I did not get pregnant in the five years that I was married to Julian Gunter. He claimed that there was something wrong with his body and asked me not to leave him.

But one day, I was sent to the hospital because of a stomach ache and continuous bleeding. A nurse came in and gave me an injection. She muttered impatiently, “Can’t you hold yourself back? You’re pregnant, but you had such vigorous love making. It serves you right that you lost your baby.” I endured the pain and walked out.

“Mr. Gunter wanted Mrs. Gunter to have a permanent contraceptive injection after her fifth miscarriage. Don’t worry. Mr. Gunter has a way around it.”

“The heir of Gunter Group can only be Mr. Jack Gunter.”

Jack was the son of Julian’s sister-in-law.

“Mr. Gunter, Mrs. Gunter was three months pregnant, and the fetus was doing good, but you… made her miscarry again. This is the fifth time, and her uterine wall has become very thin. The possibility of her getting pregnant again is very unlikely. Plus, she took hemostatics for each miscarriage. I’m afraid her body won’t be able to take it.”

The elderly doctor nudged his glasses and frowned as he reported to Julian Gunter.

“I kept it from her so many times; I’m sure nothing will go wrong this time as well. She will only assume that she’s having a period.” Fierceness gleamed in Julian’s eyes as he spoke coldly.

“But Mr. Gunter, don’t you want a child of your own? You’re so nice to your sister-in-law. Aren’t you worried about giving Mrs. Gunter the wrong idea…”

Julian became downcast after hearing that. “I owe it to her. Jane didn’t get to be with me. So, I must give her the best now.”

“What about Mrs. Gunter’s feelings?” The doctor earnestly tried to make Julian come to his senses.

“Jane is suffering too. Charles died saving me, so Jane has to raise the kid alone. All I can do for her is make her son the heir of the Gunter family. As for Eira, I’m always by her side, aren’t I? Do a good job on my physiological defect report. Eira is sensitive about that.”

They were in a hospital under Gunter Group. No doctor could disobey him.

Blood froze in my veins after hearing their conversation. I could not help trembling.

I had five babies. Julian was their father, but he got all of them killed.

It was not easy for a man and a woman to fall in love and marry each other. I could only wonder why my husband would treat me that way.

Yesterday, he suddenly got violent while we were making love at night. I had assumed that it was because of the stress at work or with his family. It had never occurred to me that he was worried that our child would become a hindrance for Jack Gunter. Only Jane Sullivan’s son could be the heir of the Gunter Group. It turned out that Julian had long planned out their future.

I had thought that it was my body’s problem whenever I had excessive bleeding. I took many supplements but never considered that I may have had a miscarriage.

Julian always told me that it was normal to lose a lot of blood, since my period was unstable, and brought me painkillers right away.

It turned out that the painkiller he fed me was meant to prevent excessive bleeding from miscarriage.

He would not have driven me to the hospital if I had not gone into shock from bleeding. Without that, who knew how much longer he would have fooled me with his loving words.

It sounded like the doctor had gotten up to send Julian to the door. The creak of the chair reminded me to hide.

I did not run like someone who had just miscarried. Julian’s assistant was already gone. I escaped to the washroom to not alert Julian.

I looked into the mirror and saw a pale and sweaty face. Feeling aggrieved, I burst into tears.

Julian opened the door in the distance, so I wiped away my tears and splashed some water on my face before exiting the washroom.

“Why do you look so bad, Eira?”

“The water in the washroom was very cold.”

Julian hailed a nurse to set all the water from the taps in the hospital to a constant temperature. He also ordered the nurse to provide heating wherever I went.

His words made me feel like the person in the consultation room just now was someone else.

He was about to feed me oatmeal when I stopped him.

“Eira, you’ll make me worry if you do this.”

I slowly looked up and met Julian’s gaze. “I just don’t want to eat now. Is that unacceptable?”

Julian thought that I was fooling with him again like before. He patiently said, “Okay, you can eat whenever you want.”

He turned away from me. “But Eira, you have to take the medicine.”

I knew that he had added hemostatics to the oatmeal. He used to give me all the medicine that way. Because of it, my body became very weak.

“Julian, I told you I didn’t want to eat now. Don’t you understand?” I impatiently said to him.

Julian became angry. He smashed the bowl and got up to leave.

I instantly felt better and less suffocated.

But he came again at night with a doctor. He covered my eyes while the doctor injected something into my wrist.

It did not even take thirty seconds from the doctor’s arrival to his departure.

I saw another side of Julian at that moment. I wanted to break out of his embrace, but he pinned me down hard. It was futile regardless of how I struggled. My fighting was nothing more than an itch for him.

“It’s fine, Eira. I’m here.”

He used more force to hold me. If it were in the past, I would have just assumed that he was worried about my body, but this time, I felt that he wanted to kill me and give up my position to Jane.

