The house was a complete mess. That was James’s first thought when he pushed the door open.

The entire living room had been smashed beyond recognition. Broken glass, overturned furniture, shattered decorations—everything lay in ruins. In the middle of it all, Remi sat on the floor, knees pulled to her chest, her head lowered.

Without stopping to ask what happened, he rushed over and pulled her into his arms. “Sweetheart, are you hurt?”

She slowly lifted her head to look at him. The panic and concern in his eyes were real. It was impossible to connect that devoted man with the same person who had betrayed her behind her back.

She shoved him away, her voice ice-cold as she asked, “Who is Sydney Parker?”

Shock flashed across James’s eyes. His lips turned pale almost instantly. “Sydney Parker? I don’t know who that is.”

Remi let out a bitter laugh. She grabbed the pregnancy report and threw it at him.

“You don’t know her? Fine. In that case, why is your name signed on her pregnancy report?”

His entire body trembled. For a second, he could not breathe.

“Sweetheart, I–”

She wiped her tears away harshly with the back of her hand and said firmly, “James, I know everything. Stop lying to me. Let’s get a divorce.”

In a panic, he pulled her tightly into his arms, his voice shaking. “No. No, I don’t want a divorce!”

She looked up at him, finding it all ironic. “But you’re already soiled. You disgust me.”

His face turned white. “That was an accident, Remi. I only slept with her once. I’m not soiled.”

“But in my eyes, you are.” Her voice trembled with anger. “You betrayed me. You betrayed our marriage!”

She closed her eyes in despair, finally saying, “Let’s get a divorce, James. We’ll part peacefully.”

He held her even tighter. “Remi, don’t divorce me. As long as you don’t divorce me, I’ll agree to anything.”

She slowly shook her head. “Your promises mean nothing to me anymore. Since I’m letting you go, and you should do the same for me, too.”

With that, she turned and walked away.

Watching her leave, his hand trembled as he pressed it against his chest, as if trying to crush the pain inside. However, the ache only grew sharper.

“Remi… do you really have to leave me?”

“Yes.” She shut her eyes, forcing herself to stay composed.

Finally, the man lost control. He took a deep breath and turned to the nearby household staff.

“Take the missus back to her room. Without my permission, no one is to let her out.”

Remi froze and turned back in disbelief. “James, are you imprisoning me?”

He shook his head immediately. “It’s not imprisonment. I just want you to calm down. Remi, listen to me. She looks like you, and the baby will look like you, too. After she gives birth, I’ll send her away. We’ll pretend nothing ever happened. We’ll go back to how we were before. Okay?”

Remi thought she had just heard the most absurd joke in the world. He was having a child with another woman, and he expected her to pretend nothing had happened?

She looked at him with disappointment. “It’s impossible. The moment you had a child with her, we could never go back.”

His body stiffened. His face turned deathly pale, but he remained stubborn.

“It’s fine, Remi. We have plenty of time.”

Then, he waved his hand, signaling the servants to escort her back upstairs.

“Keep an eye on the missus,” he ordered. “No one is allowed to see her except me.”

Ever since Remi was locked up, she had given up on James.

Looking at the heavily guarded old family estate, she had thought of countless ways to escape. The closest she ever got was when she disguised herself as a maid and slipped into one of the service cars heading out. However, just as the car got to the main gate, another vehicle cut across and stopped them.

James stepped out, long strides carrying him straight to the car window.

“Remi,” he said calmly, “you can’t escape.”

In the end, with nowhere left to go, she chose to set the place on fire.

When news came that the old estate was burning, James was at the apartment, coaxing a sulking Sydney. It was not until he bought her an eight-million-dollar necklace that she finally brightened up, wrapping her arms around him and kissing him several times.

She pulled him down onto the couch and excitedly flipped through some baby clothes with him. However, when his phone rang, he immediately pushed her aside and walked out onto the balcony to take the call.

Sydney tried to follow out of curiosity, but one cold glance from him froze her in place. Annoyed, she punched a stuffed toy on the couch instead. Then, she saw his face turn pale, and he grabbed his coat, hurrying toward the door.

“Where are you going?” Sydney clung to him, putting on a pitiful expression. “The baby doesn’t want you to leave today–”

He did not have the patience to entertain her, but for the sake of the child's smooth birth, he held back.

“I have something urgent to deal with. You said you liked those earrings at the auction, didn’t you? I’ll have my assistant bring them to you.”

At the thought of the expensive jewelry she was about to receive, she finally let go.

With the old estate destroyed, Remi was transferred to a villa on the outskirts of the city. When James saw her again, several days later, there were injuries scattered across her body. The anger he had been holding in dissolved into a sigh.

Carefully, he carried her back to the bed and personally tended to her wounds. His movements were gentle, yet she still frowned and hissed in pain. He immediately leaned closer and blew softly on the injured skin.

“Does it still hurt?” There was a trace of concern in his eyes.

She looked at him quietly and said evenly, “It hurts, but I don’t regret it at all, because I was the one who set the fire.”

He froze, pain in his eyes.

