The Lethal Vitamins

I had just swallowed the prenatal vitamins my husband handfed me. A line of text materialized in midair right in front of my face. [Spit it out now!

Those aren't vitamins—they're birth control pills!] The exact reason my womb had remained empty for three agonizing years. All the blood drained from my face.

A cold prickle spread through my fingertips, my lungs forgetting how to draw in air. Right then, Alistair brazenly pulled a heavily pregnant blonde woman into his side.

His palm stroked her swollen belly with a provocative, sickening intimacy.

He locked his cold eyes dead onto mine. "She's moving in." Chapter 1 [If Harper has a girl, Alistair gets to play the ultimate doting girldad.

If it's a boy, boom, instant heir for the family syndicate! Either way, the kid gets handed to Celeste to raise. She gets to be a mom for free.

How awesome is that!] [Plus, if Celeste actually got pregnant, Alistair would have to go without sex for months, maybe even a whole year.

How could he possibly survive keeping his hands off her?] [Harper getting knocked up solves everything.

Alistair gets his own flesh and blood, the kid won't steal too much of Celeste's attention, and most importantly—Alistair doesn't have to suffer a dry spell!] [But Celeste seriously can't misunderstand him!

She's always been the one he loves! He only endured Harper crawling into his bed for Celeste's sake!] [Think about it, Celeste.

If you got pregnant, the hormones would make you bloat like crazy.

Your body would be ruined, and you might even die in labor!] [Even if you survived pushing out a sevenpound baby, you'd be totally wrecked and stretched out down there.

You spent thousands of dollars on personal trainers and cosmetic procedures for that perfect body.

If you ruined your stomach with stretch marks and your boobs sagged, how could you ever show your face at highsociety galas?

Where's the happiness in that for Alistair?] [If Celeste stubbornly insists on having her own baby, she absolutely deserves it if Alistair cheats on her later!

She'd be the one ruining his happiness. If she can't satisfy her man, she can't blame him for finding someone else.] [Celeste, don't be stupid!

This is the perfect chance to get a readymade kid without dealing with a ruined figure and stretch marks!

It's a dream that highsociety wives pay a fortune in surrogacy to get!] [The fact that Alistair trusts Celeste enough to let her raise his and Harper's baby proves how much he loves her!

She should be thrilled!] [Honestly, I know Celeste will treat his kid like her own.

Only a kindhearted woman like her deserves our Alistair.] Hundreds of vicious comments frantically scrolled across the glowing screen in my mind, a system interface called the Plot Spoiler.

But the only words that pierced my brain were the ones about Alistair swapping my daily vitamins for birth control pills. A sharp ringing pierced my eardrums.

I stared at the man standing in front of me. He looked so aristocratic, so icy and perfectly composed. He looked like a total stranger.

I swallowed hard against the bile rising in my throat, a phantom blade twisting into my ribs, scraping against the bone. My vision blurred.

Stinging heat flooded my eyes before hot tears spilled over my lashes, tracking fast down my cheeks. Alistair knew.

He knew exactly how much hell I had dragged my body through just to give him a child. We had barely been married for three months.

That was when his mother started relentlessly interrogating me about my uterus. Chapter 2 During the first year of our marriage.

Alistair's mother had glared at me, her lips curling back into a harsh sneer. "You've been married for a whole year. Why aren't you pregnant yet?

Don't tell me you're barren." "A woman who can't even breed—what use is she in this world? You might as well be dead!" Back then, Alistair had stepped directly between us.

His voice was sharp, laced with a dangerous edge. "Mother.

If you don't want me to lose my temper, you will never speak like that again." He paused, his jaw tightening. "Besides, maybe I'm the one who's infertile." His mother had shrieked, swatting at his arm twice in fury. "What kind of nonsense are you spouting?!

You are a man! How could a man have a problem?" "Having babies is a woman's job; it has nothing to do with you!

If your wife can't get pregnant, it's obviously her fault!" I had been stunned that he defended me.

