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!"

Peter ran down the hill and drove straight back to the hospital.

What a stupid man he was. He actually believed that someone would dare to commit a crime in a place like a hospital.

However, Eleanor was indeed good at acting.

Her eyes were full of respect for Peter and me in the first place.

When things went well between her and Peter, she started to show up in front of me.

After she was pregnant, Eleanor began to provoke me.

On Valentine's Day, I just received Peter's gift. Eleanor already posted something on Moments: I like your gifts. You're so sweet, like these milky candies.

The accompanying picture showed some milk candies on an exquisite tray and a diamond necklace with a cherry blossom pendant.

I looked at my gifts, which included a box of chocolates and a gardenia necklace, and felt only irony.

"Zoey." Peter came over and put the necklace on me. "I designed this pendant for you. Gardenia..."

"It represents a lifetime of love." I interrupted him and smiled. "Mr. Samuel is really loyal and fair. I wonder which is more difficult, designing the cherry blossom or gardenia?"

Peter's expression changed. "Zoey, I already told you that I got drunk that day. How long are you gonna keep raking up the past?"

Peter didn't understand that it wasn't me who was making trouble. Instead, it was his little lover.

I held my chin and counted down to three in my mind as I watched Peter being anxious.

Peter's phone rang on time.

I shook my glass. "Why don't you answer it? The weather is good today, and there's no thunder. Ms. Shane shouldn't be scared. Judging from her menstrual period last month, she shouldn't have menstrual pain, either. So let me guess. Does she feel lonely on Valentine's Day?"

"You must be careful when she's feeling lonely. She may become depressed over time. Ms. Shane is young and has to take care of you and work for you. That must be tough for her. So, you should take care of her emotions."

I took a sip of red wine, still smiling. "Don't bother coming back next time, just accompany her. She's still a girl. If you don't coax her, she'll be mad."

Peter's face turned immediately. Seeing me stand up, he grabbed my hand in panic. "I won't answer her call. I won't contact her again. Zoey, believe me. I just did it with her once after drinking. You are the only one in my heart. You are the one I love..."

Eleanor stood in front of the door, her face pale.

When Peter turned around and saw her, she ran away crying.

I saw the panic in Peter's eyes and sneered, "You're not gonna chase her?"

"No." Peter squeezed my hand hard.

It hurt so much.

——

When Peter rushed to the hospital, Eleanor was hiding in a corner of the terrace.

She was trembling with fear, and when she saw Peter, she ran over and hugged him tightly.

"Peter, you are finally here! I thought..."

"Where are they?" Peter lowered his eyes and looked at Eleanor.

To be precise, he was looking at her belly.

Eleanor burst into tears. "I don't know. They were chasing me, and I ran away. Luckily, it was dark, and I know the hospital. So, they didn't find me. I was so scared. I was afraid that I wouldn't be able to see you again..."

"Okay. No need to be afraid. Let's go back."

Peter patted her back and tried to help her go back, but Eleanor's legs went weak, and she fell into his arms.

"Peter, my... my legs went numb..."

Peter picked her up.

One could easily see the satisfaction in Eleanor's eyes.

She had the same look on that night of Valentine's Day.