Chapter 3 — Tears in the Frost

In the sixth week of pregnancy, Thư Nhã learned how to live two parallel lives in the same body. In the morning, she was the perfect executive secretary, wearing well-tailored suits so that no one would notice the subtle changes to her waist. In the evening, after closing the bathroom door, she allowed herself to collapse onto the sink, her hands trembling on the edge of the sink, enduring the intense nausea that at times her eyes went dark.

She discovered a strange pattern: morning sickness often came most intensely around nine o'clock in the morning, right when she had to bring tea into the meeting room for the board of directors. The smell of green tea, the smell she once loved, now became torture. She learned to hold her breath while pouring tea, learned to smile while her stomach churned, learned to ask permission to go out just as the vomit reached her throat, and then returned to the meeting room with a calm expression as if nothing had ever happened.

"You often ask to go out in the middle of meetings these days." One time, while the two were in the car traveling between two appointments, Bách Việt suddenly spoke up, still looking out the window. "Are there any health problems?"

Thư Nhã's heart skipped a beat. She clasped the documents in her arms, keeping her voice as calm as possible. "I've had a bit of digestive upset lately, probably due to irregular eating. It's nothing serious." He looked at her for a moment, his eyes sharp as if he was considering something, then just nodded. "If you need to rest, just arrange it. Work is not as important as health."

If it were three years ago, Thư Nhã would have just considered that sentence as a normal social concern of a responsible boss towards his subordinates. But now, after that drunken night, after she carried a part of his flesh and blood within her, each seemingly normal sentence from Bách Việt made her heart stir, both warm and painful, because she knew clearly that if he knew the truth, those caring words would have a completely different tone - heavy with responsibility, no longer as gentle as now.

*

The first person who almost discovered her secret was, ironically, not Bách Việt.

Late one afternoon, when Thư Nhã sat in the backseat of the car, dizzy from fatigue and hunger - she had skipped lunch because she was too nauseous to eat - Tạ Khắc Bình, Bách Việt's loyal driver and security assistant, glanced through the rearview mirror, his voice careful.

"Miss Thư Nhã, you don't seem to be feeling well. Shall I stop by the pharmacy to buy something?"

"No need, just a bit tired." She waved her hand, but soon a wave of dizziness struck her, forcing her to close her eyes and grip the armrest of the chair.

Khắc Bình was silent for a while, then turned the car into a small pharmacy on the side of the road, bought a box of warm milk and a few ginger cookies - famous cakes that help reduce nausea. He didn't say anything more, just quietly placed the bag on the chair next to her.

"Thank you." Thư Nhã looked at the bag of cakes in surprise, then looked at Khắc Bình through the rearview mirror.

"My wife was pregnant with our first child and had the same morning sickness," he spoke softly, his eyes still focused on driving, not looking at her anymore as if to tactfully not want her to be embarrassed. "You just take care of your health. If you want to keep anything private, I won't tell anyone, not even the General Director."

Thư Nhã was stunned, her hand clenched the bag of ginger cookies, her throat choked. She is someone who always controls all expressions in front of others, but at this moment, facing Khắc Bình's subtlety and tolerant silence, tears almost flowed out of her eyes.

"Thank you." She could only repeat those three words, her voice hoarse, her heart strangely warmed by the unexpected sophistication of someone who had only been known as a quiet driver for so many years.

From that day on, Khắc Bình became the only person besides doctor Thảo Lam who knew about the child's existence, even though no one said it clearly. He silently adjusted his driving speed to be smoother, avoided bumpy roads, and always had a bottle of warm water ready in the car - small concerns that Thư Nhã appreciated more than any flowery words of encouragement.

*

That same evening, Thư Nhã sat in her private office and wrote out a list of planned expenses for an independent life: rent for a small apartment in another area of the city, monthly living expenses, and savings for giving birth and raising children in the first years of life. She had quietly saved a decent amount of money after three years of working with the generous salary Bách Việt paid for the role of private secretary, plus an allowance in the marriage contract.

She crossed out each line, calculating meticulously as if she were making a budget for a company project, but her hand trembled slightly every time she wrote the line "cost of raising a child alone". There is a part of her, a weak part that she always tries to hide, that still longs for another scenario — where Bách Việt knows the truth, where he puts his hand on her shoulder and says he wants to welcome this child with her, not out of responsibility, but out of love.

But she quickly quashed that thought. Three years of living together was enough for her to clearly understand that Lăng Bách Việt was a man who puts reason above all else. He would fulfill his responsibility if he knew there was a child, but responsibility was not love, and she did not want to spend the rest of her life with someone who only stayed out of duty.

Furthermore, recently she noticed something unstable in Bách Việt's mood. Several times he sat in his private office long after work, his eyes looking far away through the glass window, his hand unconsciously clenching the pen on the desk until his knuckles turned white. One evening, she caught him standing silently in front of the computer screen, on which was an article about the financial market mentioning the name of an emerging foreign investment fund. His face darkened for a moment before hastily turning off the screen when he saw her enter.

Thư Nhã did not ask. She just silently observed, and a vague but persistent premonition arose in her heart that something from the past was waiting to return, something related to a person whose name Bách Việt had never mentioned in front of her, but whose existence always lingered somewhere in his unusual moments of silence like this.

*

Late at night, when Bách Việt was fast asleep, Thư Nhã quietly got out of bed, walked out to the small balcony of the apartment, and put on a thin sweater to block the cold of early winter. She looked down at the city's sparkling lights, placing her hand on her still flat stomach, but she knew that inside, a small life was silently growing every day.

"Mom, I'm sorry," she whispered, her voice so low that only the night wind could hear it. "I don't know if you will grow up in a perfect family or not. But I promise, no matter what, I will not let you live in a house where love is just a fake thing maintained out of obligation."

The night wind blew past, carrying the cold air of the first frost, penetrating into each thin fiber of my shirt. Thư Nhã stood there for a long time, until her legs were numb from the cold, until in her heart, the decision to leave gradually became clearer and more steadfast than ever - not because she no longer loved Lăng Bách Việt, but because she loved him too much, enough not to want to imprison him in a marriage forced by an unplanned child.

She didn't know, behind the bedroom door, Bách Việt was not sleeping as soundly as she thought. He lay there, eyes closed, ears listening to the sound of her light footsteps leaving and returning, heart heavy with his own thoughts—thoughts about a name that had just reappeared in a financial news report this afternoon, a name associated with the most painful memory of his life, a name he had hoped he would never have to hear again.

She went back into the room and gently climbed into bed, trying not to make any noise that might wake him up. In the darkness, she listened to Bách Việt's steady breathing, wondering if one day, the two could be honest with each other about all their hidden secrets, or would they forever be just two strangers sharing the same roof, the same bed, but never truly touching each other's hearts.

Both of them, in the same apartment, in the same bed, are carrying separate secrets in their hearts, and both of them are unaware that those secrets are about to collide with each other, creating an earthquake that no one can stop.