But the very next day, at the monthly family syndicate dinner. "I told you there was absolutely nothing wrong with my son's body!" Right in front of the entire extended family.

Alistair's mother slammed a thick stack of medical reports directly into my face. The sharp edge of the thick paper sliced across my cheek.

A sharp, stinging pain flared, followed by a hot trickle of blood.

She didn't miss a beat, her tone dripping with venom and mockpity. "My son's physical is perfect." "So, the defective one is definitely you!

Did you get too many shady procedures at those cheap clinics back in college? Did you turn your uterus into a barren wasteland?

Is that why you can't get pregnant?" Instantly, the judging, predatory stares of every elder in the room locked onto me. My face burned as if I'd been slapped. "My poor son.

He actually went to a toptier private hospital for a full workup, just to protect you! He wanted to prove he was the problem.

And you?" "You're nothing but a community bus passed around at frat parties! How dare you make my son settle for cheap, used goods like you?

You're a disgrace to this family!" Her baseless accusations hung in the air. My throat tightened, a bitter taste flooding my mouth. I opened my mouth, desperate to defend myself.

An uncle sneered, looking me up and down like spoiled meat. "Forget it. He already married her.

We can't have Alistair dealing with the scandal of a divorce." "Medical tech is advanced now. Just make your daughterinlaw do IVF.

Make her give you ten grandsons to make up for it. If IVF fails, then yeah, they'll have to divorce." Alistair's mother snapped back immediately. "Absolutely not!

A child created in a lab could never be as intelligent as one conceived naturally!

I say we push for the divorce right—!" "Are you all done?" Alistair, who had been sitting silently beside me, finally cut through the noise.

His glacial gaze swept over the table of relatives.

He wasn't even thirty yet, but the sheer, crushing weight of his stare silenced elders twice his age. "I don't care how many boyfriends my wife had in the past.

I am her husband now." His eyes darkened into a lethal glare. "I can live without an heir. But my wife will only ever be Celeste." "Divorce?

Over my dead body." Without another word, his large, warm hand enveloped mine.

Ignoring the outraged gasps of the elders and his mother's dramatic threats of suicide, he dragged me out of the estate. Ours was a corporate merger.

A polite, mutually beneficial arrangement was the best I had hoped for. Yet, he had stood between me and his own mother's wrath, time and time again.

A knot of something warm and foolish had tightened in my chest. I started to believe that marrying him was the right choice.

Because of that blind belief, I endured his mother's endless cruelty. I just couldn't bear to make him choose between me and his family. Chapter 3 I had always had a weak stomach.

Yet, his mother forced me to choke down two years' worth of agonizingly expensive, absolutely vile remedies.

The pseudoscientific fertility treatments were endless—unpasteurized raw animal blood, blackmarket hormone shots smuggled from Mexico, and she even tried to make me consume raw animal placentas bought at premium prices.

If I hadn't fought back tooth and nail, that literal garbage would have ended up in my system. The worst of it was the retreat.

His mother forced me into this incredibly twisted, exorbitant wilderness fertility cult camp.

This socalled guru, who claimed he could connect us to the universe's reproductive energy, made me hike ten miles barefoot up a gravel trail choked with thorns.

He said it was the only way to wash away the sin of my infertility. I turned around, fully intending to walk away.

I didn't expect her to pull out her phone right then and there to tattle to my parents. What I expected even less was for my own parents to actually take my motherinlaw's side.

I heard my dad's voice crackle through the speaker. "Your motherinlaw is only doing this for your own good. It wasn't easy for her to find this camp.

Just listen to her." "Maybe if the guru sees your devotion, the universe will finally grant you a child. Celeste, stop being so stubborn!

Having babies is a woman's fundamental duty.

If you can't breed, why would anyone even marry you?" "To be honest, if you still can't produce a child, we won't be able to hold our heads up around your motherinlaw.

If you actually get kicked out of the family syndicate because you can't produce an heir, we won't just lose Alistair's financial backing.

