Chapter 1
Elijah Jagger only liked women with pure, untouched bodies.
I had thought it was just a joke.
It was not until I found out I was pregnant that I realized the housekeeper was changing one bloodstained sheet after another every night, and the hallway outside the operating room for virginity restoration was always crowded.
For the sake of the baby, I kept giving in.
I endured it until I was seven months pregnant. When no new women appeared in the house anymore, I finally realized Elijah had developed real feelings for his latest lover.
I did not cry, and I did not make a scene. I simply asked him to sign the consent form for my abortion.
Not only did he refuse to sign it, he tore it to pieces and stared at me coldly as he said,
"I told you long ago, they were just women for amusement. Any woman in Everest City understands that rule. As my wife, you should understand even better that tolerance and virtue are a woman's best dowry. If you insist on being this willful, it only proves you are not fit to stay in the Jagger family."
Watching the torn scraps whirl through the air, I gave up arguing with him any further.
As I bent down to pick up the pieces, I thought of the envelope Molly Jagger had given me before she died, and of something she had once said, "If you want to leave, you can do so anytime."
I insisted on calling to schedule the abortion, but Elijah slapped the phone out of my hand.
"Yvette Jagger, that child is mine. Just try aborting it!"
The housekeeper and the maternity nurse hurriedly dropped to their knees to plead with me, begging me not to anger Elijah any further.
Cradling my belly, I looked at him as tears streamed down my face.
Seven months earlier, when I found out I was pregnant, I had called him full of joy.
But the line was noisy, with one bid after another ringing out in the background. I immediately understood that he had set his sights on a new target again.
I tried to use the baby to win back his heart.
I used my morning sickness as an excuse and begged him to stay with me until I fell asleep.
But the next morning, I still saw a freshly washed white bedsheet hanging on the line.
"Mrs. Jagger's figure has changed since she got pregnant. Even if she recovers later, she still won't compare to those young, pretty girls."
The moment she saw me, the housekeeper hanging the sheet immediately fell silent.
But all I felt was that they were right.
Perhaps I should have understood that long ago.
A ringing phone pulled me back from my thoughts.
In the tense silence, Elijah picked up the phone before I could and switched it to speaker.
"Mrs. Jagger, your mother's hospital room has been taken by someone else, and... there is not a single cent left in her hospital account."
I jerked my head up, stunned.
Elijah guiltily looked away.
"Thea's mother is in the hospital too. I told her to pick whichever room she wanted."
When he said that, he did not dare look me in the eye.
Because back then, my mother had been in a car accident and had fallen into a permanent vegetative state.
He had once promised me again and again that he would stay by my side and wait with me until the day my mother woke up.
"This private room is for Mom alone. Whoever dares step in will pay the price."
But now, he only stood there coldly.
"I'll have someone move Mom to another room right away, so stop making a scene..."
Before he could finish, I rammed past him with tears in my eyes and rushed to the hospital.
The moment I saw what was in front of me, I froze.
My mother had actually been left in the corridor, severely deprived of oxygen, her whole body already turning purple.
The next second, Thea Vickers rubbed her bleeding wrist and threw herself toward Elijah behind me.
"I was only trying to help move Yvette's mother to another room, and Yvette scratched me with her nails. If she's going to treat me like this, then we don't have to stay here!"
Thea angrily shoved Elijah away and pretended she was about to run into the room to move her things.
Elijah had no patience left for me. In a vicious tone, he snapped, "If you keep making trouble like this, then once you've given birth, get out. That way you won't have to be upset by the sight of them!"
After throwing out those words, Elijah hurried after her.
The nurses helped move my mother into a regular ward. One of them sighed and said...