“Do you want to leave me that badly?” he asked.

“Yes.” Her voice did not waver. “I do, even if it means I die.”

“Remi!” Hearing that, he finally lost control. He could no longer hide the pain in his voice. “Don’t say that, okay? It pains me to see you hurt. I have no feelings for her. Just wait a little longer. I’m begging you. Everything will go back to the way it was.”

After saying that, he stormed out of the room, slamming the door behind him. Before leaving, he specifically instructed the butler to tighten security around the villa.

For the next three months, James never came back. He did not even send a single message. It was as if he intended to teach her a lesson. Meanwhile, he traveled the world with Sydney, allowing her to post their intimate photos online. In the pictures, they stood close together, feeding each other cookies mouth-to-mouth like a couple flaunting their love.

At the beach, she lay across his lap in a sheer swimsuit, running her fingers over his abs as if showing off. Under dim, ambiguous lighting, their legs were tangled together, their eyes locked on each other. For a while, the internet was in an uproar, and countless netizens flooded her comment section, obsessing over the couple.

Of course, Remi saw the photos too. In the past, she would have cried for an entire day; now she no longer held any expectations for James. All she wanted was to leave the marriage as soon as possible, and so, she did not care.

James, on the other hand, waited and waited for Remi to come to him, to soften, and to demand an explanation. However, she never did.

In the past, whenever even a harmless “close” photo of him and another woman surfaced—sometimes just from normal business events—Remi would be jealous for days. She would show up immediately, red-eyed, asking him to explain himself. That was why he was certain it would not take long this time. He thought she would come to him, eyes brimming with tears, but months passed, and no one came. There was not even a text message.

He could not sit still anymore. He secretly returned several times and checked the surveillance footage. On the screen, he saw her looking completely indifferent, playing with the dog on her own, as if she truly did not care about the scandals between him and Sydney.

Her reaction took him completely by surprise, leaving him in anguish with nowhere to vent his frustration. In the end, he could only leave in a huff.

Sydney did not think too much about James’s sudden change in attitude as she immersed herself wholly in the bliss of the moment. After all, the only reason he had treated her well before this was because of the child in her belly. He had never allowed her to show off their relationship so openly. However, things were different now.

Seeing how favored she was, the same people who used to look down on her suddenly rushed to flatter her.

“Sydney, Mr. Hudson dotes on you so much, and you’re carrying his child. It looks like you becoming his wife is only a matter of time.”

“Exactly! Sydney, when you become Mrs. Hudson, don’t forget about us, your best friends!”

Under their constant praise, Sydney gradually grew more arrogant. She clung to James even more than before, almost obsessively, and it was because she followed him so closely that she finally noticed something strange.

Every night, after she fell asleep, he would quietly leave and drive to a suburban villa. Then, he would return early in the morning, his face dark and unreadable. In the past, James had also gone home at night, but he would return to the old family estate and not the villa in the suburbs.

Curiosity gnawed at her until she finally could not hold it in anymore.

“James,” she asked one day, “why do you go to the suburban villa every night?”

His expression instantly turned cold. “Don’t ask about things you shouldn’t ask.”

In James’s eyes, she was nothing more than a tool to carry a child in place of Remi, so she needed not know more than that. However, a woman’s intuition was sharp. The less he said, the more suspicious Sydney became.

If it were not for a woman, what else could possibly draw him there every night?

The thought that he might be keeping another woman in that villa made fury surge through her veins. She had successfully seduced James, and her methods were anything but simple. Now that she was about to become the envied Mrs. Hudson, no one could steal her position.

She was just about to storm over there when she suddenly paused. James might dote on her, but he had one clear boundary: she was not allowed to go anywhere he had not permitted.

Her friends, however, dismissed her hesitation.

“Sydney, you’re the future Mrs. Hudson. Where could possibly be off-limits to you?”

That was all it took. Encouraged by her friends, Sydney gathered a group of them and headed straight to the suburban villa.

At the villa, Remi was asleep, but she could already hear the noise outside.

“James comes here every single day. Today, I shall see what exactly he’s hiding in this villa!”

A bodyguard stood in front of the door, looking troubled. “Miss Parker, Mr. Hudson gave strict orders. No one except him is allowed inside.”

“What do you mean that no one is allowed?”

“Do you know who Sydney is? If Mr. Hudson finds out you stopped her, you’ll be fired!”

“Exactly! You blind idiot!” Sydney let out a cold snort.

At the last dinner party, someone had accidentally scratched her face, and James immediately destroyed that person financially. So, unless the bodyguard had a death wish, he would know better than to stand in her way.

After hesitating again and again, the bodyguard finally stepped aside. The moment the door opened, Sydney saw a face that looked almost identical to her own. She froze in her tracks.

“Oh my God, Sydney, she looks just like you!”

“What do you mean, identical? If you ask me, she probably had plastic surgery to look like you.”

“I think so too!”

Sydney’s eyes turned sharp with rage. Before Remi could even say a word, Sydney stepped forward and slapped her hard across the face.