My Husband Took My Baby’s Heart for His Mistress’s Bastard Novel – Chapter 1 Vanessa’s Pov “I’m so sorry, but we lost your baby,” the nurse told me the second my eyes fluttered open.“You lost a dangerous amount of blood and stayed unconscious for three days. We did everything we could, but we weren’t able to save your baby.” Her words made my ears ring. I swallowed against the raw burn in my throat. “My husband,” I breathed. “Damian… did he come?” Sympathy flickered across the nurse’s face. “I’m sorry, ma’am. Since you were brought in, no one has come to see you.” Hot, bitter tears slipped down my face, and the room turned hazy. Three days earlier, I had called Damian until my fingers were numb. Ninety-nine missed calls. Over twenty texts. Please send the jet. I’m in labor. The bridge collapsed. I can’t get through. I’m bleeding. By the time the pain was ripping me apart, I finally called his office. “I’m in labor,” I sobbed. “Where is Damian?” A brief silence followed before his assistant replied, his tone measured. “Mr. Cross isn’t available right now, ma’am.
He took the jet to get his pregnant wife to the hospital because the bridge collapsed. Would you like me to pass along a message?” Everything inside me went still. “Pregnant… wife?” I whispered. “No.” My voice came out rough as I shook my head. “That can’t be right. I’m his wife. I’m the one having his baby.” Then another contraction tore through me. I screamed, clutching my stomach as the pain felt like it was splitting me apart. “Tell him it’s Vanessa,” I panted. “Tell him to come. Now.” “I’m sorry, ma’am, but I think you may have the wrong number,” the assistant said. “No, I don’t. Call my husband… it hurts so bad, call Damian!” I cried, but all I got back was silence—then the dead line. My hand went slack, and the phone slid from my fingers and clattered against the floor. Pain crashed through me again, savage and blinding, and my vision started to dim while voices shouted around me. “Damian,” I called out, my voice cracking. But he never showed up, and then the darkness took me. “Here’s your phone,” the nurse said gently, pulling me back to the present. “The paramedics found it when they brought you in.” My hands trembled as I took it from her. “If you need anything, just press the call button,” she said before walking out. Silence swallowed the room. I unlocked my phone, heart hammering, half expecting the screen to be filled with missed calls. There was nothing. No texts.
No calls. It made no sense. When Damian and I had first gotten married, he couldn’t go even an hour without checking in on me. One time, my car battery died, and I was out of reach for three hours. He searched the whole city for me. And now he had ignored me for three full days. I checked my messages one more time. Still nothing. Nothing from Damian. Not from my parents. Not even Chloe. Then my phone lit up with a notification. Chloe had posted a new update. I opened it, and a photo took over the screen—Damian, my parents, and Chloe holding a newborn in her arms. She was propped up in a hospital bed, and I instantly recognized the room as one of the wards in this hospital. The caption was only one word: Family. My fingers started to go numb as I kept scrolling. Another post came up from three days earlier—the exact time I had been in labor, calling Damian. In it, Chloe sat inside a private jet, leaning her head toward Damian as she kissed his cheek. The bridge collapsed, so he didn’t want me trapped in traffic, she had written. He flew me here himself. He takes such good care of me.
The comments kept coming. Such a caring husband. You’re so lucky. So while I was bleeding out in the car, Chloe was the “pregnant wife” he had rushed to the hospital. My hand clenched around the phone until the screen blurred. Two years ago, I had dragged Chloe out of a wrecked car. That was how my parents found the daughter they had lost for twenty years. I gave her a place to stay. I held her hand when she woke up screaming from nightmares. I sat by her hospital bed when she donated her kidney to save Damian. When Damian woke and found out Chloe was the one who had saved him, he was grateful. But after the doctors diagnosed her with cancer, that gratitude became devotion, and from then on, he gave her anything she asked for. I had complained more than once about how devoted and affectionate he was with Chloe, but Damian always answered me the same way. “I love you, Vanessa. Not her.” “I’m just repaying her.” “She saved my life.” I believed him. I told myself to stop reading into it. When Chloe vanished for weeks and came back pregnant, she refused to tell anyone who the father was. My parents scolded her, called her reckless, and told her she should be more like me, but I defended her and told them to stop. I looked after her pregnancy while carrying my own.
