“All right, Daddy will come for you tomorrow!”

Mavis said：“Daddy, tomorrow is too soon. There's still so much I haven't settled. Wait a month, until Bartholomew and I are divorced, and then come for me.”

On the other end, her father went quiet for a few seconds. When he spoke again, his voice had dropped low：

“Divorce? When I first wanted to bring you home to inherit the family fortune, you told me you had a husband who loved you deeply. It hasn't been long at all. Why this sudden talk of divorce?”

“Tell Daddy. Has he mistreated you?”

Mavis's throat was raw, and she didn't know where to begin.

Mistreated? Not exactly.

It was only that his heart no longer belonged to her.

She drew in a deep breath and forced down the sob threading through her voice：

“No. I just realized we don't suit each other. It's time to leave.”

Afraid her father might sense something more, Mavis offered a few light words and hung up.

Without thinking, she tapped open her chat thread with Bartholomew.

Somewhere along the way, every reply he sent her had narrowed to a single word: 「Okay.」

She pressed hard against her memory, and at last a few faint threads surfaced.

Half a year ago, she had gone to close a difficult client for Bartholomew, only for the man to take advantage of her.

But that man's project decided whether Henson Group could go public, so Mavis didn't dare offend him. All she could do was send Bartholomew message after message, begging for help.

Her hands had been trembling the whole time she typed.

Those messages were still there, even now：

「Bartholomew, I'm in the Nightfall VIP lounge. Come save me, quick.」

His reply：「Okay.」

Half an hour passed. Mavis sent another message：

「Bartholomew, are you here yet? How much longer? I can't hold on much more.」

Right away, he replied with another okay.

Because of those replies, Mavis kept waiting for him, again and again.

But Bartholomew never came, and she was nearly raped. By some mercy she'd smashed a wine bottle over the client's head, and the police hauled them both away.

Yet that night left her with an intimacy disorder. She couldn't bear any closeness with a man after that.

Bartholomew didn't drift in until the next day, and only then did he apologize.

He said：“Mavis, I'm always so busy, and I was afraid I couldn't reply to you in time, so I set up an auto-reply.”

Bartholomew promised her it would never happen again.

But the ending was always the same.

Mavis scrolled through her old conversations with Bartholomew, deleting each one the moment she read it.

Line by line, she was peeling him out of her heart.

She didn't know how long she deleted before the pain dragged her into a fitful sleep.

At two in the morning, the chime of a message jolted her awake.

Cold sweat still beaded on her forehead. The moment her eyes opened, she saw the taunting messages Sonia had sent, one after another.

In the photo, Sonia's fingers were laced through Bartholomew's, and the ring on the woman's hand was glaringly bright.

The logo on that ring belonged to a brand Bartholomew had designed for her after founding his company.

He'd once called it the symbol of true love, and sworn that this brand would create pieces for her alone, for the rest of his life.

Back then, to design a ring that was one of a kind in all the world, Bartholomew had gone three nights straight without sleep.

The Bartholomew of those days truly had loved her. But how easily a man's love turns on a dime.

She looked at the taunting messages Sonia had sent, one after another.

One of them cut all the way through her.

So while she'd been on the table for her abortion, Bartholomew had been in bed with Sonia.

Mavis curled in on herself against the pain, and forcing it down, she typed out each word：

“Sonia, everything you're wearing, everything on your hand, all of it is marital property shared by me and Bartholomew. Don't come taunting me again, or I'll have you stripped of every last piece on the spot and take back everything that belongs to me!”

The moment the message sent, Mavis powered off her phone.

She told herself, over and over, to hold on a little longer. Once she was gone, she'd never have to swallow anyone's temper again.

All night, Mavis slept poorly, sharp pains stabbing through her lower abdomen.

Only at daybreak did she drift into a shallow sleep, but she'd barely closed her eyes before a thunderous slam of the door jolted her awake.

Bartholomew, gone all night, had finally come home. His face was twisted with rage.

He clamped down on Mavis's wrist, gripping so hard he nearly crushed the bone.

