###Chapter 1

“Margot, I’m willing to accept your job offer. I want to leave Richard.”

The man’s cold voice came through the phone. “Have you really thought it through? That’s thirty years of a happy marriage.”

Happy? No. It was a complete lie. The man I loved for thirty years had already registered his marriage with my sister when we were young.

Last night, I had a high fever of 39.8°C. I called Richard and the children more than ten times, but no one answered.

Half-conscious, I used his secondary card to order some fever medicine.

Early in the morning, I was woken up by the neighbors outside the wall, talking loudly on purpose.

“She cheated on her husband while he was on a business trip and even secretly bought birth control pills. She’s really stupid and dirty!”

“She always acted like a good wife and mother. Turns out, at her age, she plays the wildest games. No shame at all!”

I hurried out of bed, wanting to call Richard and explain.

In my dizzy state, I bumped into the bedside table. Papers fell all over the floor. A yellowed marriage certificate dropped by my feet.

The names printed on it were Richard and my own older sister, Margareth.

I could barely breathe.

For thirty years, every time I mentioned getting a marriage certificate, Richard would frown impatiently. “It’s just a piece of paper. What does it prove?”

My children also tried to persuade me. “Mom, you’ve been together for so long. Why care about the formalities?”

So it was not that formalities did not matter. It was that in Richard’s spouse column, I was never qualified to be there.

I sat there at the edge of the bed, stunned. I thought about how I had spent most of my life working hard, waking up early and sleeping late to serve my husband, raise our children and take care of the grandchildren. In the end, I was just an “outsider.”

Tears flowed down silently and I could not stop them.

Now, since that was the truth, I would let them have each other.

I wiped away my last tear and answered Margot coldly.

“I’ve made up my mind. But I have one condition. Help me investigate Margareth’s whereabouts over the past thirty years.”

After hanging up, I booked the earliest one-way ticket for five days later.

Later, my most beloved grandson was killed. I completely disappeared from Richard’s world.

Why was it that he and our children ended up kneeling before the whole world, crying and begging me to come back?

***

When I found that marriage certificate, my fingers trembled as I held it and checked it again and again. In the photo, the two people leaning sweetly against each other were the young Richard and Margareth.

The date was twenty-five years ago.

At that time, Richard and I had already been together for five years. Our son had just started kindergarten and our daughter had just been born. How foolish I was. I actually thought that was the happiest time of my life.

I sank down by the bed. Suddenly, I laughed out loud, but tears rolled down my face.

No wonder every time I mentioned getting a marriage certificate, his expression would change at once. His voice was always full of impatience. “Isn’t the good life I give you enough? What can one piece of paper prove?”

Later, when the children heard about it, I thought they would stand on my side.

But as soon as my son walked in, he threw his coat onto me. His cold face looked exactly like his father when he was young. “Dad is busy every day. Can’t you stop making trouble?”

Even my daughter-in-law looked disapproving. “It’s just a certificate, Mom. Why do you have to take it so seriously?”

My daughter held my arm and acted spoiled. “Mom, with or without that paper, Dad loves you the most.”

I felt like I could not breathe.

He was busy, but wasn’t I busy too?

In Richard’s eyes, there was only his company. He did not like strangers in the house. For thirty years, all the housework, raising the children and even helping him deal with difficult company matters were all on my shoulders.

I was like a spinning top that never stopped turning.

I only asked for a simple ceremony. Was that really so hard?

But looking at my children’s faces, I chose to stay silent in the end.

I never thought that from the very beginning, all of this had been Richard’s lie and his way of escaping responsibility.

The afternoon sunlight fell on my face through the window, but it could not warm my frozen heart.

In a daze, I suddenly heard Margareth’s sweet, playful voice from downstairs. “Richard, you actually bought negative trending news about Hermione for me.”

Richard let out a low laugh. His voice was like an ice spike stabbing into my heart.

“If her reputation is ruined, she’ll behave and stop making things difficult for you.”

My heart hurt until it felt numb. So after giving everything for thirty years, I still could not compare to his first love turning back once.

Thirty years ago, twenty-eight-year-old Richard was just a poor young man. My sister, who claimed she was independent and would never marry, left him—her fiancé—without looking back and went far away.

