My husband and I were in a passionate embrace when his phone suddenly rang.

He pushed me away without hesitation, and I snatched the phone from his hand angrily. It was a message from his sister-in-law.

[Henry, my mastopathy is acting up again. What should I do? My breasts hurt so much.]

It was followed by a picture of her in sexy lingerie.

That was when I lost my temper.

"Your sister-in-law is such a shameless woman! How could she share such a picture with you in the middle of the night? How dare she harass you like this after your brother's passing?!"

Henry kicked me out of bed. "Stop being petty and vicious, Tessa! My brother's death has been a huge blow for her. What's wrong with me showing her concern as family when she's sick?”

"Have you any idea how disappointed I am with you? Apologize right now, or I'll divorce you!"

In all our years of marriage, Henry would always threaten me with divorce because I was the one who courted him for five years before finally marrying him.

He felt that I would never be able to leave him, but this time, I had lost all hope in him. I did not want him anymore.

It was not long before Ivy Lambert made a video call to Henry Garner.

Henry put on his clothes right away and walked toward the balcony as he started showering her with concern. "You should put on more clothes, Ivy. You know how weak your body is.”

"Be good. You'll stop hurting once I give you a massage. I'll make you chicken noodle soup to warm you up and nourish you tomorrow. Be good and go to sleep, okay?" Henry spoke with tenderness and patience.

The more I listened to him, the worse I felt. Henry would always be impatient when it came to me, and it hurt even worse to hear him promising to cook for Ivy. I held back my tears as I sent my billionaire father a message.

[I'm getting a divorce, Dad. I'll do what you want and go into an alliance marriage with the Langstons. I'm willing to take over the family business.]

My father replied very quickly. [That's my girl! You should have listened to me earlier. Why must you suffer like this? It's been hard on you all this time. Your mother and I miss you very much. Come home and have a good rest. Don't worry. I've gotten my secretary to handle everything for you.]

I could not hold back my tears as they fell onto my phone screen while reading my father's message. My parents had always doted and pampered me since young, but I suffered tremendously when I was with Henry.

Henry was chatting happily with Ivy when I turned to look at him, and all he did was ignore me. I quietly clenched my fists. This was the last time I would be hurt by Henry.

"What's the point of putting up this pitiful act? Do you think you don't need to apologize just because you're crying?" Henry's tone with me got even more impatient when he hung up and saw me crying. "I'm sleeping in the guest room tonight!"

He slammed the door behind him while I stood helplessly where I was, not knowing what to do. I did not sleep that night as I quietly packed my luggage.

The next morning, Henry was upset as he questioned me, "First, you lost your temper at me after doing something wrong, and now you're not even making breakfast anymore! You know very well that I have gastric, Tessa. Are you trying to make me sick by doing this?"

I took a deep breath. "How many times have you had the breakfast I woke up at 4.30 in the morning to make for you? All I saw was you packing up everything to deliver them to your dear sister-in-law, Ivy!"

Henry was taken aback by my reply and lost his temper. "We're a family. What's wrong with packing some breakfast for Ivy? I can't believe how petty you're acting over this!" He grabbed his car keys and left after losing his temper at me.

It hurt as I watched him leave. While I was feeling sad and lost in my thoughts, my mother-in-law kept calling me on the phone. "Tessa, did you fight with Henry again? He told me that you've stopped making breakfast for him. You can't do that. As a woman, you need to know how to take care of your man and be obedient. Just look at yourself right now!”

"I'll give you one more chance to do the right thing. Bring a few bottles of wine over later. Henry's father is craving a drink. Also, Henry loves lobsters. Make some and bring it along with you as well. Another thing, Ivy has never been very healthy, so remember to also pack some bird's nest over for her, understand?"

My mother-in-law's shrill voice continued, but I remained silent.

"Tessa Eckers! I'm talking to you! Don't you know how to respect your elders? How rude of you!"

