When He Stopped Loving Me Chapter 2

Claire stood frozen, thunderstruck.

She didn't know what shocked her more: the sudden accident, or the fact that Rachel had been pregnant with Ethan's child.

She and Ethan had been married five years. They'd used protection consistently. They'd never had children.

But how long had Ethan been with Rachel? And already...

A week later, Ethan came home.

He said nothing. No accusations, no shouting. He just stared at her with an expression she couldn't read—deep and unfathomable—for a very long time.

Then he grabbed her and began roughly tearing at her clothes.

"Ethan! What are you doing?!" Claire struggled in terror.

He ignored her, pinning her to the bed, his movements carrying desperate frenzy.

From that night on, for an entire month, Ethan became someone unrecognizable.

He stopped going to work. He stopped visiting Rachel. He just relentlessly demanded Claire's body.

Multiple times daily, never stopping, with an almost self-destructive, punishing quality.

Claire's body couldn't take it, and the humiliation cut deep. Yet somewhere beneath it all, she harbored a pathetic hope.

Maybe he was just in too much pain. Maybe he'd come to his senses and was trying to forget Rachel this way, to return to how things were?

So she endured silently, even cooperated with him.

Until she felt suddenly nauseous, secretly went to the hospital for tests, and discovered—she was pregnant.

Claire touched her still-flat stomach, a flicker of hope igniting. Maybe this child could save their marriage.

But she never expected that when she told him, his face remained completely calm as he looked at the test results.

After a moment, he signaled to his bodyguards with a single sentence: "Throw Mrs. Pierce from the fifth floor."

Claire's eyes widened in disbelief. "Ethan, what... what did you just say? Do you realize I'm carrying your child?!"

Ethan looked at her, no love or affection remaining in his eyes—only trembling hatred and grief. "Then do YOU realize Rachel was also carrying my child? You destroyed the fruit of our love. So you'll get pregnant and lose one for her!"

In that moment, Claire finally understood his bizarre behavior this past month.

Because Rachel lost their baby, he'd gotten her pregnant just to make her miscarry—to "repay" Rachel.

He loved Rachel that much already!

She opened her mouth to speak, to demand answers, to scream—but her throat felt blocked with cement. Not a sound emerged.

The next second, two large bodyguards approached expressionlessly and grabbed her arms!

"No—Ethan! You can't do this—!" She struggled desperately, sobbing.

But Ethan simply turned away coldly, no longer looking at her.

The bodyguards dragged her mercilessly to the fifth floor and pushed her off!

"Ahhh—"

Claire felt every bone shatter. Warm liquid pooled beneath her, staining her dress crimson.

Pain.

Such terrible pain.

Before consciousness faded completely, she remembered sixteen-year-old Ethan under the moonlight, ears red as he confessed: "Claire Morrison, I'll love you forever."

A cold tear slid from her eye.

Finally, she completely, despairingly accepted the truth.

The Ethan Pierce who had loved her for nine years...

Was truly, finally... gone.

When she woke again, Claire found herself in a hospital.

Her abdomen was flat. The baby was obviously gone.

She didn't cry or make a scene. The place where her heart should be felt hollowed out, filled only with numb cold.

She took out her phone and called the villa's housekeeper, her voice eerily calm. "Bring me the sandalwood box from my study drawer."

The housekeeper quickly delivered it.

Inside lay a blank sheet of paper bearing Ethan's signature.

On her eighteenth birthday, he'd given her this as a gift—his signature with a promise that anything she wanted, he'd give her.

Once, she'd treasured this paper, unwilling to waste even one wish on it.

Now she'd use it to personally end this nine-year obsession.

She wasn't pathetic enough to need him specifically.

The lost child taught her something: she could finally let go, recognize reality, and return to being the independent, clear-eyed Claire from before she met him!