###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!”

###Chapter 4

Before I could react, my son Daniel rushed in front of me. He immediately started scolding me.

“It’s raining so hard outside. Why didn’t you pick up the kids?”

Only then did I remember. So many things had happened today that I forgot to pick up my twin grandson and granddaughter from school. I was the one who always picked them up, so the school bus did not wait for them.

Seeing the two small figures behind him, soaked through and shivering, guilt filled my heart at once.

I was about to apologize, but Daniel did not stop.

“This is so annoying. And you even caused that ugly scandal. Do you know how much effort Dad put in to suppress it? Did you really do something shameful?”

I looked up at him in shock. Even my own son thought of me this way.

“I didn’t do anything!” Shame and anger made my voice shake.

My daughter-in-law wiped the children’s hair and glanced at me sideways. “No wonder Dad doesn’t like taking you out. You don’t dress well, you can’t even pick up the kids properly and now you’ve embarrassed the Hawthorne Family.”

My eight-year-old granddaughter, Dyna, shouted, “I want to change my grandma. I want Grandma Margareth to be my grandma!”

“Grandma Margareth is pretty and gentle. She buys us lots of gifts. Unlike you, you are stupid and ugly and today I got laughed at in school because of you!”

My son’s face turned completely dark. “Mom, can you just stop causing trouble for once?”

I stood there, frozen, as if a bucket of ice water had been poured over me.

These were the children I raised with my own hands. Their faces twisted and blurred before my eyes, so strange that it made me dizzy.

A small warm hand quietly held my cold, shaking fingers.

I looked down. It was my grandson, Leo.

He looked up at me with bright eyes. “Grandma, it’s okay. I know the way home. No matter what others say, you’re the best grandma.”

“Stop it.” Dyna threw her schoolbag at me. “I’m starving. Go cook! I want Hawaiian pizza. If not, I’ll go find Aunt Margareth!”

I gently rubbed Leo’s soft hair, then looked up at the others—their faces full of dislike, as if everything was only natural.

Suddenly, I did not want to tolerate anyone anymore.

I looked at my granddaughter calmly. “No need to change. She is already your grandmother.”

Then I turned and walked upstairs. I took out the marriage certificate.

The moment my son and daughter-in-law saw it, their faces changed. “You… where did you find that?”

Their faces showed panic, embarrassment, guilt—everything except surprise.

So they had known all along, yet had conspired to hide it from me. Even worse, they had sided with their father, working to keep me from my own life.

I took a deep breath. Strangely, I did not feel much disappointment. Only anger was burning in my chest. I walked quickly back to my room and started packing my luggage.

Daniel chased after me and blocked the doorway. “Mom, can you stop making trouble?”

I did not stop packing. “I’m not making trouble. I’m giving you what you want.”

Seeing that I was serious, he became nervous. His tone softened. “It’s just a piece of paper. Why take it so seriously?”

I looked at his face, so much like Richard when he was young and suddenly laughed.

“Take it seriously?” I felt it was unbelievable. “How can you even say that?”

I pushed his arm away from the doorframe and picked up my suitcase. “Don’t call me Mom. Legally, Margareth is your mother.”

My cold tone, colder than ever before, made the children start crying. My son grabbed his hair in frustration and shouted, “At your age, if you run away, who knows what ugly rumors will spread again? You’ll regret this sooner or later!”

“No rumor can be worse than being stabbed in the back by your own family. You should go and please Margareth instead.”

“I didn’t expect Hermione to still dislike me so much. Forget it, I’ll leave!”

Margareth’s tearful voice suddenly came from the doorway.

Richard followed behind her and pulled her into his arms. “No. Where do you think you’re going?”

Margareth pretended to push against his strong chest, her crying even more pitiful. “The world is big. There’s always a place for me. It’s better than staying here and being pointed at by Hermione, accused of ruining someone else’s family.”

“You did nothing wrong. The one at fault is this unreasonable woman!”

Richard’s eyes were like knives cutting into me. “You don’t need to attend the Hawthorne Group banquet in a few days. I’ll let Margareth go in your place.”

The hatred in his eyes was open and clear.

My whole body turned cold. I threw the marriage certificate at him with force, my voice hoarse.

“I’m unreasonable? Then what is this?”