Rising From Betrayal: The New Billionaire's Love

An hour ago, a sudden conflict between a wife and a mistress had landed Amelie Hughes in the emergency room.

Now, she was sitting on a chair outside the ward, a sharp pain shooting up her arm.

The sleeve of her white silk shirt was completely torn, revealing several red scratches welling with blood, the pain blurring the edges of her vision.

Hasty footsteps echoed from the end of the hallway. She looked up, and into her view came her husband of three years, Elon Hayes.

Amelie was about to speak, but didn't know what to say.

Elon's handsome face was clouded with anxiety, but he rushed to a bench at the other end of the hall where a woman was sobbing.

Jasmine Craft, a model she'd seen on the cover of a business magazine, and the very person who had suddenly attacked and scratched her just now.

A standard socialite-in-training, with fake breasts and facial features full of traces of plastic surgery. It was said that she had unclear scandals with many rich heirs before, and even dated several men at the same time...

Elon knelt, gently cupping Jasmine's face in his hands. His voice was more cautious than Amelie had ever heard it.

"Jasmine, are you okay? Are you hurt anywhere? The baby... is the baby okay?"

Amelie's heart gave a violent jolt; there was such a thing?

Where did the baby come from?

Elon had obviously been diagnosed with infertility a long time ago, so in their three years of marriage, they didn't have a child at all.

At this moment, the word "baby" coming out of his mouth was simply dark humor.

Jasmine's crying hitched as she saw Amelie watching, then she shot Amelie a look of pure triumph, defiantly placing a protective hand on her stomach.

"Elon, I was so scared," she wailed. "She pushed me! She said she was going to kill our child!"

Elon whipped his head around, his once-warm eyes now as cold as frost, filled with undisguised condemnation.

"Amelie! Have you lost your mind? Don't you know she's pregnant?"

Amelie looked at them coldly and rolled her eyes, not wanting to argue anymore.

Jasmine nestled into Elon's embrace, looking over the man's shoulder directly at Amelie, and silently mouthed a vicious provocation: "Mrs. Hayes, your position will be mine very soon."

A nurse approached, her expression professionally detached. "Ms. Hughes, your arm needs to be treated."

Amelie straightened her back and followed the nurse toward the treatment room.

Elon's voice sounded behind her, not offering concern for her, but reassurance for Jasmine: "Don't be afraid. I'm here. I'll handle everything."

Inside the treatment room, a doctor used tweezers to pull a fragment of a fake fingernail from one of the cuts. The sting was sharp, and Amelie gripped the edge of the examination table, feeling as if the flesh of her wound was being torn out along with the fragment. Blood flowed freely, and she was in so much pain she almost passed out.

The doctor looked at her with a flicker of sympathy. "That's an acrylic nail. Whoever attacked you really meant it. Do you want to file a police report?"

Amelie pressed her pale, chapped lips together tightly, swallowed back a cry of pain, and finally shook her head. Never air your dirty laundry in public, this was the rule of the Hayes family, and even more so, the last bit of dignity she left for Elon.

After her arm was bandaged, she walked out of the treatment room. She saw Elon helping Jasmine up, preparing to take her for a detailed obstetrics exam.

As Jasmine passed Amelie, she repeated her old trick and "accidentally" stumbled, crying out and falling against Elon.

Elon caught her, holding her tightly in his arms, then turned his head and glared at Amelie: "Can't you just stay away from her?"

"She is pregnant with our child now. If there's an accident, how are you going to make up for it?"

Onlookers in the hallway started to whisper and point fingers at Amelie.

Amelie couldn't be bothered to explain, just watching that pair of despicable couple leaning on each other walk away with a posture bordering on disdain.

She pulled out her phone and scrolled to the first name in her contacts.

The call connected, and a bright, energetic voice answered, "Amelie? What's wrong? You don't sound right."

A sob caught in Amelie's throat. She could only manage one word. "Peyton..."

She took a deep breath, and tilted her head back to force back the tears that instantly welled up in her eyes.

Everything that happened today lingered in her mind, making her feel disgusted.

But she knew that this child was either a conspiracy or a lie.

The noise of the emergency room faded into a distant hum. She only felt a soul-deep nausea.

Her marriage was a carefully designed scam, and she was the fool who had believed it.

She wiped her face. The tears eventually stopped; crying was for victims. And she would not be a victim.

She pushed herself up, looked at the bandage on her arm, and made up her mind. "You want to frame me, I will definitely make you pay!"