The day after my body was thrown into the river, my husband, Peter Samuel, called me back.

"Zoey Tyler, stop this nonsense! I won't marry Eleanor Shane, but I will keep her baby."

My soul floated into the air, and I saw Peter holding a pregnancy test report, stroking it gently with his fingers.

My mother-in-law sat on the sofa, feeding a woman soup gently.

The three of them looked happy.

I wonder

if they would be able to live happily like this if they knew I was dead.

1

Peter hung up the phone as soon as he finished talking as if he was afraid to hear my rejection.

But he didn't know that I would never be able to speak again.

When the kidnapper's sharp knife was against my heart, Peter was holding the pregnancy test report with trembling fingers.

Perhaps Eleanor's pregnancy made him too excited to hear his phone. But he still didn't answer my call even after his phone kept ringing for three minutes.

"Mrs. Samuel." The kidnapper knocked on the surveillance screen impatiently. "You have one last chance. If Mr. Samuel doesn't pick up your call, I will send you to hell."

With shaking hands, I called Peter again.

"Peter, your phone is ringing." Eleanor pushed open the ward door and coughed a few times.

Peter's expression suddenly changed. "Why did you come out? Go back and lie down!"

"Peter, is that Ms. Tyler calling?" Eleanor smiled softly, her eyes sad and generous. "It's been ringing for so long. Why don't you answer it? She may have something important to tell you."

"It's okay." Peter interrupted her calmly, swiped his phone screen, and hung up.

Almost simultaneously, the sharp blade pierced my heart. The intense pain came along with the smell of blood, but my eyes were focused on Peter's face.

He was reaching out to tuck Eleanor's hair behind her ear.

His eyes looked so gentle and soft.

"Eleanor, I can give you everything except marriage after you have my baby."

I felt like laughing.

Peter probably had forgotten

about the day he proposed to me.

He also reached out and tucked my hair behind my ear.

His eyes were just as gentle and soft.

"Zoey, marry me. I can give you everything except money."

I was such a fool to say yes to him.

It was on a quiet night. The kidnappers threw my corpse into the river on the sly.

I seemed to have trouble reconciling myself to die like this, so my soul floated to the hospital.

Eleanor's ward was fully equipped and almost luxurious.

"Well, Peter is no longer the poor guy he used to be. He has plenty of money now.

He wouldn't even hesitate even if staying in the ward costs tens of thousands of dollars per night, let alone only one thousand." I thought.

"Oh, my sweetheart! My sweetheart!" The door was pushed open, and my mother-in-law trotted to Eleanor's bedside, holding her hand with a concerned look on her face. "Sweetheart, how did you faint? You scared me to death!"

Eleanor sat on the hospital bed, looking at Peter shily.

"Mom, Eleanor is pregnant."

My mother-in-law stood up from the stool and exclaimed with joy, "She's pregnant? I knew it! I knew it! That's great! Our Samuel family has an heir now! Thank you, God! Thank you!"

She clasped her hands together and bowed to the sky, then sat back on the stool, still excited. "Sweetheart, what do you want to eat? I'll cook for you. You are with child now. So you must be careful."

"Do you want pickled cucumbers? Pickled radishes? I'll..."

"Mom." Peter interrupted his mother, "Eleanor just woke up. Let her have a rest."

My mother-in-law nodded hurriedly, motioning Peter to follow her out.

As soon as the door was closed, my mother-in-law pinched Peter and said, "I'm warning you, Eleanor's baby will be the eldest grandson of our Samuel family. No matter how Zoey makes a fuss about you, you must keep that baby."

Peter took out a cigarette and said in a muffled voice, "Got it."

"Good. Take care of your wife! If anything happens to my precious grandson, I will never forgive you!"

She glared at Peter and walked away, mumbling in a moderate voice,

"She should be grateful that our Samuel family didn't abandon her! She's just liked a hen that can't lay eggs. I don't know why she's making a fuss every day!"

"Hehe.

I am Peter's wife. But they think I don't have the right to make a fuss.

They forgot who I ruined my health for and made me unable to get pregnant." I thought to myself.

Peter stood in the corridor end for a long time, smoking cigarettes nonstop.

His eyebrows furrowed.

He took out his phone and saw 37 missed calls, all with my full phone number.

He stared at the numbers in a trance.

Three years after Peter and I got married, Peter's company began to get on the right track and was thriving.

Peter and I invested all our company funds in a big project that year. If we succeeded, the Samuel Group would become one of the top three companies in Ricardo.

Peter and I worked day and night, and we finally won our partners over.

At the celebratory party, I turned around with my wine glass in hand and saw a sharp knife coming from behind Peter.

Without a second thought, I rushed over and pushed Peter away.

The sharp blade pierced my abdomen. I began to lose consciousness in the severe pain, and the screams around me were no longer clear. I could only see Peter's frightened eyes.

"Zoey." Peter hugged me in panic, his voice hoarse, "Don't scare me..."

I wanted to say something but had no strength to do so. I could only smile to reassure him.

In a panic, Peter held me and ran, tears flowing down his face.

When I woke up, the first thing I saw were the dark circles under Peter's eyes and the stubble on his chin.

"Zoey." Eyes still red, Peter looked very aggrieved. "If you continue to sleep, I'll kill myself and accompany you."

His words moved me so much that the pain in my body seemed to have eased.

