When my husband Jason Carter’s first love, Renee Lynn, showed up at our doorstep heavily pregnant in my past life, I still refused to divorce him.

She was soon accidentally pushed down the stairs by debt collectors, killing both her and the baby.

Ever since then, Jason hated me to the core. Not only did he cheat and keep a mistress, but he also conspired with her violent, mentally unstable brother to kill me.

Before I took my last breath, he sneered, “You owe Renee a life. It’s time to pay up.”

Fine. I must have been blind.

After my reincarnation, I decisively signed the divorce papers, abandoned my savior complex, and stopped meddling in others’ fates.

If he wanted to be a pathetic simp, I would let him be.

“Yvonne, we were classmates once. Please, me and my baby just need a way to survive.”

Renee Lynn was crying her eyes out, looking so delicate and pitiful. She clutched my hand tightly, her eight-month pregnant belly sticking out. She looked like she was about to drop to her knees.

The slight sting of her nails scraping against the back of my hand jolted me awake.

Instinctively, I reached for my neck. There was no blood. I took a deep breath, exhaled forcefully, and felt the smooth flow of air in my lungs.

I felt perfectly normal, not a trace of pain or unease.

I had been reincarnated.

Just one glance at the scene in front of me, and I knew exactly what was happening. This was two years ago, the day Renee could not hold back any longer and came to force me out of my own home.

My heart pounded. I silently thanked god for being kind to me this time.

In the few seconds I hesitated, my mother-in-law had already stepped forward to help Renee up, preventing her from kneeling.

She shot me a sideways glance. Her aged face twisted with resentment as she sneered, “You’re truly heartless! How could you force a pregnant woman to kneel before you? Let me make this clear—whether you like it or not, you’re getting a divorce. Renee was always meant to be the Carter family’s daughter-in-law!”

I snatched the divorce papers from Jason Carter’s hands. All three of them went stiff, staring at me in panic, afraid I would rip it to shreds.

That was exactly what I had done in my past life.

That day, I had just found out I was pregnant. I had been planning to share the joy with them…

One could imagine how I felt.

Anger, injustice, and utter disbelief. Why? Why did I have to step aside just because she showed up?

For three years, I stood by Jason’s side through thick and thin. We endured hardships together and built everything from the ground up!

Now, just because Renee married a gambling addict, I had to clean up her mess?

To top it off, Jason was more than happy to take responsibility for her.

Fine. This time, I would make it easy for them.

Jason quickly tried to intervene. “Yvonne, calm down. Let’s part on good…”

Before he could even finish his sentence, I had already signed the papers.

He was overthinking it. Now that I had been given a second chance at life, I was going to run as far away as possible. I would not let him pin Renee’s future misfortunes on me again.

Just thinking about it made me feel sick.

I handed him his copy of the divorce papers. He was so stunned that he hesitated for a moment and did not even catch them in time.

He never expected me to be this decisive.

He knew how much I loved him!

Before this, he even tried to trick me into signing the divorce papers by lying to me.

He claimed that the business was struggling and the company has been losing money every year. He had taken out loans he could not repay. He claimed that if we divorced, he would leave me the house, the car, and all the savings as though that was supposed to be my safety net.

Unfortunately, I saw right through him. I had already uncovered his affair with Renee.

The moment she cried to him, he would rush to pay off her husband’s gambling debts.

Since he insisted on being a doormat instead of a real man, I would make sure he got to be one!

Watching the three of them exchange uneasy glances with each other, looking utterly dumbfounded, I smirked. “Excuse me, but this is my home, not a dumpster. Now, do me a favor and leave.”

I almost forgot about the pregnancy. I pulled out the pregnancy test report from my bag and tossed them in front of them.

“I’ll handle this myself. Neither of you deserves to be my future child's father or grandmother.”

I felt a tinge of guilt for this child who never got the chance to be born in my past life. However, at the same time, I knew I could not bring him into this world.

This was the only way to cut things off completely.

My mother-in-law’s expression flickered with reluctance, but she quickly masked it. Instead, she gently stroked Renee’s belly and said dismissively, “As if we’d even care!”

How ridiculous. She really thought the child in Renee’s belly was Jason’s.

Since Renee was the daughter of her best friend, my mother-in-law had always treated her like a future daughter-in-law. When Renee married someone else, she regretted it for a long time.

She never even tried to hide her disdain. No matter what I did, she always found fault with me, convinced that I was not good enough for her son. She never once treated me kindly.

Jason glanced at the pregnancy test report in my hand, and it was like he regained some confidence.

He let out a cold sneer. “Give it a rest. Don’t think you can trap me with a baby. Do whatever you want, but I’m never leaving Renee. I love her.”

As he spoke, he wrapped his arm around Renee’s shoulders, and she leaned into his embrace like a delicate little flower. They looked just like the perfect, loving couple.

That was so typical of him!

Ignoring his own flesh and blood, yet bending over backward to play daddy to someone else’s kid.

In my past life, I had always wondered why I suddenly miscarried.

Renee had just died at that time. When Jason found out I lost the baby, he actually laughed. He told me that it was karma.

It was not until later that I realized that he had drugged the tonic I was drinking.

Even wild animals would not harm their own young!

He was worse than a beast.

I glanced at Renee’s belly, smirking meaningfully as I clapped slowly. “Wow! What a saint. Your love truly knows no bounds.”

Renee’s face instantly darkened, and my mother-in-law, Lillian Wright, looked confused.