I married him in her place. I gave birth to his children and stayed by his side as he built his career. In other people’s eyes, we were a loving and perfect couple.

Until a few months ago, when Margareth had had enough fun outside and came back, everything turned upside down.

As the sun set, Margareth’s sweet laughter downstairs finally faded away.

Richard was in the living room, making a phone call. His voice carried clearly upstairs.

“Hurry up with the yacht I bought for Margareth. It has to be the best. Her fifty-eighth birthday party will be held on it.”

“Hold it together with the Hawthorne Group’s anniversary. Only that kind of grand event is worthy of her.”

A yacht?

From the time I married him at twenty-five until now at fifty-five, he had never even given me a proper piece of jewelry.

On our tenth wedding anniversary, I carefully mentioned that I liked a sapphire necklace. But he scolded me harshly.

“Several thousands dollars? Are you crazy? How did I end up marrying such a vain woman?”

He seemed to forget that not long ago, I had knelt in front of a client to apologize for a deal he messed up. I drank so much that my stomach started bleeding.

Now, he told his assistant to buy jewelry worth hundreds of thousands, just to make the woman who once abandoned him smile.

I gave a bitter smile, put the marriage certificate back where it was and checked my flight ticket again.

Heavy footsteps came closer, filled with open annoyance. “Do you know how badly people are talking about you outside? You’ve almost ruined the Hawthorne Family’s reputation!”

My heart felt like it was being cut with a dull knife. Where did those dirty rumors come from? Wasn’t he the one who knew best?

His eyes suddenly stopped on my phone screen.

“A flight ticket? Where are you going?”

###Chapter 2

I endured the sharp pain in my chest and said softly, “Next month, my friend is having a birthday. She invited me to go.”

Only then did Richard snort lightly. He walked to the sofa and sat down, then, as usual, stretched his feet out in front of me.

Like I had done countless times before, I bent down skillfully, took off his leather shoes and put on his soft house slippers. His voice, full of dislike, fell from above me.

“If you could learn even half of Margareth’s grace and manners, I wouldn’t have to clean up your mess all the time.”

My hands suddenly stopped.

At that moment, I finally saw the truth. For all these years, I had only been a hardworking servant by his side, not his wife.

Yes. Margareth was the woman he truly cared about. Her face was delicate, her features refined and though she was approaching sixty, she moved with a grace and elegance that spoke of careful self-care.

How could these rough hands of mine and this pale, tired face worn down by life, ever catch his eye?

Richard loosened his tie and calmly accepted my service, as if it was only natural.

I looked up at him, my voice trembling. “Richard, do you remember what day this weekend is?”

He lowered his head and played with his phone, not paying attention. “What could be so important?”

My eyes burned. I clenched my teeth to stop them from shaking. “It’s our thirtieth wedding anniversary.”

Richard paused and finally looked up from his phone.

He had really forgotten.

Seeing the disappointment in my eyes, he cleared his throat awkwardly. “Hermione, sorry. I have to go on a business trip that day. I can’t stay with you.”

That was the day he was going to hold a grand birthday party for Margareth.

I knew he would never choose me. But why did my nose still sting, as if tears were about to fall? Compared to staying by Margareth’s side, our thirty years together were as light as dust.

Even our wedding had been deliberately set on Margareth’s birthday.

I could not hold it back anymore. My lips trembled as I opened my mouth. “You and Margareth…”

I was just about to question him about the marriage certificate when Margareth’s special ringtone suddenly rang.

Without thinking, Richard answered the call at once. Realizing I was still there, he turned slightly and covered the phone, but Margareth’s crying voice still came through.

“Richard, I wanted to cook porridge for you, but I burned my hand… It hurts so much!”

Richard jumped to his feet. “Don’t move. I’m coming right now!”

He rushed toward the door. When he reached the stairs, he seemed to remember me and quickly turned back. “There’s an urgent matter at the company. I have to deal with it. I’ll make it up to you for the anniversary next time. Don’t you like Japanese food? I’ll take you to the best restaurant.”

But the one who liked Japanese food was my sister. My stomach had long been ruined from years of cooking for him. I could not even eat raw or cold food anymore.

Thirty years had passed and he still remembered her preferences deeply. But everything about me had never stayed in his heart.

In his hurry, Richard knocked over the ceramic vase on the coffee table.

