorce papers. She'd just let it stand permanently.

Once the divorce cooling-off period ended, she and Arkin would be done for good. Never to see each other again.

She spun her wheelchair around to leave, when suddenly a dizzying wave of blackness washed over her.

She lost her balance, tipping over sideways, and her wheelchair clattered and went tumbling down the stairs along with her.

The world whirled around her, searing pain lancing through every inch of her body, until she came to a stop right in front of a pair of feet at the stair landing.

In the last flicker of consciousness before blackness claimed her, she locked eyes with Arkin's wide, terrified gaze.

Pia woke up to a throbbing, splitting headache.

She pried her heavy eyelids open slowly, and the first thing that swam into focus was Arkin’s worried face, inches from her own.

"Pia, does it still hurt?" He paused, then asked again, "How did you end up falling down the stairs anyway?"

Pia stared at him in silence. She caught how tight his jaw was clamped, how a flicker of panic darted across his eyes before he could hide it.

Only then did she speak, her voice rough and gravelly, "Marco forgot your hospital card. I heard his voice in the stairwell, and I was just about to call out to him… But I was still weak from giving so much blood. That’s when I fell."

"Weren’t you hurt in that car crash with me? Is your injury acting up? Are you okay?"

When Arkin saw that she didn’t seem to suspect anything, the tension drained out of him in a quiet, secret sigh. His calm, collected demeanor slipped right back into place, and he gently helped her push herself up into a sitting position.

"I’m fine. This is all my fault. I went out to buy you your favorite dessert, and I accidentally hit someone with my car. That’s why you had to give all that blood to save me… I dragged you into this."

"What can I even do to thank you properly for this?" Pia looked at the heartache written all over his face, the soft warm glow in his eyes, and suddenly she smiled. "Guess I’ll have to think about that for a while."

She called a nurse over and asked for a sheet of paper and a pen.

"Sign your name here. Once I figure out what I want from you, I’ll write it down."

Arkin didn’t even hesitate. He scrawled his name across the paper and handed it back to her.

"Anything you want, it’s yours. I’ll give it to you."

After that, he picked up an orange, peeled it carefully, plucked every little bit of white pith off the juicy segments one by one, and lifted a slice to her lips.

That was when his phone buzzed to life in his pocket.

He glanced at the caller ID, and his brow furrowed so faintly you’d barely notice it, before he tapped the screen to hang up.

Pia saw how his mind was already wandering far from the room, so she spoke in a cool, even voice, "It’s the person you hit, isn’t it? Go on."

Arkin set down the orange in his hand, stood up, and pressed a soft kiss to her forehead. "I’ll be right back."

After watching Arkin’s retreating figure disappear out the door, Pia wiped the sweat from her forehead, pulled out her phone, and dialed.

"I need you to draft a supplementary divorce agreement for me…"

If Arkin was going to trick her into signing divorce papers, it was only fair that she sneakily got him to sign a divorce addendum that forces him to walk away with nothing in the divorce.

Once she finished talking it through with her lawyer, she dialed an overseas number.

"I agree to the clinical trial."