I pulled the phone a little further from my ear and agreed after slight hesitation. "I'll be over your place later."

There was a message notification on my phone, and I clicked on a picture my bestie had sent to me. It was a picture of Henry tenderly helping Ivy put on her high heels and later leaning down to kiss her foot.

My fingers were trembling as I swiped the picture off the screen. I was heaving as I kept consoling myself and forcing myself to accept the fact that Henry did not love me.

That afternoon, I arrived on time at my mother-in-law's house. However, this time, I did not bring over packages of what she wanted to her house just to get into the good graces of Henry's family.

When I stepped into the living room, I caught Henry peeling a grape and feeding it to Ivy. Ivy was smiling coquettishly as she leaned into Henry's arms. A look of delight flashed in her eye when she saw me coming inside. "Henry, I want to have a bite of the tip of that strawberry."

Henry picked up the sweetest part of the strawberry and fed it to her without hesitation. In return, he kept the sourest part of the berry for himself.

I lowered my head. I was suffocating from how hurt I felt about this.

"Tessa, where are the things I asked you to bring?" My mother-in-law stared at me while asking me the question.

I shrugged stoically and replied, "I didn't bring anything, and I won't be bringing anything from now on."

My mother-in-law lost her temper right away as she went off on me. "What you did is unacceptable! How did your parents raise you?! How dare you lose your temper like this in our house? I must have been cursed with seven years of bad luck for having a daughter-in-law like you! Get out right now and buy what I wanted back here. Otherwise, don't even bother coming back!"

It chilled me to the bone to hear what my mother-in-law was saying to me. Henry's company would have gone bankrupt long ago if I had not helped him out financially, and their entire family would have ended up homeless. Yet, they found it acceptable to degrade and yell at me, while Henry would always allow his parents to push me around this way.

I took out the divorce papers from my bag without hesitation. "In that case, we should get a divorce. I don't really want to come back here, anyway."

My mother-in-law was shocked, while Henry forgot about Ivy as he frowned and stared at me. He came up to me and tore up the divorce papers right in front of me. He looked quite upset about it. "What are you trying to pull, Tessa?"

Ivy came over to my mother-in-law and Henry's side right away to comfort them. "Mom, Henry, don't be mad. I have no idea why Tessa would be so upset about me, and always allowing her imagination to run wild, thinking that there is something between Henry and me.”

"But for the sake of peace in our family, I'll leave. I shouldn't continue to stay in this world after my husband died." Tears streamed down Ivy's face as she said all this.

My mother-in-law pointed at me and started yelling, "Do you really need to cause all this trouble at home?! Ivy has been taking care of me since she married into this family. I'd be grateful if you were even a fraction as understanding as she is. She is Henry's sister-in-law, and it's only right that he takes care of her. Stop being ridiculous about this!"

Henry wiped away the tears from Ivy's face tenderly as he cajoled her softly, "This isn't your fault, Ivy. Stop crying. It hurts to see you cry."

It felt like a bucket of icy water had been dumped on me, making me shiver to the core. Since marrying Henry, I had been working hard at his company to network and build connections, which helped with his company's success, while all Ivy did was be a freeloader at home as everyone doted on her.

"This family can only have one of us. It's either her or me." Henry slapped me hard right after I declared this. My eyes turned red as I held my hand to my swollen cheek.

"You're getting brazen, Tessa! I never should have let you have your way all the time and pampered you into becoming such an incorrigible person. What's wrong with me taking care of my sister-in-law? Stop filling your head with dirty thoughts!"

I retorted stubbornly, "Does taking care of your sister-in-law consist of helping her put on her heels and kissing her foot? You know very well if your relationship is innocent or dirty!"

Henry was so mad that he kicked me to the ground, and his tone with me got even more vicious. "Kneel and apologize right now, Tessa, or get out of here!"

