Stepping into Hardship in Lavish Attire

The nurse hesitated, her face pale with anxiety.

I helplessly said, "Grandpa carried away the baby."

Jonathan looked like he wanted to say more, but his phone rang. The moment he picked up, his face twisted with fury.

Without warning, he slapped me across the face.

"Zara! What did you do to Lily?! If anything happens to her, I swear you will regret it!"

Already weak from childbirth, I stumbled back, crashing into the hospital bed's railing. The nurse rushed forward, steadying me.

"Mr. Richards, your wife just gave birth! If you keep this up, you will kill her!"

But Jonathan didn’t care. He acted as if he hadn't heard. With concern for Lily and without sparing me another glance, he stormed out of the room, his mind solely on her.

The nurse looked at me with a heartbroken face. My pale face, however, didn't have any extra expression. My face was pale, my heart empty. As if all the love and hatred had been consumed in ten years of suffering.

***

After the check-up, the doctors instructed me to rest. It was then that I finally realized the reason why Jonathan had lost his temper.

The baby had died and his grandfather was so grief-stricken, retaliated by using his influence to blacklist Lily from the entire industry. Desperate, she mistakenly thought that I was retaliating. She had run to Jonathan, crying and exaggerating the situation and added more fuel to the fire to complain to him. That was why he had struck me.

But it didn’t end there.

As a gift to Lily, Jonathan revoked my shares in the Richards Corporation and transferred them to her.

To further appease her, he even photographed twenty stars in the sky and titled them with Lily Patricia’s name.

During an interview, Lily flaunted her new diamond ring, smiling sweetly. ‘I don’t consider myself a mistress. If a woman can’t keep her husband’s heart, she has no one to blame but herself.’

She ran a finger over her ring, her voice dripping with mockery. ‘Besides, the current Mrs. Richards married for money. But me? I only love Richards with all my heart.’

The Internet erupted into chaos. Her fans showered her with praise, while others condemned her shamelessness. Some even tagged my account, flooding me with insults, demanding I step aside for her.

I stared at my phone, but instead of anger, I felt… irony.

After so many years, Jonathan's tricks for coaxing girls haven't changed at all.

Thinking back then, Jonathan had done the same thing for me.

After learning that I had grown up poor and never celebrated a single birthday, he showered me with twenty gifts on my twentieth. From a golden locket for my first year to a villa for my twentieth.

He said he wanted to compensate me for the suffering I had endured in the past twenty years.

I still remember that day, he took my hand under the starry sky.

"Zara, I lost my parents when I was young. But from now on, I will treat your mother as my own. I will start the happiest family with you."

I melted in the depth of his eyes.

Naively, I thought that I had finally found someone to share a lifetime with.

But then, love had an expiration date. And once the novelty wore off, he had simply moved on to someone else.

One night, during one of our so-called dates, he left me stranded on a mountain just so he could deliver flowers to his new mistress. That night, I walked for miles down the rugged trails alone. My feet were torn and bleeding and my calves were left with lifelong scars that would be hard to erase—a permanent reminder of the price I paid for loving him.

Looking back, I should have known then.

A selfish and sentimental man like him would never settle for just one woman. Our marriage contract had always been nothing more than his excuse to justify his infidelity.