Who would have thought that in just two years, Peter would even have a child with another woman?

Of course, it was also my fault.

My uterus was injured at that time, and I would never be able to get pregnant in this life.

Perhaps Eleanor got worried. She walked out of the ward again.

Gently putting a suit jacket on Peter, she coughed a few times.

"Peter, it's getting cold. You may catch a cold."

Her voice was so soft, so was her face. Eleanor was a typical lady, always gentle and mellow, which could easily arouse men's desire to protect.

I heard that the first time they met, Peter saved Eleanor.

She, a delicate and pretty girl, was molested by a man in a club, and Peter was the hero who saved her.

Later, he took her into the company.

It took half a year for Eleanor to go from a grassroots employee to Peter's chief secretary.

That was pretty fast.

Peter pointed at Eleanor's resume and told me, "This girl is highly educated and capable. If I bring her along to business meetings, my success rate can be doubled."

He was right about business.

I didn't doubt anything because I believed in Peter.

I had confidence in the relationship we had built growing up in an orphanage.

I also had faith in the love we cultivated from the first moment we fell in love.

Besides, I was sure that risking my life to save Peter before would be enough to stop him from falling for other girls.

Therefore,

my blind faith in Peter was actually the reason that I was hurt so badly.

Peter asked Eleanor to return to the ward and drove away.

In the ward, Eleanor's face looked distorted, and she broke several glasses.

It seemed that she had become a little impatient after she got pregnant.

I remembered that Eleanor was a girl who could remain composed even when I slapped her in the face and when other people criticized her.

She just waited for Peter.

When Peter arrived, Eleanor didn't cry. She just looked at him with a pair of misty eyes, biting her lip and making herself look pitiful.

Even when Peter asked her to apologize to me, she could still suppress the resentment in her eyes and bow to me with tears in her eyes.

"Now, Eleanor is pregnant. Why is she so anxious and irritable?" I wondered.

Having watched Eleanor enough, I followed Peter's car.

He parked his car at the orphanage.

It was an orphanage located in the northern suburbs of Ricardo. It was remote and small in scale. It was merged with the orphanage in the east of the city a few years ago.

A few months ago, Peter helped and reconstructed the place, saying that he wanted to build an orphanage in my name.

In fact, Peter and I spent our childhood together here.

When I first met Peter, two older children from the orphanage were pulling the jade pendant around his neck.

He held it tightly and refused to let go, and his little face turned red from anger.

I was six years old that year. Seeing them, I took the water scoop beside me and hit the two bigger boys with it.

The two boys were stunned for a few seconds, and Peter found the stick and drove the boys away in no time.

"This is for you." He took off the jade pendant from his neck. "It's not worth much. I just don't want them to have it."

I refused to take it, so he stuffed the jade pendant into my hand and ran away.

Later, we became what others called childhood sweethearts. We would eat together, go to school together, and fight with others together.

When I had my first period, Peter was embarrassed but still ran to buy me tampons and boil brown sugar water for me.

When he had appendicitis, I carried him to the hospital in the heavy rain.

He refused to be adopted by a well-off family for me.

I gave up a chance to study at an excellent school for him.

From childhood to adolescence, Peter and I had never been separated.

On my eighteenth birthday, Peter held my hand and confessed his love to me in the moonlight.

"Zoey." Even in the darkness, I could still see the uneasiness in his eyes. He stuttered, "H-how do you like... to be with me?"

"What did you say? I didn't hear you." I tilted my head and smiled.

His face turned even redder. "Let's be a couple."

"What?"

He finally realized that I was teasing him and hugged me. His warm breath made my ears tickle. "I love you. Do you wanna be my girlfriend, Zoey?"

I smiled and picked a gardenia. Joy appeared in his eyes, and he put the flower on my hair.

"Zoey, what do you say?" He asked cautiously. Seeing that I smiled but said nothing, Peter held me and whispered, "I don't care. I planted this gardenia for you. You picked my flowers, which means you said yes."

"No! There are many girls who may pick these flowers. How many girlfriends will you have?"

Peter became anxious immediately. "I only want you, Zoey. I don't like other girls."

The way he scratched his head in embarrassment made me laugh so hard that I couldn't straighten my back. He stopped explaining, just held my face, and kissed me.

That was our first kiss. It was clumsy but sweet.

Peter said that gardenia represented a lifetime of love, and he would love me all his life.

"Well, listen to that. How ridiculous.

I hadn't even lived half my life when he indirectly ended my life.

A lifetime of love, heh!" I thought to myself.

The pain deep in my soul made me tremble, and my weightless tears were blown away by the wind soon.

Peter walked up the back hill of the orphanage.

I didn’t know why he came to the back hill at that time.

Every year, Peter would take me there to celebrate my birthday.

Although it was just an ordinary hillside, Peter could always create something romantic out of it.

He would catch a bottle of fireflies, ask me to close my eyes and release them when I opened my eyes.

He would take a few beers and a telescope and patiently wait for a meteor shower with me.

He would carry me up and down the hill over and over again, and even when his feet were blistered, he would still smile.

The gardenia garden was also on the back hill.

Although our love had faded, the gardenias were still blooming, giving a refreshing fragrance.

Peter took out a cigarette, and the light flickered in the darkness.

His hand stroked the beautiful gardenia petals when his cell phone rang suddenly.

"Peter, come and save me! Ms. Tyler sent someone to kill our child!"