I Took My Husband’s Mistress To Her Appointment. Then Sent Them Both To Prison Chapter 18
When Livia woke, only a nurse was in the room. Her first instinct was to touch her stomach.
The life inside her was gone.
The nurse approached gently.
“Ms. Kessler, we couldn’t save the pregnancy.”
Livia stared blankly at the ceiling.
Several seconds later, she screamed.
“Where’s Rhys?”
“I need to see Rhys!”
No one answered.
She ripped out her IV and ran barefoot toward the door. A doctor stopped her in the hallway.
“Ms. Kessler, you can’t be on your feet right now.”
“Your health was already compromised. The repeated abortions caused severe damage.”
“After this miscarriage, your chances of becoming pregnant again are very low.”
Livia looked as though she didn’t understand.
“What did you say?”
The doctor sighed.
“You need to prepare yourself for that possibility.”
Her legs collapsed beneath her.
She suddenly remembered the day at the hospital.
The doctor had warned her then.
Even if she carried this pregnancy to term, she might never conceive again afterward.
She hadn’t cared.
She believed that as long as Rhys loved her, she had everything.
Now the child was gone.
Rhys wasn’t there.
For the first time, she understood she had built her entire life on nothing. That afternoon, she asked someone to contact me.
I had no intention of going.
Then my attorney said, “She is willing to supplement her statement.”
So I went to the hospital.
Livia sat in bed with tangled hair and a face as white as the sheets. The moment she saw me, venom filled her eyes.
“Genevieve.”
“Are you satisfied now?”
“My baby is gone.”
“You finally got your revenge.”
I stood beside the bed and looked at her calmly.
“I did not harm your child.”
“And my child’s death was not an accident.”
Tears poured from her eyes.
“How can you stand there and be so cold?”
“That was a life too!”
I looked at her.
“So now you understand that a baby is a life?”
She went rigid.
“Six months ago, I was four months pregnant.”
“I had already felt him move.”
“When you paid the driver extra to hit me, why didn’t my baby’s life matter to you?”
Livia covered her face and sobbed so hard her whole body shook.
“I didn’t think that far.”
“I was scared.”
“I was afraid Rhys would leave me.”
I spoke one word at a time.
“Livia, the saddest thing about you isn’t that you became a mistress.”
“It’s that even after you knew you were being used, you still called it love.”
Her crying stopped.
After a long time, she slowly lowered her hands.
“He said he loved me.”
“He said I was different from you.”
My fingers tightened.
Livia seemed to sink into the memory, her voice growing quieter.
“He said, ‘Livia, you’re different. Once we’re married, your child will be added to the Sterling family trust as a next-generation beneficiary.'”
“He said he would marry me eventually.”
“He said I only had to wait.”
She laughed while tears kept falling.
“I waited more than four years.”
“I terminated so many pregnancies.”
“And in the end, he couldn’t even protect this baby.”
I didn’t comfort her.
She didn’t need comfort from me.
My attorney placed the digital recorder on the table.
“Ms. Kessler, are you willing to give a formal version of that statement to the detectives and the district attorney handling the case?”
Livia looked at the recorder and suddenly laughed.
“Yes.”
“I am.”
“I have nothing left anyway.”
After that day, Livia gave a supplemental statement to the LAPD and the district attorney with her attorney present. When Rhys learned she had miscarried, his first question was not whether she was all right.
He asked his attorney, “Did she say anything she shouldn’t have?”
The attorney fell silent.
Rhys’s expression changed instantly.
“What did she say?”
The attorney didn’t answer.
Rhys finally understood.
Livia had abandoned him too—not physically, but completely. She had shoved him the rest of the way over the edge.
The Sterling family wouldn’t protect him.
Livia had turned on him.
I refused to see him.
Even the child he once imagined using to placate me was gone. Before the preliminary hearing, Rhys wrote me a long letter.
When my attorney brought it to me, he said, “You don’t have to read it.”
I accepted the envelope.
The handwriting was familiar.
“For Genevieve.”
I studied the familiar handwriting for a moment, then handed the envelope back unopened.
“Submit it.”
My attorney blinked.
“Give it to the prosecutor. If it contains any admission of criminal conduct, preserve it as evidence.”
He looked at me, then nodded.
“All right.”
I never read the letter.
I no longer cared how deeply he regretted what he’d done.
His regret could change nothing.