My Husband's Intern Crush Slandered Me on Live Stream to Prove Herself

When I was nine months pregnant, my husband told me to go see Ava for a check-up. After I lay down, Ava started making all kinds of strange requests. When I objected, she claimed she was going to give me a full examination. I hesitated, then went along with it—only to suddenly realize she was live-streaming on her phone. "To prove what I'm capable of, I'll give you all a live demonstration." "The woman behind me is pregnant, but because of her promiscuous lifestyle, she's probably caught a dirty disease!" I hurriedly pulled my clothes down, stood up in a fury, and reached out to knock the phone over. "Ava Finch, you streamed me without my consent, and now you're slandering my reputation." She stayed just as arrogant, refusing to admit any fault. In my anger, I called the police and had her arrested. I never expected that in under three hours, my husband would hire a top lawyer to bail her out. Ava lashed out at me viciously: "Eugenia, what right do you have to call the police on me? I was only telling the truth." I slapped her right there. The next second, to vent her anger for her, my husband countersued me for assault, and I was hauled in to be taught a lesson. By the time I got out, three days had passed, and a swarm of reporters mobbed me. "Mrs. Gilbert, is your private life really that loose—have you caught a dirty disease?" …… 1 Facing dozens of cameras, the glaring lights made me instinctively shut my eyes. Three days without washing up left me looking rather bedraggled. A priceless Rolls-Royce pulled up behind the reporters, and a group of bodyguards rushed over and shoved them aside. Once a path had been cleared, Egbert finally stepped out of the car. My disheveled state next to his clean, refined bearing made it look like I was the one who'd married up. The reporters didn't dare take any more pictures. One by one they lowered their cameras, unwilling to provoke this living devil. When Egbert walked up to me, his handsome face still carried a chill. "You spent three days in there. Have you learned to behave now?" I said nothing, just stared at him coldly. Looking at this face I'd loved for four years, I wondered what exactly it was I'd fallen for. But in the end, I realized I didn't seem to love him that much anymore. It was probably what he'd done to me that had turned me against him. "What, have you gone mute?" "Egbert, I'm your wife, and the child in my belly is yours." "And yet you locked me and our baby up for Ava's sake." "Who told you not to behave, daring to hit someone? Do you think you're some kind of mob boss?" I couldn't help but sneer. "And what about her? She streamed me without my permission. She's a woman too—doesn't she know how important reputation is?" "Eugenia, she's still an intern. What's wrong with asking you to be examined as required? She did it so others could see her hard work and her ability." "Just stop making a scene, all right?" He leaned in close, keeping his voice low so the reporters behind him wouldn't hear. But I didn't care about any of that. I raised my hand, pushed him aside, and walked off. "Eugenia, stop right there!" A bright red sports car came screeching to a halt in front of me. I opened the door and got in, ignoring the furious Egbert behind me. Inside, the air conditioning was blasting, but it was nowhere near as cold as my heart. "Bring Ava Finch to me." "Yes!" Three hours later, Ava was brought before me. The moment she saw me, her temper flared. "Eugenia, what right do you have to grab me?" "Aren't you afraid Egbert will find out and throw you back in?" "I really don't know whether to call you stupid, or just faking it." "You know perfectly well that if he had to choose between you and me, he'd only choose me." "If I lose so much as a single hair, you'll never hear the end of it."

I set down my teacup, stood up, and slapped her across the face. "So I hit you. What of it?" "You, you damned bitch, how dare you hit me." "If I'd known back then, I would have given you even more outrageous demands, told you to pile it on and keep smearing me as trash who's slept with countless men." "So this is the rumor you made up about me just to prove how capable you are?" "And what if it is?" I curled my lips into a cold smile, and the chill in my eyes vanished in an instant. Ava was a little thrown. "Why aren't you angry?" I tilted my head slightly and stared at her. "Take a guess." Ava's eyes darted around, then she snapped her head up to look at me. "You bitch, are you livestreaming this too???" I nodded, satisfied. "Yes." She ruined my good name, so I made it come back to bite her. Wanting to be a miracle doctor through cheap tricks? Keep dreaming. The live stream chattered on without stopping. I didn't read any more of it. All I cared about was that my good name had been returned to me. Ava's face was flushed red with fury. "Eugenia Henson, you dare scheme against me!" "Just returning the favor." With that, I turned and walked out. She chased after me to hit me, but the bodyguards behind her held her back. "Ava, you shouldn't have crossed me." "Argh! You bitch, Egbert won't let you get away with this." She was right. Egbert came to my private mansion that very night. The door was kicked open, and this time he'd doubled the number of bodyguards. I sat calmly on the leather sofa, not the least bit rattled by his arrival. "Eugenia, why did you have to destroy Ava's career like that?" "I did knock the hype down, but her career is finished too." "Her reputation's ruined now. How is she supposed to face anyone?" "Can't you cut her some slack? She's only twenty-three." So it turned out he cared a great deal about Ava's reputation, but forgot that I was only two years older than her, and that my reputation mattered just as much to me. It suddenly struck me how exhausting it is to argue with someone who plays favorites. "If she were actually good at her job, how would any of this have happened?" "No matter how much you favor her, you still have to face the facts. Do you really think letting someone like her save lives, she could carry that weight on her shoulders?" "You bitch, it's not your place to comment." Ava walked in, her eyes red and swollen. Egbert turned to look at her, and his tone softened along with it. "Ava, why did you come?" "I want Eugenia to kneel and apologize to me." "And on a live stream, too." I looked at her coldly and didn't move a muscle. Egbert soothed her gently, and it truly got to me. "What are you still sitting there for? Get up and apologize." I looked up at him. "Egbert, this is one apology I won't make." The air around us went suddenly quiet, and his brow signaled deep displeasure. "If you refuse to apologize, you know I have plenty of ways to deal with you." I laughed out loud, but it felt like something was lodged in my throat, and it made my chest ache too. I put away my bitter smile. "Egbert, five years ago, when your Gilbert family was in crisis, when you and your father were out begging people to invest and pull the Gilberts through, who was it that helped you?" He didn't look away from me. He met my cold stare head-on. "Stop using that to guilt me over and over. I've already given you what I owed you." "The position of wife, the oceanfront home, my love included." "Ava has none of that. All she can do is call me her brother. What's wrong with me protecting her?" Ava's eyes were even redder than before, and she nestled against his chest like a terrified little rabbit. "Egbert, I'm afraid your mother will blame me, since the conflict between you and her is because of me." "Don't worry, my mother won't." "Love me, love my dog." "The Hensons may have helped me, but one thing is one thing and another is another." When he was done, he turned his gaze back to me. "You know I have no patience." "And you know I won't apologize." My refusal turned his expression to ice. Before he left, he said one thing: "People always break their own rules when they're in a tight spot."

