He used to say that whenever he was tired, all he had to do was lie down on this couch and every memory of our life together would come flooding back.

He wouldn't even let his own mother sit on it.

But now, he and Nora had been tangled up on it together.

And he wanted me to deal with the dirty sheets.

Because I was good at it.

When he saw me standing there frozen, he urged：

“Nora's a neat freak. She can't stand the smell.”

The lingering scent hit me before it could fully dissipate, and my stomach turned.

“James, what exactly do you think I am?”

He paused mid-step and answered without a shred of shame：

“My wife, obviously!”

I hurled the sheets at his face.

Then I sent the prenup and the video of him admitting to the affair straight to my lawyer.

“James, I want a divorce!”

He frowned and sighed, then started changing the sheets himself.

“This divorce talk is getting old.”

A man who couldn't figure out a fitted sheet at home had the sofa bed re-made in minutes.

More practiced than I'd ever been.

“Oh, right. I signed you up for a premium nanny training course so you can take care of Nora through the birth!”

“Don't let me down.”

So that was why he wouldn't agree to a divorce. He wanted a free servant.

I was speechless, but he was already heading for the conference room.

Peter caught up with him, his voice low and worried：

“Mr. Gilbert, treating your wife this way, what if she makes a scene?”

“A scene?”

“She'd rather take hundreds of injections than give me a child. What right does she have to make a scene?”

“Besides, a woman who refuses to have kids? Without me, who'd want her?”

His voice was pitched just right, loud enough for every employee nearby to hear.

The looks they gave me ranged from contempt to amusement to pity……

Nora sidled up to me, oozing fake concern：

“Madge, James still remembers everything you went through for him. Why not quit while you're ahead?”

Oh, he remembered what I'd endured, all right.

He was punishing me for it.

I ignored Nora and walked to the print room.

She trailed behind me and caught sight of the words DIVORCE AGREEMENT. Shock and delight flickered across her face.

Two seconds of reading, and her voice dropped to a hiss：

“Madge Rowe! What makes you think you can force James to leave with nothing?”

“His affair. That's what.”

A sharp crack echoed through the room.

Nora slapped herself across the face, twice, and in the process knocked over a bottle of red ink.

Then she dropped to the floor, sitting in the spreading pool of crimson：

“You won't even give James a child! You're the one who should leave with nothing! If I weren't so generous, you'd never have been Mrs. Gilbert in the first place!”

Generous. Again.

She and James really were a perfect match.

The next second, she scrambled out of the print room on her hands and knees, face twisted in terror, and screamed：

“Madge, I already agreed to terminate the pregnancy! Why are you still hitting me?”

Her screams brought James running.

He took one look at Nora's wrecked state, then rounded on me, roaring：

“Madge Rowe! I trusted you, and you lay hands on Nora and my son?”

Nora clutched her stomach, tears streaming down her face：

“James, it's my fault for being so naive. I thought Madge was just afraid of the pain and didn't want to have a baby herself, so I offered to carry one for her as a way of repaying her kindness. I never imagined she'd use it as an excuse to make you leave with nothing……”

“I told her that marriage means something, that she shouldn't let me come between you two, and she slapped me and said the bastard in my belly deserved to die……”

I'd expected Nora to pull something. My phone had been recording the whole time.

I was about to show James the video when he saw the words "leaving with nothing" on the divorce agreement and backhanded me across the face.

My phone hit the floor and the screen went black.

“If I didn't want to give you a painless path to motherhood, I'd have kept Nora and the baby hidden from you forever!”

“I gave you everything, and this is how you repay me?”

He was the one who wanted a child. Now somehow he'd spun it into a favor he was doing for me.

Even telling me to my face, openly punishing me, counted as sincerity in his mind.

What a joke.

I swallowed the blood pooling in my mouth and slapped him right back.

James flinched from the sting and shoved me away.

The back of my skull cracked against the fire extinguisher mount.

A warm rush spilled out, dripping down.

It mixed with the red ink on the floor until you couldn't tell which was redder.

James didn't spare me a glance. He rushed to check on Nora：

“Nora, are you okay?”

My vision kept going black, everything blurring at the edges.

But I could still make out the two of them, examining each other for injuries.

“James, this is all my fault……”

Nora dabbed at the blood seeping from the corner of his mouth with one hand and turned to cry at me with the other：

“Madge, I promise I'll get rid of the baby right away!”

“Just please don't divorce him! Stop fighting with him!”

James looked deeply moved. He softened his voice to comfort her：

“If she wants a divorce, fine. But our child is not being touched.”

He turned to me, his eyes frozen over：

“Madge, you really can't stand to let Nora and her child exist?”

The pain wrung tears from my eyes before I could stop them.

He mistook them for surrender.

The ice in his gaze thawed.

He crouched down, wiped my tears, and reached out to pull me up.

But I couldn't get my legs under me.

His hand went rigid. Disappointment flooded his face, and he flung my hand away：

“Keep this up and there's really nothing left to say.”

I couldn't form words. I reached back and touched the base of my skull.

My palm came away solid red, and the color drained from his face：

“Quick! Get the first aid kit! Call 911!”

But Nora stopped him. She half-knelt beside me and started wiping the blood from my hand.

“James, don't panic! It's just ink……”

One touch was all it took for her to realize something was wrong.

But she didn't stop.

The tears came even faster, as if I were deliberately making her wait on me.

I yanked my hand free in disgust. She used the momentum to topple backward.

Both hands clutched her stomach, her face going white in an instant：

“Ah! My stomach……it hurts……”

James panicked on the spot, scooped her up, and headed for the hospital.

A spike of pain shot through my skull. I grabbed his pant leg on instinct：

“Take me to the hospi……”

“Peter, take her to the hospital!”

I thought he'd finally noticed I was hurt. Relief loosened something in me, and consciousness slipped away.

When I opened my eyes again, I was in the hospital.

James sat at the bedside, lightly brushing the gauze on my head. His voice was flat：

“You nearly beat Nora into a miscarriage. You can apologize by giving up your title as my wife. Then we're even.”

“I hurt you, but I also made it so you get to be a mother right away. So we're even on that too.”

I stared at him, stunned.

James pulled out the divorce papers and explained：

“The embryo in your belly has nothing to do with me. That makes it the same as if you cheated. Once Nora gives birth, we'll remarry.”

“But the child you're carrying has to be terminated at six months.”

I looked at the clause requiring the wife to leave with nothing, and my whole body went cold.

“James Gilbert, you bastard!”

“You'd do this to me over someone else's kid?”

He pressed the nurse call button and summoned a doctor instead of answering.

He held out a card：

“Book me the best doctor in this hospital. Make sure the child is terminated at six months. Do as little damage to her body as possible.”

The doctor frowned, pushed the card back, and snapped：

“Absolutely not.”

“Wasn't it enough that you got Dr. Chavez disciplined? Now you want to take me down too?”

“If it weren't for the fact that your dead sperm syndrome makes you completely infertile, Dr. Chavez would never have broken medical ethics to implant that embryo in your wife!”