Chapter 2 — Tears in the Frost

The next morning, Thư Nhã woke up in a familiar bedroom, pale sunlight filtering through the curtains. The place next to him was empty, only the warmth spread on the bed sheet. She lay still for a long time, trying to piece together the fragmented memories of last night - Bách Việt's hand gently squeezing her waist, his warm breath in her ear, and the only words he whispered before they both fell asleep: "Don't be afraid." Just those two words, nothing more.

When she walked out to the living room, Bách Việt was dressed neatly, standing by the window looking down at the city, holding a cup of coffee. Hearing footsteps, he turned around, his eyes showing a rare bit of embarrassment - an expression Thư Nhã had never seen on his face, which was always in absolute control.

"The car is waiting in the lobby," he spoke, his voice returning to its familiar calmness, as if trying to rebuild the wall that had just collapsed last night. "There's a meeting with the legal team at eight."

"Yes," Thư Nhã replied, quickly putting on the serious shell of an executive secretary. They both implicitly understood that last night's incident would not be mentioned again, like many other unwritten rules of this marriage. That is the safest way to continue living under the same roof without breaking the boundaries that were drawn from the beginning.

But there are boundaries that, once crossed, can never be drawn exactly the same again.

*

Four weeks passed quickly like a non-stop grind of work. The Eastern Trade Center project entered a key negotiation phase. Thư Nhã closely followed every meeting and every contract, staying up until one or two o'clock every night to review the data. She thought the unusual fatigue and nausea in the mornings when she smelled coffee - her favorite smell - were just due to overwork.

It wasn't until one Tuesday morning, when the familiar scent of her own perfume suddenly became so strong and unpleasant that she had to rush to the office's private bathroom and vomit until her eyes watered, that Thư Nhã began to have doubts.

She stood in front of the mirror, clutching the edge of the sink, looking at her own pale face reflected back. In her mind, she ran through her monthly cycle schedule — she always took notes on everything, even the most personal things, like an ingrained professional habit. And she realized that last month's cycle was nearly three weeks late and she was so engrossed in work that she didn't notice.

Her heart beat rapidly. No way. She has always been careful.

But that night, the night of their third anniversary, they were both drunk, and in the daze of alcohol and emotions, their usual caution was completely forgotten.

*

At noon, Thư Nhã used an excuse to go for a routine medical check-up and asked permission to leave the office for two hours - a rare thing during her working time, enough to make the HR assistant in surprise ask twice to make sure.

The private clinic is hidden in a quiet alley away from the city center, the place she chose was not the large Việt Thịnh hospital that often cooperates with insurance for employees, to avoid anyone she knows from seeing her. Doctor Đặng Thảo Lam, a middle-aged woman with calm eyes, looked at the ultrasound form and then at her, his voice gentle but firm.

"I'm about four weeks pregnant. The fetal heartbeat is not clearly heard at this stage, but all indicators are normal."

Thư Nhã sat silently on a cold plastic chair, her hands clasped tightly around the edge of her jacket. She had prepared herself mentally, had anticipated this outcome from her physical symptoms, but when she heard the words out loud from the doctor's mouth, everything was still like a shock to her chest.

"Are you okay?" Doctor Lam asked, his eyes observing her pale face.

"I'm fine." Thư Nhã nodded, trying to force a smile. "It's just... a bit of a surprise."

Stepping out of the clinic, the bright afternoon sunlight made her squint her eyes. Standing in the middle of a deserted alley, holding the office bag containing the ultrasound form that was still warm from the printer, Thư Nhã clearly felt one thing: her life, which had been programmed as accurately as an error-free Excel sheet, now had a variable that was not in any plan.

A tiny life is growing inside her body, the result of a drunken night that neither of them dares to repeat, the child of a marriage on paper but the feelings are painfully real.

*

That evening, Thư Nhã sat in her private office in the apartment, the door ajar, the table lamp shining down on the ultrasound form placed on the wooden table. She heard Bách Việt's footsteps coming home late, the sound of taking off his shoes, and the sound of running water in the kitchen as he poured a glass of water.

She raised her hand to knock on the door, intending to come out and tell him the truth. But then the words in the marriage contract appeared clearly in her mind: "No requests for affection. No binding in any form other than the prescribed terms." Isn't a child the greatest form of bondage a woman can impose on a man who has never promised to love her?

She remembered Bách Việt's confused eyes the morning after the drunken night, how he quickly rebuilt the familiar cold wall in just a few minutes. Clearly, for him, that night was just a rare moment of weakness, a mistake that needed to be forgotten as quickly as possible to keep the well-oiled machine of contracted marriage from derailing.

If she told the truth about the child now, what would happen? Bách Việt is a man who values responsibility more than anything. He would not abandon her and the baby, she knew that for sure. But the presence of that responsibility is what she fears most - an already loveless marriage, which will now be further locked by the duty of fatherhood, turning everything into a soft prison that both are forced to enter, not because they want to, but because there is no other choice.

She didn't want Bách Việt to stay with her just because of a child. If one day he stayed, she wanted it to be because he truly wanted to be with her, not because a birth certificate forced him to do so.

She put the ultrasound form in a drawer, next to the velvet box containing her wedding ring, and locked it with the small key she always carried with her. That night, she lay with her back to Bách Việt when he entered the bedroom, pretending to be asleep, while her heart was still pounding and her hand unconsciously placed on her still flat stomach.

*

The next morning, at the office, Thư Nhã returned to her usual calm appearance, arranging her schedule, preparing documents, without any signs that anything had changed in her life. Only Đinh Bội Quyên, her only close friend who is currently the head of the shareholder relations department, was the one who observantly noticed something unusual when he stopped by her room to borrow documents.

"You're noticeably pale these days," Bội Quyên squinted her eyes and observed. "Staying up late working again? How many times have I told you, health is more important."

"It's just a lot of work these days." Thư Nhã smiled lightly, avoiding her friend's probing eyes.

"Yes, I believe you." Bội Quyên shrugged, but her eyes still couldn't hide the fleeting worry. "If you have anything, just tell me, don't hug me alone. You're always like that, you carry everything yourself."

Thư Nhã just smiled and did not respond. She knows Bội Quyên is right - she has always had the habit of shouldering everything on her own, from her father's debt in the past to this secret marriage contract, and now this whole little creature is silently growing up that no one in the world, including the child's father, knows about.

Outside, the winter sun still faintly covered the city, and in Thư Nhã's heart, a decision was gradually forming: she would keep this secret for as long as possible, until she found a way to leave this marriage in the most peaceful way, without causing Lăng Bách Việt to bear any additional responsibilities beyond his own wishes.

She folded up the ultrasound form, put it in a locked drawer, then put on a thin sweater and stepped out onto the balcony to look down at the illuminated city. The cold early winter night wind blew through her hair. She took a deep breath, telling herself to be stronger, because from now on, all her decisions no longer only affected herself.

She did not know that, in another part of the city, an international flight had just landed, carrying a name that had been missing for three years, about to shake up the seemingly stable life of her and Lăng Bách Việt.