We won't even be able to show our faces at the country club galas. You have to secure your position as his wife!" All the air left my lungs. My chest caved in on itself.

I turned back and started walking. Step after bloody step on the jagged gravel. After a few miles, my feet and shins didn't even feel like they belonged to me anymore.

The sharp rocks sliced the soles of my feet to ribbons.

Purplish bruises bloomed across my ankles, fresh blood oozing from the lacerations, leaving a blazing, stinging trail behind me. Then, the sky broke open.

Heavy, freezing rain battered down on me without mercy. The muddy water seeped deep into the raw cuts on my feet and legs, burning like poured acid.

The rainwater mixed with my blood, turning the torn flesh a sickening, macerated white.

The cuts split wider and wider with every agonizing step, mocking me like a clown's grotesque smile.

I dragged my shaking, bleeding body all the way to the summit before Alistair finally arrived, playing the flawless savior. He tore into his mother that day.

Ignoring her hysterical screeching, he scooped me up into his arms and carried me away. I was hospitalized that very afternoon.

By nightfall, my fever spiked so high my brain felt like it was melting. I nearly died in that ICU bed.

Ever since then, whenever the weather turns damp, a dull, throbbing ache settles deep into the bones of my feet.

The warmth I once felt for Alistair's supposed protection turned into ice in my veins. He orchestrated every single ounce of my suffering.

Staring at his perfectly sculpted, disgusting face, a cold certainty settled in my chest. I couldn't spend another second breathing the same air as this monster.

But then I remembered the three years of pure, unadulterated hell I endured for him. My fingernails dug halfmoons into my palms. I forced my breathing to steady.

Just handing him a divorce wouldn't be revenge. It wouldn't even be a scratch. I needed to ruin him. It didn't take long to figure out exactly how.

A week later, at a highprofile charity gala. That was the first time I laid eyes on Harper in the flesh. Alistair actually paraded her right into the center of our social circle.

Harper, with her slightly rounded belly, locked her arm intimately through his.

She pressed her body flush against his side, practically glued to him as they mingled with the city's elite.

Anyone who didn't know better would think they were the pictureperfect power couple. A cold smirk pulled at the corner of my mouth.

And of course, taking in this entire pathetic spectacle, was my lifelong rival, Shelby. Chapter 4 She strutted toward me in her threeinch stilettos.

A theatrical, drawnout "Oops!" echoed through the room. She stumbled, her ankle giving out. A full glass of dark Pinot Noir splashed across my pale designer gown.

The crimson liquid bled instantly into the expensive fabric, leaving a massive, glaring stain across my front.

She popped her tongue out in a mockcute grimace, her tone light and airy. "Oh, my bad, Celeste. I totally didn't mean to spill my wine all over you.

You're not going to hold it against me, right?" "Honestly though, I'm doing you a solid.

Giving you an excuse to slip away." "After all, you're truly pathetic right now—a highsociety trophy wife taking up space but doing absolutely nothing.

You can't even produce an heir.

What's the difference between you and an expensive, useless window mannequin?" Shelby's voice dripped with gloating mockery. "You really can't blame Alistair for stepping out and knocking someone else up.

If you're physically incapable, you can't exactly stop another woman from doing the job." "Plus, rumor has it that woman is Alistair's first love.

You've been married to him for years and your womb is still a total ghost town. But she comes back and gets knocked up instantly?

That just proves she and your husband are the real deal." "If I were you, I would have packed my bags and handed over the crown ages ago." "Trashing your dress was me being charitable.

Now you can scurry home early, wash up, and hide in bed. Saves you the trouble of humiliating yourself out here.

Don't mention it!" Shelby covered her mouth, letting out a grating giggle.

She even took the lead, openly pointing and whispering about me with her little clique of plastic socialites.

Just as I opened my mouth to rip her to shreds… The glowing text panel materialized in my vision again. [Celeste, Alistair isn't just standing by and watching on purpose!] I tilted my head slightly.

