“Let’s divorce.”

How simple it was. The ease with which the words escaped her lips left Ye-in momentarily stunned.

Once, she had dared to hope—quietly at first, then fervently—that she and he could truly become a family. She had allowed herself to believe, to expect. Only to have that belief betrayed and her expectations crushed. She had forgotten, even if only for a fleeting moment, that this was always the pattern of her life.

“Say that again. I think I misheard you.”

Not anger, but an icy calm settled over Tae-heon’s face.

“You’ve used me as you pleased. Now let me go.”

“You love me. How do you plan to live without me?”

His dark eyes, so deep they seemed to shimmer with a bluish hue, carried an unshakable certainty. The conviction in his voice stirred an ache of profound loss within her.

“I loved you.”

She could no longer afford to. For the sake of the child who would depend on her, she could not allow the humiliation and pain she had endured to touch their life.

She would stop it, no matter what it took.