After three years of infertility and another year of IVF, I finally became pregnant—and six months later, standing barefoot behind a half-closed library door, I learned the four babies inside me had never been mine.

Chapter 1

“Carter, I still can’t believe you pulled it off.”

I stopped before entering the room.

My husband’s college friend, Tyler, was laughing so hard his voice carried through the Sterling estate’s downstairs hall. Several men were gathered inside with drinks, celebrating what I had assumed was nothing more than another of their ridiculous bets. Since the ultrasound had revealed three boys and one girl, Carter had won their private pool, and I had already endured jokes about his “ten-million-dollar lucky streak.”

Then Tyler said something that made the blood drain from my face.

“Four women, four embryos, one wife carrying all of them. That’s some cold-blooded efficiency.”

The men laughed.

I put one hand against the wall.

Inside me, one of the babies kicked.

Carter’s voice followed, calm and almost bored. “What was I supposed to do? I couldn’t marry all of them.”

“You didn’t have to,” Tyler said. “Scarlett did the hard part for everybody.”

My name sounded strange in that room.

Another man chuckled. “Delilah gets the child you promised before she died. Sienna gets the baby she’s wanted since college. Selene gets hers without ruining that little figure of hers. And Montgomery gets the bloodline his family wanted for the merger.”

For several seconds, I forgot how to breathe.

Delilah.

Sienna.

Selene.

Montgomery.

I knew every name.

Delilah Hale had been Carter’s college sweetheart. She had died from cancer the previous year after spending years freezing embryos and eggs during treatment. I had sent flowers to her family.

Sienna Brooks had known Carter since childhood and had never made much effort to hide her feelings for him.

Selene Miller was Carter’s executive assistant.

And Clara Montgomery was the daughter of the billionaire investor whose money Carter desperately needed for Sterling Industries’ biggest acquisition.

Tyler lowered his voice. “What happens if Scarlett finds out none of the four are biologically hers?”

Carter gave a short laugh.

It was the laugh that broke something inside me.

“So what if she finds out?”

Someone whistled.

Carter continued, “She wanted the Sterling name badly enough. She wanted children badly enough. She’ll do what she always does—take the pain and keep quiet.”

The men laughed again.

“She is tough,” Tyler said. “I’ll give her that.”

“Thick-skinned,” Carter replied. “Those IVF injections went on for a year and she barely cried.”

Another man said, “Because nobody spoils her. Selene cries over a paper cut, and you practically shut down Manhattan.”

More laughter.

My fingers tightened around the edge of the doorway.

I remembered every needle.

Every blood draw.

Every hormone shot.

Every night I had curled on the bathroom floor shaking with cramps while Carter sat beside me, rubbing my back and telling me we were doing it for our family.

I remembered the morning the clinic called to say implantation had worked.

Carter had lifted me off the floor and spun me around.

“We did it,” he had whispered against my hair. “We finally did it.”

When the first ultrasound showed four heartbeats, my doctor warned that carrying quadruplets could threaten my life. She recommended reducing the pregnancy to improve the odds for me and the remaining babies.

Carter refused before I could speak.

“They’re all our children,” he had said, tears shining in his eyes. “How could we choose which ones live?”

I had believed those tears.

I had believed everything.

Now I understood.

He had needed all four.

One for each promise.

One for each woman.

And I was the body convenient enough to carry them.

A woman’s voice floated from the library.

Selene.

Apparently, she had joined them.

“Are you still talking about the bet?”

Tyler laughed. “We’re talking about your brave little baby carrier.”

“Don’t be awful,” Selene said, although she was laughing too. “Scarlett has suffered a lot.”

Carter’s tone softened in a way it never did for me.

“You were terrified just freezing your eggs.”

“It hurt.”

“I know.”

“You held my hand.”

“Because you were crying.”

Selene giggled. “Scarlett never cries.”

Carter said, “Scarlett doesn’t feel things the way you do.”

That sentence hurt more than the rest.

Of course I felt pain.

I simply thought the pain meant something.

When the injections burned, I endured them because I imagined a child with Carter’s dark eyes and my mother’s smile. When I vomited until my throat bled, I pictured tiny hands reaching for me. When my ankles became too swollen for shoes and my back screamed every time I stood, I told myself motherhood had a price and I had willingly paid it.

But endurance had become proof, in Carter’s mind, that I could be hurt without consequence.

I backed away from the door.

One of the babies moved again.

Until that moment, I had spoken to them every night.

I had called them my miracles.

Now I looked down at my enormous belly and felt as if I were staring at evidence from a crime scene.

I made it to the guest bedroom before my knees weakened. At six months pregnant with quadruplets, I had moved downstairs because climbing the staircase had become exhausting. I shut the door, sat carefully on the bed, and pressed both hands over my mouth.

No scream came.

Only tears.

They ran down my face silently while the men in the next room laughed about my body.

I cried for the babies I thought were mine.

I cried for the husband I had never actually had.

Most of all, I cried for the woman I had been that morning, because she was gone.

Twenty minutes later, I washed my face and called my obstetrician.

“I need to speak with you privately,” I said.

“Is something wrong with the babies?”

I looked toward the wall separating me from Carter.

“Yes,” I whispered. “But not in the way you think.”

That evening, Carter found me sitting in the living room.

Selene stood near him with a leather portfolio in her arms. Her lipstick was slightly smeared. Carter had the same shade near the corner of his mouth.

For years, I had wondered whether I was imagining things.

Apparently, I had been imagining far too little.

“When did you get home?” Carter asked.

“A while ago.”

His eyes sharpened. “I didn’t hear you.”

“I was tired. I went straight to bed.”

He relaxed.

Selene smiled at me. “You look exhausted, Scarlett. But honestly, you’re glowing.”

My eyes dropped to her flat stomach.

She followed my gaze.

For one dangerous second, something passed between us.

Then she smiled wider.

“You’re so lucky,” she said. “Four babies.”

“Yes,” I replied. “Somebody certainly is.”

She left a few minutes later.

Carter sat beside me and placed both palms lovingly against my belly.

“How are my little monsters?”

I nearly recoiled.

Instead, I smiled.

“The doctor says they’re healthy.”

His relief was immediate.

“Good.”

He kissed my forehead.

I smelled Selene’s perfume on his collar.

“Get some sleep,” he said. “The company gala is in three days. The press team wants photographs of us before the merger announcement.”

“Of course.”

He stood.

As he walked away, I took out my phone beneath the blanket.

There was already a message waiting from my doctor.

Scarlett, come alone tomorrow morning. I reviewed your records. We need to discuss something urgently.

I stared at the screen.

Then another message arrived.

And bring every fertility-clinic document you have.