“I gave you everything, and this is how you repay me?”
He was the one who wanted a child. Now somehow he'd spun it into a favor he was doing for me.
Even telling me to my face, openly punishing me, counted as sincerity in his mind.
What a joke.
I swallowed the blood pooling in my mouth and slapped him right back.
James flinched from the sting and shoved me away.
The back of my skull cracked against the fire extinguisher mount.
A warm rush spilled out, dripping down.
It mixed with the red ink on the floor until you couldn't tell which was redder.
James didn't spare me a glance. He rushed to check on Nora：
“Nora, are you okay?”
My vision kept going black, everything blurring at the edges.
But I could still make out the two of them, examining each other for injuries.
“James, this is all my fault……”
Nora dabbed at the blood seeping from the corner of his mouth with one hand and turned to cry at me with the other：
“Madge, I promise I'll get rid of the baby right away!”
“Just please don't divorce him! Stop fighting with him!”
James looked deeply moved. He softened his voice to comfort her：
“If she wants a divorce, fine. But our child is not being touched.”
He turned to me, his eyes frozen over：
“Madge, you really can't stand to let Nora and her child exist?”
The pain wrung tears from my eyes before I could stop them.
He mistook them for surrender.
The ice in his gaze thawed.
He crouched down, wiped my tears, and reached out to pull me up.
But I couldn't get my legs under me.
His hand went rigid. Disappointment flooded his face, and he flung my hand away：
“Keep this up and there's really nothing left to say.”
I couldn't form words. I reached back and touched the base of my skull.
My palm came away solid red, and the color drained from his face：
“Quick! Get the first aid kit! Call 911!”
But Nora stopped him. She half-knelt beside me and started wiping the blood from my hand.
“James, don't panic! It's just ink……”
One touch was all it took for her to realize something was wrong.
But she didn't stop.
The tears came even faster, as if I were deliberately making her wait on me.
I yanked my hand free in disgust. She used the momentum to topple backward.
Both hands clutched her stomach, her face going white in an instant：
“Ah! My stomach……it hurts……”
James panicked on the spot, scooped her up, and headed for the hospital.
A spike of pain shot through my skull. I grabbed his pant leg on instinct：
“Take me to the hospi……”
“Peter, take her to the hospital!”
I thought he'd finally noticed I was hurt. Relief loosened something in me, and consciousness slipped away.
When I opened my eyes again, I was in the hospital.
James sat at the bedside, lightly brushing the gauze on my head. His voice was flat：
“You nearly beat Nora into a miscarriage. You can apologize by giving up your title as my wife. Then we're even.”
“I hurt you, but I also made it so you get to be a mother right away. So we're even on that too.”
I stared at him, stunned.
James pulled out the divorce papers and explained：
“The embryo in your belly has nothing to do with me. That makes it the same as if you cheated. Once Nora gives birth, we'll remarry.”
“But the child you're carrying has to be terminated at six months.”
I looked at the clause requiring the wife to leave with nothing, and my whole body went cold.
“James Gilbert, you bastard!”
“You'd do this to me over someone else's kid?”
He pressed the nurse call button and summoned a doctor instead of answering.
He held out a card：
“Book me the best doctor in this hospital. Make sure the child is terminated at six months. Do as little damage to her body as possible.”
The doctor frowned, pushed the card back, and snapped：
“Absolutely not.”
“Wasn't it enough that you got Dr. Chavez disciplined? Now you want to take me down too?”
“If it weren't for the fact that your dead sperm syndrome makes you completely infertile, Dr. Chavez would never have broken medical ethics to implant that embryo in your wife!”