“Mavis, why can't you stand the sight of Sonia? You sent her threatening messages, scared her so badly she ran away from home. Are you satisfied now?”

“Years ago you stole the place that should have been hers, the rightful Swanson heiress. Now you pull every trick in the book to drive her out. Do you think that's going to win you more of our love?”

“Keep dreaming! All you've done is make us hate you, make us sick to our stomachs over you!”

Mavis's head buzzed. She'd ached the whole night through, the sweat on her pillow still damp. But Bartholomew couldn't see that. There was room for no one in his eyes but Sonia.

Her nose stung, and her eyes brimmed with wounded grief.

“Bartholomew, are you blind? Can't you see Sonia provoked me first? All I did was tell her the truth. Which part of it, which single word, did I get wrong?”

Seeing Mavis on the verge of breaking, Bartholomew's brow knit faintly, yet his voice stayed hard:

“Sonia's younger than you. She's got a grudge against you in her heart. Would it kill you to give in to her a little?”

“Mavis, I'm the one who loves her, I'm the one who wants to be with her. If you've got a problem, take it up with me. Picking on a young girl, what does that make you?”

The man's iron-edged words struck the very bottom of her heart, blow after blow.

She remembered the first time Sonia had bullied her. Back then, Bartholomew had stood by her without question. He'd said:

“Sonia, so what if you're the real Swanson heiress? Mavis is my wife. Whatever grudge you've got against her, bring it to me. Don't you dare pick on her.”

How long ago had that been? And now the man's attitude had flipped to the opposite extreme.

Inch by inch, Mavis's heart iced over. Stubbornly, she lifted her gaze and locked it on him:

“I've already said what I said. What's the point of you coming to me now?”

Bartholomew: “To take you to find Sonia, so you can apologize to her face to face!”

The scorn on Mavis's face deepened.

She wasn't the one who'd done wrong, yet she was the one being ordered to apologize to Sonia.

But the old Bartholomew, he used to ache just hearing her speak a single soft word to anyone else.

Mavis's nails dug into her palm, blood seeping out drop by drop. She spoke each word slow and deliberate:

“I did nothing wrong, and I will not apologize!”

In an instant, Bartholomew's face went dark, and he hauled Mavis downstairs.

She hadn't even put on shoes. The skin of her feet scraped raw against the floor, and she winced, brows pinched tight with pain.

“Bartholomew, let go of me. I want a divorce. You have no right to treat me like this!”

But Bartholomew shot back: “Divorce you, and let you crawl back to the Swansons so you can bully Sonia even more freely? Mavis, I will never give you that chance!”

Mavis's feet hurt, but what hurt more was her heart.

So he'd refused the divorce not because he loved her, but because he couldn't bear to see Sonia suffer the slightest wrong.

No sooner had she been dragged downstairs, dizzy and still unable to find her feet, than a slap cracked hard across her face.

Mavis's vision went black, her ears ringing, her skull splitting with pain. It took a long while before she could make out the face in front of her.

Davina Swanson looked at her the way one looks at a mortal enemy.

“Mavis, if I'd known you'd hurt our flesh-and-blood daughter like this, we never should have taken you in. We should have strangled you the moment you came back!”

Mavis's heart felt like it was being twisted by a merciless blade, the pain stealing the breath from her lungs.

The day Sonia had been brought home, the Swansons had promised her with their own lips:

“Mavis, no matter what happens, you'll always be Mom and Dad's good daughter.”

The Davina of those days had been afraid of hurting her if she so much as snagged a hair while brushing it. Now she drove the knife in, again and again.

Then Davina pulled a document from her bag and flung it in Mavis's face.

“This is the disownment agreement between you and the Swansons. From this day on, you are no longer our daughter!”

“Mavis, we will never give you another chance to hurt Sonia!”

The color drained from Mavis's face inch by inch. She looked at her arm, at the burn scars on it, and her eyes turned red.

She was the one who'd been hurt all along, yet her husband, her parents, every last one of them stood on Sonia's side.

Fine. If they cared about Sonia that much, then let them all be together for the rest of their lives.

