He Abandoned Me While I Was Pregnant

It took Nicolas Miller a second to register the slap. Then he sighed, helplessness bleeding into his expression.

“Anastasia, you’re almost eight months pregnant. For the baby’s sake, can we hold off on the divorce talk?”

“What happened today was a lapse in judgment. I swear, I won’t see Phoenix again. Can you forgive me? Just this once?”

Phoenix Garza stood nearby, eyes welling up. She managed one sorrowful glance at Nicolas, too afraid to say a word. Nicolas tilted his head away, dodging her gaze like he couldn’t bear to meet it.

Between the two of them, Anastasia was the villain—the wife standing in the way of a pair of star-crossed lovers, as if she were the one who’d cheated.

A sharp pain knifed through her abdomen, bleaching the color from her face. Passersby kept stealing glances, hungry for a scene. Nicolas reached for her hand.

“Let’s go home first. We can talk there, okay?”

Anastasia recoiled as if his touch disgusted her, then turned toward the car.

She wasn’t about to stand there and humiliate herself further. But Nicolas lingered, throwing regretful looks over his shoulder as she slid into the back seat. Only then did he drag himself away and get in.

Watching him struggle to leave Phoenix was a knife to the heart. Every glance back was another twist.

Three years ago, she’d already asked for a divorce. Nicolas had jumped at it, ready to rush the paperwork and marry Phoenix—even if it meant walking away with nothing.

Faced with how completely devoted he was, Anastasia lashed out in desperation. She wrecked his office at the university, cornered Phoenix in her dorm—pulled her hair, slapped her—and posted videos online, shoving Phoenix into the ruthless spotlight of campus gossip.

Campus security intervened. Anastasia paid for the office damage through a settlement negotiated by their lawyers, and the university barred her from the residence halls. Nicolas pressured students to remove the videos, while the administration restricted posts identifying those involved in the pending investigation. He couldn't erase the scandal, but he could make her feel like the only person being punished.

Her actions were useless—a fool’s tantrum. It didn’t leave a scratch.

They didn’t bring Nicolas back. They only widened the distance and pulled him tighter to Phoenix.

So Anastasia gave in. Bitterly.

She signed the divorce papers and went to the university to find Nicolas—he hadn’t been home in ages—and get his signature.

But that same day, there was a lab accident involving Phoenix. She was badly hurt.

Phoenix tried to pin it on Anastasia, and Nicolas assured Anastasia,

“You’re pregnant. They won’t come after you.”

“Phoenix worked so hard to get here for grad school. If this accident gets out, she can’t stay in the program. Her entire future would be ruined.”

With their testimony stacked against her, Anastasia got dragged into the investigation.

She'd been outside the lab when the explosion sent fumes into the corridor. By the time she escaped, she'd inhaled enough to collapse. Emergency treatment saved her life, but complications led to severe bleeding. The baby didn't survive.

The safety investigation exposed Phoenix's mistake and her affair with Nicolas. She withdrew while facing disciplinary proceedings and vanished for three years. Nicolas escaped dismissal after a formal reprimand and a suspension from supervising graduate students. The university had accepted his claim that he hadn't knowingly provided false information. Anastasia still had the messages that could prove otherwise.

Nicolas, eaten up by guilt, came back to the family. Anastasia hadn’t laid eyes on Phoenix until today.

And yet, the moment they reunited, he chose Phoenix again. No hesitation.

Anastasia was done. Tired. Worn down from trying to save a relationship that had already died.

Back home, she climbed the stairs and retrieved the postnuptial agreement from the safe.

After the first affair, Nicolas had signed it with his own lawyer present and full financial disclosure. It assigned their jointly built investment portfolio to Anastasia if they separated and confirmed that the house and family-funded property were hers. The terms applied regardless of who caused the separation. It wasn't a magic punishment clause; it was a financial settlement he had accepted to persuade her to stay.

Now she signed the instruction authorizing her lawyer to file for divorce and seek enforcement. She would also release the messages she had withheld from the university three years ago.

Her hand shook around the pen. Tears hit the page, one after another, and she wiped them away before they could smudge the ink.

Her heart felt dead, and still—still—a dull ache sat heavy in her chest.

Over two decades together, and she still couldn’t understand what had pulled Nicolas so obsessively toward Phoenix in just one year.

When she finished, a sound came from behind her. Nicolas rested a hand gently on her shoulder and asked, softly,

“What are you doing?”