Before long, I fell asleep in his arms.

“Watch over her,” Julian instructed Wendy Little before he left.

I had countless nightmares because of the pain. I even had nightmares within nightmares. I felt like I had been sucked into a tornado. My head felt heavy while my steps were light.

All of the nightmares were full of Julian.

I felt like I could not breathe. The suffocating feeling and the scenes in my head kept torturing me.

When I opened my eyes, I saw a nurse kneeling beside me to perform CPR on me. It turned out that I had nearly died. Julian almost made his dream come true.

“Mrs. Gunter, you finally came to.” Wendy heaved a sigh.

“Mr. Gunter will come tomorrow because he has an international meeting at the company,” she explained.

It did not matter whether he came or not, because I did not want to see him.

I was sleeping when he returned. The nurse was in the adjacent ward to watch over me at all times.

I could not figure out what Julian wanted. If he did not want children, he should have married someone who could not get pregnant. Why did he provoke and torture me?

My face was itching. When I opened my eyes, I saw him pretending to feel sorry for me. The ward was full of a sweet fragrance. It was emanating from him. Wendy had given an excuse for him, but he returned smelling of perfume.

“What are you doing here?”

“Eira, I had an international meeting last night, so I couldn’t be here for you. I’m sorry.” When he looked down, I noticed a red mark on his neck, which shocked me. I never left such marks on him. He had clearly enjoyed himself with another woman last night.

“Eira, what’s wrong? Should I get a doctor?”

I snapped back to reality.

“I’m fine.”

I was still pale, so Julian ordered Wendy to get some oatmeal while he hailed my attending doctor.

He did not take his phone with him when he left.

The notification sound made me glance at it.

[Tomorrow is Jane’s birthday. Don’t forget about the sapphire necklace in the study.]

It was a notification from his mobile calendar.

I had always assumed that the sapphire necklace was for me. He had brought me along for the auction, after all, and it was the last item of the event.

Many people had come for the necklace since it was the necklace of Eresia’s royal family from the seventeenth century. When Julian got it, I asked if he had bought it for me. However, he hid the necklace behind his back. He told me that it was for his business partner.

The necklace lay in the study for a long time. It turned out that it had been waiting for Jane.

The pain of betrayal made me forget about my physical pain. His screensaver was a photo of us, but his notepad held the story with another woman.

[Jane, my brother’s passing broke my heart too. It was our first hug after we got separated.]

[Jane, we went to your pregnancy check-up today, and they said that I was the father of the child. What do you think?]

[Tomorrow my nephew will start going to school. What kind of gift should I buy for him and Jane?]

[Jane, I told my nephew that he can call me dad when we’re at our house.]

I was too timid to read more. It turned out that Julian was always with Jane whenever he was out to meet customers or on business trips. They even had a house exclusively for their trysts. They looked like a family, while I…

I wiped away the tears that had fallen on the phone. Then, I fished for my phone and used it to book a plane ticket home. It was meaningless for me to stay here.

When I returned to Gunter Residence, I saw Jane playing with her child in the living room.

Camila Gunter, my mother-in-law, saw Julian first. When she turned and saw me as well, she was full of disdain.

“You’re not helping even though you’re home? Do you see yourself as a rich young lady?” There were many servants, but Camila insisted on me helping around. It did not concern her that I did come from a rich family.

“You keep going to the hospital because your body is weak. But ignorant people might get the wrong idea and assume that we bully you. You’ve been married to Julian for many years, yet you haven’t gotten pregnant once!” Camila said.

Julian hugged me while leading me toward the sofa to take a seat.

“I’m sorry, Eira. We’ll go after eating. Just ignore what Mom is saying.”

I looked down at my belly and placed my palm on it. It was Julian who had harmed my five babies.

At first, Camila disliked Jane for marrying Charles. But later, once Charles passed away and Jane showed up to be pregnant, she became valued.

Besides, Julian plotted against me and made me miscarry. Hence, Jane became even more beloved.

Jack led Julian away, which left me with Jane. She kept rubbing her sapphire necklace while talking to me.

“Eira, I heard that you nearly died in the hospital recently. Is that true?” She said it on purpose to disgust me.

“I wonder why Julian is so nice to me. You were dying, but he was trying to fix the pipe at my home.”

How could she make such an excuse?

“Where was that pipe? On your body?” I softly asked.

“How could you…” Jane was struck speechless. She angrily got up and walked to the dining room.

“How pampered! She wants me to invite her to eat?” Camila screamed. But I had ceased to care about that. I got up and slowly walked over.

Julian was back when I took my seat. He had taken Jack away to wash his hands. I felt like an intruder in their perfect little family.

When Julian sat down, he poured me a bowl of chicken soup. I had yet to drink it when Camila raised her wine glass and wished Jane a happy birthday. She even fished out a present.