And now she had the nerve to parade my husband as if he were hers? Damian and I had married in secret, but he promised that on our next anniversary—only a few days away—he would make our marriage public. So how dare Chloe pull something like this? My hands shook as I locked my phone and forced myself out of bed. Pain lanced through my legs, but I hardly noticed as I made my way into the hallway. That was when I heard the familiar voices of my parents and Damian coming from a room at the end of the corridor. Fury surged through me, and I stormed toward the room, ready to confront them—until Chloe’s tearful voice stopped me cold outside the door. “I feel so guilty,” she whispered. “Vanessa’s baby… I never meant for it to end up this way.” Damian answered at once. “Don’t blame yourself. There was no other option.” My breath hitched. What the hell were they saying? “Vanessa’s son was the only donor whose heart was a match,” he went on. “The doctors already confirmed it. Without his heart, our son never would’ve made it.” My knees almost gave out, and world went silent. “You… you really took her baby’s heart?” Chloe’s voice shook as she asked. “Yes,” Damian replied without the slightest pause. “He was born healthy. That’s the only reason the transplant succeeded.” I forgot how to breathe. “But Vanessa…” Chloe said in a hushed voice. “When she wakes up…” My mother spoke before anyone else could. “She should be thankful we gave her a chance to repay this family. We adopted her, raised her for twenty-two years, and she owes us more than enough.
The very least she can do is save your child.” My father gave a nod and calmly added, “And you don’t have much time left. Once you’re gone, that baby will need a mother. Vanessa can bring him up as if he were her own.” My stomach lurched so hard I thought I might collapse, the room spinning around me. “You saved me, Chloe. I was never going to let our son die. Not when you’re dying too, and there’s nothing I can do to save you,” Damian said, his tone unwavering. Chloe’s fingers clenched the blanket as she reached for Damian’s hand. “Thank you,” she whispered. “For saving our son. For making my wish come true… to have a child with you before I die.” Damian bent down and pressed a kiss to her forehead. “It’s worth any price,” he murmured. “For you, I’d do anything.” The hallway seemed to sway beneath me, and I staggered back, my chest on fire as the full truth finally sank in. It wasn’t only Chloe. My parents had known from the beginning. They had always known who had fathered her baby. They watched me stay by her side, defend her, care for her—and never said a word.
Damian hadn’t only left me behind in traffic. He had been lying to my face every single day. They hadn’t simply chosen Chloe. As a family, they had decided together to sacrifice my son so hers could live. I stumbled into the bathroom and braced myself against the sink, my body heaving as bile scorched my throat and tears blurred my vision. Then the door swung open, and a voice I knew too well reached my ears. “Dearest sister, I saw you sneaking around outside my door. Why didn’t you come in?” I turned and found Chloe looking straight at me, a vicious smile flashing in her eyes. “You!” I choked out, tears of rage spilling down my face. Chloe let out a light giggle. “I’ve been waiting for this day for so long. “I played the sweet daughter, the loving sister, so carefully. But all this time, I was waiting for the day I’d see you like this—shattered and helpless.” “Why, Chloe? What did I ever do to you?” I asked, utterly confused. “You were the adopted one, yet you got to live in the luxury that should have been mine while I was missing and suffering for twenty years!” Chloe shot back. “How is that my fault? You disappeared. Since the day you came back, you’ve had everything returned to you, so why are you doing this now?!” I fired back, rage blazing through me. “Because, dearest sister, you never should have been part of this family. If they hadn’t adopted you, they would have kept looking for me.
But now that I’m back, I’m taking it all from you—every last bit of it. Even your precious husband, because all of it should have belonged to me!” “You could have taken everything,” I cried, my knees nearly buckling beneath me. “Why couldn’t you just leave my son alone? Why did you have to go after him too?” Chloe let out a manic laugh. “Because I don’t want you or anything carrying your blood breathing the same air I do. And what better way to make everyone dance to my tune than pretending I’m dying of cancer? But here’s the truth—I don’t have cancer, and I’m not dying.” The blood drained from my face as I stared at her. “You monster. How could you lie to everyone for all these years?” My voice shook. “I’ll tell them. I’ll tell everyone.” Chloe gave a wicked little giggle. “No one will believe you, dear sister. Not after I’m finished with you.” Before I could even take a step, she slammed her own head into the wall on purpose and screamed. “Damian, help me! She’s going to kill me!” And just as Chloe collapsed to the floor in a dramatic heap, the door flew open and my husband appeared in the doorway. “What did you do?!” he roared at me, fury written all over his face.