It felt like a knife to my stomach. I did not apologize, and I dragged myself heavily out of there. Henry's voice continued coming from behind me as his yelling hurt my eardrums, "If you think you're so great, don't ever step foot here again, Tessa!"

I held back intense pain as I went to the hospital. I bled all over the floor because of my painful, swollen abdomen, and the doctor immediately admitted me into the emergency room. I was groggy when the doctor tried to console me, "You've suffered a serious physical wound on your abdomen, which caused you to miscarry."

My tears could not stop flowing as I sobbed silently. The doctor looked at me with pity and sighed. "Take good care of yourself, and you'll get pregnant again one day. You just need to be more careful about it in the future."

I caressed my belly tenderly as the last of my feelings for Henry vanished along with the loss of my child. I was reminded of what Henry and Ivy did in the last few years.

When Henry's older brother died, Ivy claimed she was suffering from depression and wanted to commit suicide. This prompted Henry to go to her side every day to shower her with concern. Henry did everything for Ivy, going as far as washing her delicates for her.

However, he was indignant when I confronted him about this. "Ivy isn't the healthiest person. She can't even be touching cold water. It's only right for me to take care of family."

Henry was never a fan of blue cheese, and he lost his temper the first time I tasted it. He hated it so much that he dug it out of my mouth. "Get out of the house if you dare eat something so disgusting again!"

However, Ivy loved blue cheese, and he bought the most expensive blue cheese he could find to share it with her.

On our wedding anniversary, Henry abandoned me at the restaurant just because Ivy said she had a nightmare and was feeling scared. I became a laughingstock because Henry ditched me, and as the restaurant was in the suburbs, I had to walk twenty miles back to the city because I could not get a cab.

Whenever I felt sad, Henry would get impatient and berate me, "Is crying all you can do? All you do is bring me bad luck with all this crying! Ivy is my sister-in-law. It's my responsibility to take care of her my entire life because my brother is gone."

I felt lost and in despair because of Henry's cold attitude toward me, and I lost my appetite because of this. I lost more weight because of this, and Henry became unhappier with me. "You can't even compare to Ivy! My brother was lucky to have married her. I can't take how vicious and petty you act every day!"

It scared me to think that Henry was disappointed in me, so I tried my best to get into his family's good graces every day.

At one point, I caught Ivy wearing sexy lingerie in Henry's office when I was bringing lunch to him. Ivy looked at me tauntingly as I raised my hand to slap her, but Henry stopped me. "I'm just helping Ivy put some cream on her because she broke out in hives. Can you stop imagining things between us, Tessa?"

I stared at both of them. "Does she need to be in sexy lingerie when you're putting cream on her?"

Ivy put on a frail, pitiful look when she apologized, "All of my innerwear looks like this. I'm just wearing less because the summer is too hot."

Henry chimed in, "She's right. Do you really need to dictate what others wear as well, Tessa?"

I laughed angrily at how indignant they were with their excuses.

When I got back from the hospital, I took all my luggage with me from the condo while I packed up all of Henry's belongings and threw them away. I paid in full for this condo, and I quickly sold it off via an online property site. I no longer wanted anything connected to Henry.

My mother-in-law kept calling me continuously, but I hung up every time.

I scanned through my social media accounts to see Ivy's latest post. [I'm feeling low recently, and someone took me on a vacation. What a wonderful feeling.] The post had a picture of her selfie attached to it, but I recognized the watch revealed at the corner of the picture. It belonged to Henry.

That was when I messaged my father's assistant right away. "Retract all investment to Garner Enterprise and stop all current projects we have with them. I want a public announcement stating that the Eckers will no longer be working with Garner Enterprise."

The Eckers were the most influential family in Capital City. Any smart person would know not to offend the Eckers over an insignificant company like Garner Enterprise.

"Post these pictures online." I shared pictures of Ivy wearing sexy lingerie in Henry's office with my father's assistant. I wanted to see how Ivy and Henry would react to this.