His Vows, Her Pills, A Life Unraveled

His Vows, Her Pills, A Life Unraveled

Moria Anninger

3.5
Comment(s)
5.1K
View
7
Chapters

My husband, Andreas, a brilliant architect, handed me a small bottle on our fifth wedding anniversary. He said they were custom vitamins for my health. But a doctor' s appointment revealed a horrifying truth: they were potent birth control pills, making conception impossible. My world shattered when the doctor, a colleague of Andreas, revealed he had another wife, Annabelle, and they' d just had a baby boy. Then, I overheard Andreas telling his best friend, Mark, that he loved me but couldn' t abandon Annabelle, his childhood friend, who was now the mother of his heir. He chillingly stated, "She gets me. And that's enough. I'll make sure she never has a child. Annabelle will have my heir. Jewel will have my love. It's the only way." My five-year marriage was a lie. I was the other woman, slowly being erased. The thought was humiliating, absurd. I stumbled out of the hospital, my mind reeling. I knew Andreas was possessive and wouldn' t let me go willingly. I needed help. My fingers, shaking, scrolled to a name I hadn' t called in ten years: Cassidy Farrell, my high school flame. "That offer... to help me disappear... is it still good?" I whispered.

His Vows, Her Pills, A Life Unraveled Chapter 1

My husband, Andreas, a brilliant architect, handed me a small bottle on our fifth wedding anniversary. He said they were custom vitamins for my health.

But a doctor' s appointment revealed a horrifying truth: they were potent birth control pills, making conception impossible. My world shattered when the doctor, a colleague of Andreas, revealed he had another wife, Annabelle, and they' d just had a baby boy.

Then, I overheard Andreas telling his best friend, Mark, that he loved me but couldn' t abandon Annabelle, his childhood friend, who was now the mother of his heir. He chillingly stated, "She gets me. And that's enough. I'll make sure she never has a child. Annabelle will have my heir. Jewel will have my love. It's the only way."

My five-year marriage was a lie. I was the other woman, slowly being erased. The thought was humiliating, absurd.

I stumbled out of the hospital, my mind reeling. I knew Andreas was possessive and wouldn' t let me go willingly. I needed help. My fingers, shaking, scrolled to a name I hadn' t called in ten years: Cassidy Farrell, my high school flame.

"That offer... to help me disappear... is it still good?" I whispered.

Chapter 1

It was our fifth wedding anniversary.

Andreas Cordova, my husband, handed me a small bottle.

"Your supplements, Jewel."

He smiled, a perfect, charming smile that had once made my world turn. He was a brilliant architect, a man everyone admired. To me, he was just my husband.

"Thanks, Andy," I said, taking the pills with a glass of water.

For the past two years, he had given me these "custom vitamins" every day. He said they were for my health, to keep me strong while I worked on my indie films. I never questioned it. I trusted him completely.

But lately, I'd been feeling off. Tired all the time, a strange ache in my stomach. So I made a doctor's appointment, bringing the bottle with me just in case.

Dr. Evans looked at the pills, then at the lab report from my bloodwork. Her expression was serious.

"Mrs. Cordova," she started, her voice gentle. "These aren't vitamins."

I waited.

"They're a very potent form of birth control."

The room went silent. The air felt thick, hard to breathe.

"What?" I heard myself say. "That's not possible. We're trying for a baby."

"These pills would make that impossible," she said, her eyes full of pity. "They're designed for long-term use, to ensure there is no chance of conception."

My mind went blank. It didn't make sense. Andreas loved me. He wanted a family as much as I did. We talked about our future children, what their names would be, what they would look like.

"There must be a mistake," I insisted, my voice trembling. "My husband wouldn't..."

Dr. Evans sighed. She seemed hesitant.

"Jewel... I know your husband. Andreas."

I looked up, confused.

"I'm a colleague of his. From the firm. Well, my husband works there. We attend the same company events."

A cold feeling started to creep up my spine.

"A few days ago, there was a celebration at the hospital. For the new pediatric wing his firm designed."

She paused, then took a deep breath.

"He was there. With his wife."

The word hung in theair. Wife. I was his wife.

"I don't understand," I whispered.

"His wife, Annabelle Downs," Dr. Evans said, her voice dropping lower. "They just had a baby boy. Andreas was holding him. Everyone was congratulating them."

She pulled out her phone and showed me a picture from a social media page. It was a group photo. Andreas was in the center, beaming. In his arms was a newborn baby. Standing next to him, her hand on his arm, was a woman I recognized. Annabelle. The "childhood friend" he sometimes mentioned, the daughter of a close family friend. He always said she was like a sister to him.

In the picture, she looked at him with an expression of pure adoration. They looked like a perfect family.

The world tilted. The doctor's words faded into a dull roar. A lie. My entire life, my five-year marriage, was a lie.