It was something we made together during our only private trip. He once said he would treasure it for a lifetime.

I stared blankly at the broken pieces on the floor. It was like the sincere love I had given in half my life—shattered, never able to be put back together.

Richard did not even look at it. His figure quickly disappeared into the night outside.

“Fine. I will let you have each other.”

I pulled the wedding ring off my ring finger and threw it hard into the trash can. Then I walked to the safe in Richard’s study and entered Margareth’s birthday.

With a click, the door opened.

I wanted to take out a document. More than twenty years ago, I had given Richard the share certificate of the Hawthorne Group for safekeeping.

But when the safe opened, what I saw inside made my blood freeze instantly.

###Chapter 3

A velvet box rolled to my feet. I opened it. Inside was a pair of expensive diamond rings I had never seen before. Their bright light hurt my eyes.

Then a stack of saved ticket stubs and photos fell out.

My hands trembled as I checked the dates. Tears ran down my face, but a strange, bitter smile pulled at my lips.

On top was a yellowed cruise ticket. The date was the day my daughter was born.

Richard said he had an urgent business trip. But in the photo, while I was bleeding heavily during a difficult childbirth, he was kneeling on a sunset deck in the Aegean Sea, putting a diamond ring on Margareth’s finger. His eyes looked as devoted as a believer.

The next one was a ticket to the Louvre. The date was my thirty-second birthday.

That night, I waited in a restaurant until it closed, only to receive a message from his assistant saying, “Mr. Hawthorne is accompanying an important client.” But he had booked the Eiffel Tower restaurant to make Margareth, that “client,” happy.

Ticket after ticket, photo after photo, it felt like knives stabbing into my heart.

The day my parents died in a car accident, he was in Bali, kissing Margareth passionately while she wore a bikini. They looked like a perfect couple.

On our twentieth wedding anniversary, he was feeding pigeons with her in Prague Square. Time had left fine lines on their faces, but the way he looked at her was still so intense that it shocked me.

All of these places were places I once dreamed of visiting.

Whenever I mentioned traveling together, he would only reply coldly, “It’s boring. I don’t want to go.”

So it was not the scenery that was boring. It was me.

My eyes stopped on the last card. It was a pregnancy checkup card from a high-end private hospital, dated three months ago.

On the back of the card were Richard’s familiar words:

“It’s okay that the baby is gone, my love. This time, we will never be apart again.”

Suddenly, everything felt so ridiculous.

Three months ago, he was “on a business trip” for a whole month.

At that time, his wrong decision almost caused the company to lose tens of millions. I stayed up for three days and nights to fix it. My stomach hurt so badly that I curled up on the floor.

I called him, my voice shaking. “Richard, I feel very unwell. Can you come back?”

He only sounded impatient. “If you’re sick, see a doctor. What can I do?”

So during that month, he had been accompanying Margareth to pregnancy checkups and arranging the best nutritionists in the world to take care of her after her miscarriage.

My stomach churned. I rushed into the bathroom and started retching violently.

I splashed cold water on my face and looked up at the woman in the mirror: pale yellow skin, empty eyes, looking old and worn out.

No wonder he would not even spare me a proper glance.

But he forgot that I was once bright and full of life, young and beautiful. Who drained away my youth?

After drying my face, I returned to the study and took out the share agreement.

Then I dialed a familiar number again. The man was Richard’s biggest rival and the person he hated the most, Margot Ward.

“Besides business cooperation, I’ll give you a big gift,” I said calmly, in a voice that even felt strange to me. “Twenty percent of Hawthorne Group’s shares. I believe you would be interested.”

Margot’s tone turned playful. “Oh? You’re really willing to give it up? That’s Richard’s lifeline.”

“Willing?” I let out a bitter laugh. “What he did to me was ten thousand times worse than this.”

Hearing the tremble in my voice, Margot became serious. “What exactly did he do? Hermione, tell me. I will help you.”

That simple care from someone outside the family made the wall around my heart collapse in an instant.

After listening to everything I said, there was silence on the other end of the phone. Then his steady voice came again.

“I understand. Hermione, I stand on your side unconditionally. We’ll meet in five days.”

“Thank you, Margot.”

Just as I hung up, a burst of rough footsteps rushed in.

“Can’t you even handle such a small thing? You’re useless!”