She would never, ever give them another chance to hurt her.

Because the family ties had been severed, the elder Swansons forbade her from ever setting foot in the Swanson house again.

Bartholomew had gone out with them to look for Sonia.

Mavis dragged herself up from the floor inch by inch, but a flood of dark red blood seeped from between her thighs.

Her vision went black, and she collapsed completely.

When she woke again, the servants had already carried her to the bed. The family doctor finished examining her and said, with concern,

"Mrs. Henson, you've just suffered a miscarriage. The bleeding hasn't fully passed, and with such violent swings in your emotions, if this keeps up, I'm afraid you'll be left with permanent damage."

Permanent damage?

All these years, she'd been schemed against by Sonia, in the open and behind her back. The wounds on her body were too many to count.

Before she could say a word, the television in front of her blared out the hottest headline of the moment.

"Breaking news: Mavis Swanson, eldest daughter of the Swanson Group, is a fake heiress who has secretly bullied the true heiress, Sonia Swanson, for years."

What followed was a barrage of video "evidence," shot from every angle, of her tormenting Sonia.

There was even official confirmation from Bartholomew and the Swanson parents. Just like that, she had become the wicked woman on everyone's lips.

The family doctor was on fairly good terms with Mavis, and offered kindly,

"Mrs. Henson, would you like me to tell Mr. Henson that you've only just had a miscarriage, so that he'll take better care of you?"

Mavis shook her head. "Thank you for your kindness, but please don't tell him I was pregnant. When the time is right, I'll tell him myself."

The doctor didn't understand, but respected her wishes.

"All right. This is a private matter between you and Mr. Henson, so I won't say a word."

Weak as she was, Mavis slept through the entire afternoon.

When she woke that evening and came downstairs to find something to eat, she happened to see Bartholomew walking in with Sonia.

Sonia pointed at Mavis and said,

"Bartholomew, you said it yourself. My sister has to be my maid for seven days."

Bartholomew noticed how pale Mavis looked, and felt a flicker of reluctance.

Sonia caught the man's hesitation and pretended to be hurt.

"Never mind. If you don't want to, I won't force it. I just don't know how my dear sister will bully me next time."

At that, Bartholomew immediately caved.

"Fine, fine, I promise you. She really was in the wrong this time, and she really does owe you some kind of amends."

The two of them simply made the decision for Mavis, as though she weren't even there.

"Bartholomew," Mavis said, "what gives you the right to decide for me?"

"I did nothing wrong, and there's no way I'm playing Sonia's maid to apologize. Dream on, both of you!"

With that, Mavis turned to leave, only for Bartholomew to seize her arm.

"Mavis, don't be ridiculous. You were a counterfeit heiress to begin with, and now you've hurt Sonia again. What's wrong with being her maid and letting her vent a little?"

Mavis's throat closed up, every word she wanted to say jamming in her mouth.

The day her identity had been exposed, this man had said the one he loved would always be her, no matter who she was.

Now it was clear. All of it had been garbage.

Mavis drew in a deep breath. Perhaps she should end this as quickly as possible.

"You want me to be her maid? Then sign something for me."

Mavis went into the room, took out the divorce agreement, flipped straight to the last page, and held out a pen.

Bartholomew didn't flip through it. He cared about only one thing. "Once I sign this agreement, you'll agree to be Sonia's maid?"

Mavis answered without a shred of hesitation. "Yes."

Sonia tugged at the corner of Bartholomew's shirt, wheedling,

"Bartholomew, hurry and sign it."

Bartholomew didn't hesitate. He didn't even read a single line. He simply signed his name.

Watching the man's signature land on the page, Mavis's throat went dry and raw.

Once, to marry him, she had stolen the family's household registration book, and Bartholomew had clawed his way up through years of grueling struggle.

And now, divorcing was this effortless.

Mavis took the divorce agreement and turned to go.

But at that very moment, the pregnancy test slip from before slipped free and fell, and Bartholomew, a step quicker than she was, saw what was written on it.

His expression turned grave in an instant.

"Mavis, you were pregnant?"