I stumbled out of the doctor's office in a daze. I don't know how I ended up in the hospital's quiet corridor, huddled on a bench. My phone buzzed. It was Andreas. I ignored it.

Then I heard his voice. Not from the phone, but from around the corner. He was talking to someone.

"Mark, you have to help me keep this quiet."

It was his best friend, Mark.

"Andreas, this is insane," Mark's voice was stressed. "You can't keep lying to Jewel. Annabelle had your child. You have to choose."

A long silence. Then Andreas spoke, his voice filled with a pain that I, for a horrifying second, believed was real.

"I can't choose. I love Jewel. You have no idea how much I love her. Being with her is like breathing. But Annabelle... she's been with me since we were kids. My family, her family... I can't abandon her. Especially not now."

"So what's your plan?" Mark asked. "Annabelle gets to have your child, and Jewel gets what? Nothing?"

Andreas's next words froze the blood in my veins.

"She gets me," he said, his voice turning cold and hard. "And that's enough. I'll make sure she never has a child. Annabelle will have my heir. Jewel will have my love. It's the only way."

The only way.

The casual cruelty of it, the calculated destruction of my dreams, my body, my future... it broke something inside me.

The air in my lungs turned to poison. I gasped, trying to breathe, but my chest was a block of ice.

My phone buzzed again. A text from Andreas.

Sweetheart, where are you? I'm worried. I love you.

I stared at the words, and a choked, silent sob ripped through me. Love. He didn't know the meaning of the word. His love was a cage. His love was a poison he fed me every day.

All the little inconsistencies, the sudden business trips, the times he was unreachable... it all clicked into place. He wasn't building a life with me. He was managing two separate lives, and I was the one kept in the dark, the one being slowly erased.

I was the other woman.

The thought was so absurd, so humiliating, I almost laughed. After five years of marriage, I was the mistress.

My mind felt like it was cracking open. I couldn't scream. I couldn't cry. The real collapse is silent. It's the moment you realize the foundation of your entire world is sand, and the tide is coming in.

Another text. This time, a picture. It was from an unknown number. It was Annabelle, holding her baby, smiling smugly at the camera. The caption read: He's with his real family tonight. Don't wait up.

I didn't delete it. I just stared.

He wasn't mine. The life I thought we had wasn't mine. The future I dreamed of wasn't mine.

Fine. He could have it. He could have all of it.

But I knew Andreas. His love was possessive. He would never let me go willingly. I needed help.

My fingers, shaking, scrolled through my contacts. I stopped on a name I hadn't called in ten years. Cassidy Farrell.

My high school flame. The one who had told me, the day before I left for college, that his offer would always stand.

The phone rang once, twice. He picked up.

"Jewel?" His voice was deeper, but I recognized it instantly.

Tears I didn't know I had left began to fall. My voice was a broken whisper.

"Cassidy... it's me."

I took a shaky breath.

"That offer... to help me disappear... is it still good?"

Continue Reading

Other books by Moria Anninger

More
From Bait to Queen: The Rejected Mate's Destiny

From Bait to Queen: The Rejected Mate's Destiny

Werewolf

5.0

To the Dark Moon Pack, I wasn't just invisible; I was a stain. Dean Lee, the Alpha designed for my soul, treated me like a shameful secret while he paraded his mistress, Karina, in red silk. The night of the Charity Auction, Dean bought my late mother's moonstone pendant—the only thing I had left of her—for a hundred thousand dollars. I begged him for it. Instead, he clasped it around Karina's ankle. With a cruel laugh, Karina stomped her stiletto heel, crushing the moonstone into dust. Dean just watched, his eyes cold and unfeeling. "It was just a cheap rock," he said. "I'll buy you diamonds." But the cruelty didn't stop at emotional torture. When rogues attacked, Dean used me as live bait to distract them from Karina. He threw me into the Blood Pit, a gladiator arena, to fight a massive Feral wolf while he sat in the VIP box with Karina on his lap. "She won't last three minutes," I heard him say through our dying bond. He watched with bored detachment as I was ripped apart, refusing to save me even as I screamed his name. He saved the mistress and drowned the mate. I died on that arena floor. Or so he thought. Years later, the mysterious and world-renowned artist "H.Y." returned to New York for a gallery opening. When Dean saw me on stage, he rushed forward, tears streaming down his face, trying to claim the wife he had mourned. "Hayley," he choked out, reaching for me. "You're alive. You're mine." I didn't cry. I didn't run. I unleashed a shockwave of ancient White Wolf energy that blasted him across the room, shattering the glass displays. "I don't take orders from dogs anymore," I said, looking down at him. "I, Hayley York, hereby reject you."

