Chapter 3

I was sitting in the passenger seat, watching helplessly as that truck tipped over toward us.

Charles lunged over and wrapped his whole body around mine.

Glass shards tore into his right arm and back, the wounds so deep I could almost see bone.

When I woke in the hospital, the first thing I saw was his right arm in a cast.

He sat by my bed and smiled. "I'm fine. Just a flesh wound. As long as you're okay, it's worth it."

Later, I asked if he hadn't been afraid of losing the hand he lived by and never holding a brush again.

He said, "There wasn't time to think. My body moved faster than my brain."

I thought that was proof he loved me enough to risk his life.

I was wrong.

That whole night, I kept dreaming of him shielding me under his body.

In the end, I softened again and wanted to give him one more chance.

The next morning, I made breakfast like I always used to.

I slid the plate of buns to his side, but almost by reflex, he snatched up the phone on the table.

My hand froze.

He had never been afraid of me looking at his phone before.

Then he hurried to explain himself, "I... was checking my schedule. I'll take you to the hospital today."

But right then, a WhatsApp video call popped up.

The custom ringtone was "My Love Is Yours Alone."

Charles declined it and said, "It's my assistant Ruby. I forgot I have an exhibition this morning."

He didn't even glance at me, put on his coat, and hurriedly headed for the door.

I stopped him, "Ruby Mayfield has been with you for more than three years now, right?"

Charles frowned and stared at me in surprise, "Since when did you start caring so much about her?"

"Replace her with a male assistant."

"She's a great assistant. She gives me inspiration for my work."

"Your inspiration really changes fast. It used to be me. Now it's her..."

He reacted like a cat whose tail had been stepped on.

He suddenly swept all the breakfast I'd made onto the floor.

Porcelain shattered, and a sharp fragment cut into my calf. Blood ran down my leg.

He asked, "What the hell is wrong with you? Who filled your head with this crap? I bust my ass every day to support this family, and I still have to be interrogated like a criminal by you?

"She's just an assistant. If I replace her now, the whole company will think my wife is some paranoid lunatic. How am I supposed to face anyone after that?"

The whole room fell into a dead silence.

Tears slid down my face in hurt.

If I hadn't spent these years trying to have a child for him,

I would've become a better painter than he ever was.

I cried, "If you won't replace her, do you want to replace me instead? Me and our children together still don't matter as much as she does?"

"Stella Linwood!" Charles suddenly kicked the shoe bench across the room, his right hand trembling nonstop.

"Children? Which one are you talking about?" With his back to me, his voice sounded bleak and cold.

He added, "Fine. When it comes to the children, I admit I've wronged you.

"But do you have no responsibility at all? Touch your stomach. Four children. Were you able to keep even one? That nursery has stayed locked all this time. Why do you think that is? What more do you want from me?"

He slammed the door and left.

I couldn't hold myself up anymore and collapsed to the floor.

The nursery was the sharpest thorn in my heart.

I was the one who locked that door.

Before I did, I sat in that room for an entire afternoon and painted the crib three times myself.

A string of little stars hung above the crib. I put in fresh batteries and watched them glow for a long, long time.

I imagined my baby lying there, cooing softly and reaching up with tiny hands.

But not one of my four babies had ever slept in that bed.

The first one was lost on the day Charles sent me out of town to negotiate that contract.

I called him from the operating table, and he didn't answer.

I didn't learn until yesterday that he had spent that day celebrating his hundredth day with Ruby.

Back then, I didn't know.

When he wouldn't come home, I thought he blamed me for failing to protect the baby, so I became desperate to get pregnant again and repair our relationship.

Then came the second child, and the third.

The doctor said the first miscarriage had damaged my body.

From then on, I kept running to hospitals, drinking herbal medicine, getting acupuncture, and lying still in bed for months, crying out every tear I had left.

I didn't dare enter the nursery.

I didn't dare look at those little stars.

In the end, I could only lock the door and leave it closed for three years.

I thought gratitude could be repaid and pain could eventually dry up, until his words finally woke me.

Four children...

The debt I thought I owed him for saving my life had long since been repaid.

I contacted a divorce lawyer and began preparing to end the marriage.