Ficorpio
Chapter 1
My husband had been acting strangely lately. He liked a video, then quickly unliked it.
In the video, a beautiful young woman held an ornate Pana Tarot deck and spoke with absolute conviction:
“The cards show that we’re soulmates. His wife is nothing but a prop.”
I couldn’t understand why my husband was watching videos like that.
Then he brought the woman from the video home, claiming she was some distant cousin who had appeared out of nowhere.
Watching him fuss over her with such tenderness—and seeing the hostility in the girl’s eyes whenever she looked at me—I finally understood.
Well, well. He’d found his “soulmate.”
I just wondered how long the two of them could stay soulmates without me, their “prop.”
“Ethan, who is she?”
The moment I stepped inside the Sterling-Bennett Home, I saw Ethan Sterling gently blow-drying a stranger woman’s hair.
Margaret Sterling stared at me in surprise.
Ethan’s expression turned uneasy. “Claire, why aren’t you working late today? You’re home early.”
“There was something I wanted to tell you, so I came back early. Does that mean you bring other women home whenever I’m not here?”
It wasn’t that my mind was dirty. The scene in front of me really was intimate.
Ethan and the woman were sitting far too close together. Margaret was watching them with a smile, as if they were one big, happy family.
I clutched the Pregnancy Test Report in my hand and glared at Ethan, furious.
I’d been feeling nauseated for a while.
My work kept me busy, and my schedule was irregular, so my period was often late. This time, it had been two months since my last one, but I hadn’t thought much of it.
Then I suddenly remembered the day Ethan had returned from a business trip. He’d been drunk, and in our hazy state, we hadn’t used any protection.
“Claire, congratulations. You’re two months pregnant. Now your mother-in-law won’t have any reason to criticize you anymore!”
The doctor who examined me happened to be my best friend, Dr. Nora Ellis.
“But you’ll have to take better care of yourself from now on. You can’t keep pushing yourself this hard. Make sure Ethan takes good care of you.”
After marrying Ethan, my career had taken off. Before long, I’d risen to the position of vice president at Bennett Group.
I’d never intended to have children. I wanted to secure my position first.
That had clearly angered Margaret.
“What’s the point of a woman going out to work every day?” she used to complain. “She neglects everything she ought to be doing.”
But once she received the ten-thousand-dollar monthly allowance I transferred to her, she stopped saying much, even though she was still unhappy.
At most, she would drop the occasional hint. I simply pretended not to notice.
“But my work…”
I had been hesitating over whether I truly wanted this child.
Chapter 2
“Oh, Claire! You’ve been out there fighting for your career for so many years. Isn’t it time you thought about your family too?” Nora urged, trying her best to persuade me.
“She’s right. I’ll go home and tell Ethan and Margaret the good news.”
With a light smile on my face, I headed home with my medical report, imagining the delighted reactions Ethan and his mother would have when they heard.
I never expected to walk through the door and see something like this.
The woman in front of me had long, straight hair that was still slightly damp. She wore nothing but Ethan’s shirt, leaving her slender, shapely legs bare as she sat on a chair in the living room.
Why did she seem so familiar?
Ethan was still holding the hair dryer. He rushed to explain. “This is Evelyn Hayes, a distant cousin of mine. Her parents are both gone, and some bastard got her pregnant and abandoned her. She had nowhere else to go, so she came to me. Don’t get the wrong idea.”
The way Ethan instinctively stepped in front of Evelyn, shielding her as though he needed to defend her from me, made discomfort prickle through my chest.
“A distant cousin? Since when did you have relatives I didn’t know about?”
“You practically live at the office,” Ethan said, looking at me with faint resentment. “When would you ever have time to know what’s going on in my life?”
“I work that hard to support this family. Besides, if some jerk got her pregnant, she can terminate the pregnancy. It’s the twenty-first century. She can have the procedure, move on, and focus on earning a living—”
“No!”
Margaret cut me off before I could finish.
At my startled expression, she gave an awkward scratch of her head. “A surgical abortion can be terribly hard on the body. Evelyn has always been delicate. She should take care of herself and find the baby’s father so he can take responsibility. Isn’t that right, Ethan?”
“Yes, exactly. He needs to take responsibility!”
Evelyn…
Why did that name sound familiar?
I frowned as I watched Ethan and his mother echo each other. Margaret’s reaction seemed strangely excessive.
I turned my gaze to Evelyn. “Is that what you think too?”
“Of course.” Evelyn nodded firmly. “A woman gives a man emotional support, and a man provides for her financially. Isn’t that how it’s supposed to work?”
What kind of twisted logic was that?
Yet both Ethan and Margaret looked as though they completely agreed with her.
A sudden wave of nausea rolled through me. I shoved past them, ran into the bathroom, and threw up.
Chapter 3
Ethan followed without hesitation and gently patted my back. “Why are you being so sick? I told you to get checked at the hospital a few days ago. Did you forget because you were too busy with work again?”
For a moment, I felt dazed.
The concern on Ethan’s face looked genuine.
Maybe I really had misunderstood. Maybe Evelyn truly was nothing more than a distant cousin.
Ethan and I had been married for seven years. Though he had accomplished next to nothing in his career, I couldn’t deny that he had always been an excellent husband at home. He took meticulous care of me and cooked something different and delicious every day.
When the nausea had first started, I’d assumed it was a stomach problem. As soon as Ethan found out, he began bringing meals to my office every single day without complaint.
“Isn’t this too much trouble?” I had asked him. “You have your writing to do too.”
He had waited until I finished eating before turning to leave. “Nothing I do for you is too much trouble. I know how busy you are. Now that I’ve seen you eat, I can stop worrying. I’m off!”
The Ethan standing before me now blurred into that memory: a trace of sweat on his forehead, a serving spoon in his hand, and a brilliant, triumphant smile on his face as he waited for my praise.
Yes. I had to be overthinking it.
Ethan loved me so much. How could he possibly cheat on me?
He had been acting a little mystical lately, though…
Mystical?
All at once, I remembered why Evelyn looked so familiar.
“Ethan, I’m a little thirsty. Could you pour me a glass of water?”
Evelyn’s sweet, lilting voice drifted in from the next room.
Ethan looked awkward, clearly unsure whether he should go.
I nodded understandingly. “Your cousin needs you to take care of her. Go ahead.”
Because there was something I wanted to verify even more badly now.
After Ethan left, I put on my headphones and opened a video.
“Welcome back to my Pana Tarot channel, everyone. I’m Evie, and today’s reading is about me.”
The girl on the screen had long, flowing hair and a pair of gentle, alluring eyes that seemed to hook straight into the soul.
She wasn’t breathtakingly beautiful, but there was something easy and pleasant about her features. In her hands, she held an ornate Pana Tarot deck.
The beauty filter had distorted her face slightly, but even so, it was obvious that she looked at least seventy percent like Evelyn.
“I’ve been doing this for two years, and I’ve helped so many lost and confused people find their direction. But today, I want to resolve a question of my own.”
The girl lowered her eyes, looking dejected. The live comments filled with messages of comfort.
And then I saw a familiar username jumping frantically through the feed.
【Evie, don’t be sad. I’ll always be here for you.】
It was Ethan.