You'll also like

While I Was Bleeding Out, He Lit Lanterns For Her

While I Was Bleeding Out, He Lit Lanterns For Her

Katie Oettgen

As I lay on the floor of our manor, bleeding out from a ruptured ectopic pregnancy, I used my last ounce of strength to call my husband, Cole. I begged him for help, my vision blurring. But the only thing I heard was the clinking of champagne glasses and his mistress's giggle in the background. "Stop the drama, June," Cole snapped, his voice cold. "We're about to go on stage. Don't call again." He hung up, leaving me to die alone on the Persian rug while he accepted an award with another woman on his arm. I woke up in the hospital days later. My baby was gone. They had removed my fallopian tube. Cole finally arrived, smelling of expensive scotch and his mistress's perfume. He didn't hug me. He didn't cry. Instead, he leaned over my hospital bed, pressing his knee into the mattress until my fresh stitches tore open and bled. "You embarrassed me by calling an ambulance," he hissed. "My mistress, Alycia, says you're faking it. Clean yourself up." He left me bleeding again to go announce a $10 million donation to Alycia's "groundbreaking" medical research. I stared at the TV screen, numb. The research Alycia was taking credit for? It was mine. I wrote that patent years ago under a pseudonym. They thought I was just a poor, orphan housewife who needed Cole's money to survive. They had no idea I was actually a billionaire scientist hiding my identity. I pulled the IV needle out of my arm. A drop of blood fell onto the divorce papers I had been hiding. I didn't wipe it off. I signed my name right over it. Then I walked into the bank, reactivated my dormant account with $128 million, and bought the penthouse directly overlooking Cole's house. The mourning widow is dead. The avenger is born.

No Longer Mrs. Cooley: The Architect's Return

No Longer Mrs. Cooley: The Architect's Return

Xiao Xiaosu

I went to the City Clerk’s office for a routine copy of my marriage license to finalize a trust fund audit. I expected a simple piece of paper, but the clerk’s pitying look told me my entire life was a lie. "The license was never finalized, Ms. Oliver. In the eyes of the state, you are single." The three-hundred-guest wedding at the Plaza and the Vogue features meant nothing. My husband, Gray Cooley, had intentionally filed the documents with a "procedural defect" so he could discard me without a legal divorce. Moments later, an iCloud invite titled "Our Little Secret" popped up on my screen. It was a photo of my best friend, Brylee, holding a positive pregnancy test at our Hamptons estate. Gray’s text to her was the final blow: "Happy anniversary, babe. This baby is the best gift. Once the trust unlocks today, we’re done with the charade." I soon discovered they were even stealing my career, reassigning my architectural masterpiece to Brylee while preparing my eviction notice. Gray's mother called me a "barren mule" in a leaked recording, mocking the infertility I suffered after saving Gray’s life in a construction accident. I wasn't a wife; I was a three-year placeholder used to secure his inheritance. How could the man I bled for treat me like a disposable prop? How could my best friend carry his child while pretending to comfort me through my darkest moments? The betrayal burned until it turned into a cold, hard stone of fury. I didn't cry. Instead, I walked into the penthouse of the Barretts, the Cooleys' most powerful rivals. I signed a marriage contract with Kane Barrett, the man the tabloids called the "Beast of Wall Street." "I want a wedding," I told his father, my voice steady and lethal. "Bigger than the one I had with Gray." If they wanted me gone, they would have to watch me become the woman who owns their world.

Chapters
Read Now
Download Book
His Vows, Her Pills, A Life Unraveled His Vows, Her Pills, A Life Unraveled Moria Anninger Romance
“My husband, Andreas, a brilliant architect, handed me a small bottle on our fifth wedding anniversary. He said they were custom vitamins for my health. But a doctor' s appointment revealed a horrifying truth: they were potent birth control pills, making conception impossible. My world shattered when the doctor, a colleague of Andreas, revealed he had another wife, Annabelle, and they' d just had a baby boy. Then, I overheard Andreas telling his best friend, Mark, that he loved me but couldn' t abandon Annabelle, his childhood friend, who was now the mother of his heir. He chillingly stated, "She gets me. And that's enough. I'll make sure she never has a child. Annabelle will have my heir. Jewel will have my love. It's the only way." My five-year marriage was a lie. I was the other woman, slowly being erased. The thought was humiliating, absurd. I stumbled out of the hospital, my mind reeling. I knew Andreas was possessive and wouldn' t let me go willingly. I needed help. My fingers, shaking, scrolled to a name I hadn' t called in ten years: Cassidy Farrell, my high school flame. "That offer... to help me disappear... is it still good?" I whispered.”
1

Chapter 1

11/08/2025

2

Chapter 2

11/08/2025

3

Chapter 3

11/08/2025

4

Chapter 4

11/08/2025

5

Chapter 5

11/08/2025

6

Chapter 6

11/08/2025

7

Chapter 7

11/08/2025