Chapter 2

It felt as if someone had struck me over the head. I ended the call with trembling fingers, only then realizing my face was soaked in tears.

The person closest to me had betrayed and humiliated me.

He had said it himself. I didn’t count as a woman.

But when I was eight months pregnant and we were in that car crash, he had risked his life to shield me beneath his body. Coughing blood, he had urged me on.

“Nancy, hold on a little longer… We’re both going to be okay.”

His blood and tears had fallen hot against my face.

“Nancy, this is our first baby. You don’t want to lose her either, right? The ambulance will be here soon. Any minute now…”

I had held on. I had barely survived giving birth to our daughter, but the accident had taken away any chance of ever having another child.

Back then, he had sworn to me, kissing and comforting me over and over, that our daughter would be the only child he would ever have.

Yet just five years later, he had fathered another child with another woman.

I wiped away my tears, pulled off my wedding ring, and hurled it into the trash.

Staring at the red-eyed woman in the mirror, I laughed and cried. I couldn’t help asking myself a question.

Nancy Bennett, what were you doing all this for?

You turned yourself from a wealthy heiress into a mother and wife who sacrificed everything for her family.

And in the end, all your sacrifices had benefited someone else!

At last, I called my family. I took a deep breath, but I still couldn’t keep the tears out of my voice.

“Dad… I want to come home.”

With holiday travel disrupted, it would take Dad two days to reach me by car.

But in the middle of the night, my daughter developed a sudden high fever. I had no choice but to call Ethan.

“Ethan! Sophie has a fever! The driver—”

“Nancy Bennett, is this your way of backing down? You’re actually lying about our daughter being sick! Do you have any idea how guilty Chloe feels because you left? She’s been crying half the night!”

Crying half the night?

Whether it had been from guilt or what they were doing in bed, they knew perfectly well!

“You’ll get your privileges as Mrs. Carter back when you apologize to Chloe and she forgives you!”

He hung up. Gritting my teeth, I carried my burning-hot daughter through the empty streets before dawn. I had cried until there were no tears left by the time I finally found a cab to take us to the hospital.

The next day, I came back from buying food and found Chloe and Ethan standing beside my daughter’s bed.

I rushed over in a panic and shoved them away.

“Don’t touch my daughter!”

A second later, a vicious slap landed across my face.

Ethan caught Chloe, who had nearly fallen, and looked at me in disappointment.

“Nancy, Chloe was the one who persuaded me to come when she found out Sophie had a fever. It’s bad enough that you’re ungrateful. Did you have to shove her?”

Chloe shook her head desperately, her brows drawn together and tears shining in her eyes.

“Don’t, Ethan. It’s all my fault…”

My swollen cheek stung. I fought back my tears as the last trace of love I had for him disappeared.

I had begged him for so long, and even our daughter’s high fever hadn’t moved him.

But one word from Chloe, and he had come.

I had thought that even if he was tired of me, he was still a good father. I had been wrong.

My daughter and I together meant less to him than Chloe.

I closed my eyes, then pointed at the door.

“Get out. Both of you. You’re not welcome here!”

Chloe looked heartbroken.

“Nancy, why can’t you forgive me? I know I was wrong. Back when you were pregnant—”

“Chloe! Enough.”

Ethan cut her off sharply. Panic flashed through his eyes before he turned back to me with a cold snort.

“Nancy, if you insist on being so ungrateful, I’ll transfer the shares set aside for Sophie to Noah when I get back! You—”

He broke off as if he had spotted something. His pupils contracted, and he seized my wrist.

“Where’s your wedding ring? Nancy Bennett, how dare you take off our wedding ring!”