Even though she never liked me, she knew I was not someone who spoke nonsense.

“What do you mean by that?” pressed Lillian.

After all, this concerned the Carter family’s bloodline. She could not afford to be careless. It was only now that she seemed to realize that Jason had never actually confirmed anything himself. She had simply assumed.

Before I could respond, Jason hurriedly grabbed his mother’s arm. “Don’t listen to her nonsense. She’s just trying to stir up trouble. Let’s go.”

As I shut the door behind them, I finally let out a deep breath. Memories of my past life came rushing back.

The three of us had been college classmates, though we were not particularly close.

It was not until after graduation, when Jason and I started interning at the same company, that we became friendly with each other.

Eventually, he openly pursued me, and naturally, we got together. After we got married, we left our jobs and started our own business.

One day, by chance, I opened his laptop and discovered a hidden photo album. Every single picture inside was of Renee. That was when I finally remembered her.

Jason admitted that he had liked Renee in the past, but he insisted that he loved me now. Plus, Renee was already married.

At the time, I was too blind to notice the fleeting sadness in his eyes when he mentioned her marriage.

We started a logistics company together, and as it grew, he suggested I step back and focus on preparing for a baby.

In just under six months, he was already back in touch with Renee, constantly sending her money and support. He was willing to go to any lengths to save her from her miserable marriage, even if it meant forcing me into a divorce.

Renee had married the wrong man. Her husband was a gambling addict who was drowning in debt and constantly on the run from loan sharks. She was beaten and threatened daily.

They came up with a ridiculous plan. If Jason paid off all the debts, Renee’s husband would agree to a divorce and let him take her.

It was absolutely insane.

I refused to do so in my past life. Just two weeks later, Renee was pushed down the stairs by a loan shark and died, taking her unborn child with her.

Jason hated me to the core. Soon after, he cheated on me with a new secretary at our company. Not only that, but he even rented her an apartment right next to mine just to disgust me.

However, that was not the worst part.

Later, he deliberately let her mentally unstable brother, a man with violent tendencies, into my home. The man came at me with a kitchen knife. With each stab, I felt the life drain from me.

I ran my fingers over my slender, pale neck. I was almost able to feel the sharp pain and the suffocating agony of my windpipe being slit open back then.

I could not say a word.

My bloodshot eyes locked onto Jason’s face, as though I was seeing him for the first time.

He swore to me that his feelings for Renee were long gone.

He swore that the only person he loved was me...

Still, in my final moments, his last words to me were, “You owe Renee a life. It's time to pay up.”

Ha, I was a fool!

A storm of thoughts raced through my mind.

This time around, I let them be together. Would Renee still die?

Would that secretary still show up?

Of course, my top priority was myself. I have no intention of meeting an early grave this time around.

I hired a lawyer to handle the asset division and other legal matters. Then, I booked a flight and took off on a trip.

I never had a single day of peace in my past life. Orphaned young, I grew up in an orphanage, worked my way into college, then struggled to build a life on my own. After getting married, starting a business was even harder.

Life was anything but easy after becoming a full-time housewife. Cooking, cleaning, taking care of my husband, dealing with a difficult mother-in-law, and enduring endless pressure to have a baby.

I would live for myself this time.

Loving myself was the start of a lifelong romance.

By the time the official divorce day rolled around, I came back looking radiant.

It was my day, after all. I wore a brand-new dress, styled my hair, and did my makeup. Jason could not hide his surprise when he saw me.

Renee, on the other hand, frowned in displeasure and pinched his arm, only did he come back to his senses.

“Why are you so late? Hurry up. We have a prenatal checkup after this!”

Jason urged impatiently, his eyes flickering with an unspoken anger.

I knew him too well. He was pissed.

The way he saw it, there was no way I would walk away from this divorce so effortlessly.

I was supposed to be at home, crying my eyes out, looking miserable.

His ego had always been ridiculously inflated, and I had spent years carefully tending to it.

However, not this time.

The divorce was finalized in no time.

As we walked out, Jason suddenly stopped, grabbing my wrist. “I’ll pay child support if you have the baby, but as for me? Forget it. I’m never losing Renee again.”

I rolled my eyes so hard they nearly got stuck.

I scoffed and turned away without a second glance.

That lunatic was on a whole other level.

Did he really think I was bluffing when I said I would get an abortion? I had just been too busy to handle it yet.

Did he really think I would be too heartbroken to let go? That I would keep the baby, struggle as a miserable single mom, and spend the rest of my life pining over him?

It looked like he had been living in a fantasy novel for too long!

The truth was that some people were just pathetic. When I loved him with all my heart, he used that love to trample all over me. However, the moment I took that love back, he did not know what to do with himself.

Before leaving, I made a quick stop at the restroom, only to accidentally stumble upon Renee locked in a heated kiss with some guy, tucked away in a secluded corner.

That man was none other than her ex-husband, Lawrence Ross.

Wow. These two sure knew how to play the game.

All this time, Jason was nothing more than a pawn in their twisted little game.

I had heard about it once at a class reunion in my past life. Renee had always kept Jason as a backup plan.

It seemed like nothing had changed.

Meanwhile, he still thought he was winning.

Renee’s expression flickered with guilt when she saw me, but she quickly steadied herself, lifting her chin with confidence.

“Well, who do you think Jason will believe? You or me?”

Did she actually think I was going to run to Jason and snitch?