My eyes locked onto Alistair across the room. He was watching me get publicly humiliated by this pack of hyenas, his face a mask of stone, not lifting a single finger.

The text frantically scrolled on. [He's just waiting for the perfect timing!

Once these mean girls finish bullying you, he's going to step up like a total badass to protect you and slap them back to reality!] [That way, you'll be so overwhelmed with gratitude and love him even more!] [Honestly, watching them pick on you is pure torture for him.

Every single second is agony!] [Ugh, my heart breaks for our man!] [But please, whatever you do, don't misunderstand his relationship with that awful Harper!] [Alistair has been secretly obsessed with you since high school!

He was just too scared to confess.

When he mistakenly thought you were dating someone else, he gave up on himself and settled for Harper.] [Even when he was with Harper, his heart was entirely yours.

The first time he slept with her, he literally moaned your name because he couldn't control his true feelings!] [Sure, he went through a ton of girlfriends after that, but it was purely physical!

No emotional attachment at all! For over a decade, the only woman he truly loved was you.

Heaven knows how ecstatic he was inside when your families arranged the merger!] A dry, cynical laugh scraped up my throat. Let me get this straight.

He was so deeply, hopelessly in love with me… but it never once stopped him from dating and sleeping his way through half the zip code. Purely physical, no emotional attachment.

What a brilliant, convenient excuse to act like a total sociopath. Chapter 5 While my mind was wandering, a tall shadow fell over me.

Under the chandeliers, the man's profile was sharply defined. His deep, resonant voice cut through the tension.

He stared at Shelby's face with an exaggerated, mockshocked expression. "Wait, is that you, Mrs. Richard?

Haven't seen you in a few days, but how do you look ten years older?" "Did your injector use counterfeit Botox?

Your foundation is creasing so badly it can't even hide your blackheads. And where are your custom Louboutins?

You've practically shrunk." "When I saw Richard checking into a suite at the Waldorf with you a few days ago, you definitely didn't look like this." Shelby blurted out without thinking. "When did I ever go to a hotel with my husb—" She choked on the last word.

All the color instantly drained from her face. The man completely ignored her rising panic. "Tsk, tsk. It's only been a few days, but it's like you swapped faces.

Did you get a botched lift?" "Drop the name of your clinic so I can warn everyone to avoid it like the plague." Shelby's Botoxfilled face froze like a ridiculous clown.

All that heavy, flawless makeup couldn't hide the rapid twitching of her eye. I stepped right in, perfectly timing my strike. "Are you blind? That wasn't her at the hotel.

That was Richard's side piece." The man gasped, dramatically covering his mouth. "No way!

Really?" I mirrored Shelby's fakepitying tone from earlier and patted her rigid shoulder. "Honestly, I totally get why your husband did it.

That girl is younger, prettier, and has a way better body than you.

It's completely normal for him to be obsessed with her." "Who would pick a washedup, aging housewife over a fresh, gorgeous young thing?

If I were you, I'd pack my bags and hand over the crown to the girl.

Saves you the trouble of humiliating yourself out here." Shelby's manicured fingernails bit into her palms, her chest heaving. "You—" Right at that moment, I plucked a fresh glass of Cabernet from a passing waiter's tray.

As I brushed past her, my hand slipped. The entire glass dumped straight down the front of her dress.

The dark red wine bloomed violently across her pristine white gown, leaving a massive, ugly stain. It soaked through the thin fabric, dripping down her calves.

Shelby glared at me, her eyes practically bulging out of her skull. I blinked at her innocently. "Oops. I totally didn't mean to do that.

You're not going to be mad at me, right?" "I didn't get mad when you spilled your wine all over me earlier." "Agh!" Shelby shrieked, her voice cracking.

She spun around and locked onto her husband across the room. Richard was grinning at his phone, probably texting his little hotel fling.

Shelby launched herself at him and clawed her manicured nails straight down his face. The