Less than two hours after he left, Henson stock started to waver. The decline wasn't fast yet, but I knew it wouldn't be long before it was. This was all Egbert's doing. This was how he was forcing me to apologize to Ava. Inside the Henson high-rise, the employees were run ragged. The Gilberts had become the top family in the Capital. If Egbert wanted someone finished, they wouldn't last past the next day. My father collapsed from exhaustion, and I rushed him to the hospital. The operating room door had just closed when Egbert called. "Have you learned how to apologize yet?" "Don't think that just because you're my wife, you can carry yourself so high in front of me." I raised my voice and shouted at him, "My father always treated you like his own son. When your Gilbert family fell on hard times, he helped you the moment you needed it." Egbert let out a careless laugh. "I already gave your Henson family their due. We settled up long ago." "Day after day, dragging up old favors—aren't you tired of it?" The conversation was ugly, and it ended fast. But less than a second later, the phone rang again. "Madam, please come back quickly." "What's wrong?" "Sir threw out all of your mother's belongings to burn them. I couldn't stop him." I got back as fast as I could. The whole yard reeked of burning, and the last thing that hadn't burned was a pair of butterfly clips. I ran over, reached into the fire, and grabbed the scalding butterfly clips. That was the last gift my mother gave me, on the night of my birthday. But I was still a step too late—more than half of it was ruined. Footsteps came from behind me. "Well, well. I never thought you'd care about keepsakes." That smug voice belonged to Ava. "You're the one who burned them?" "That's right!" "It's really bad luck to keep a dead person's things in the house..." "This is my home. What business is it of yours whether it's bad luck or not?" I turned and stared at her, but she didn't show the slightest panic. "Isn't your home just my house? You can live here, and so can Ava." Egbert's icy voice grew closer. "Is this the cheap, underhanded trick you're pulling to force me to apologize?" "You could put it that way, but there's more coming." I couldn't help but laugh bitterly at myself. My heart ached as if a huge boulder were pressing down on it. "First you throw the Henson stock into turmoil, then you set fire to my mother's belongings." "All of this just so I'll apologize to Ava?" Neither of them spoke, letting silence stand in for the answer. "Drag this out one more day, and the stock will fall twice as fast." My hands clenched, but there was nothing I could do. Now and then the servants shot me strange, pitying looks that made me burn with shame. "If I'd known you were such an ingrate, I should have wiped the Gilbert family off the map of the Capital back then." "No—to be exact, it was you who put the Hensons in this deadlock." "Egbert, can't five years of true devotion warm your heart at all?" "I've done so much for you—can't you see it?" For the first time I lost control and my voice rose. "Have I never shown you any mercy? You know she was only doing a check-up on a live stream—what was so shameful about that?" "And Ava? She can never be a doctor again." "I tried to persuade the director, but he has a strange temper, and he's got some mysterious backer behind him. I can't touch him." "All I need is for you to do a live apology and say that you're the one who forced Ava to say those things." "It's better this way, for you and for her." "You have three more minutes to decide, because in three minutes the Henson stock will—" "I'll apologize!"

To spare my father from suffering, and to keep the Henson stock from falling, I decided to give in. If I had anyone to blame, it was myself—for misjudging a man, for rescuing an ungrateful wretch. Egbert Gilbert sent me a draft of an apology and told me to memorize it, so it would come out smoothly during the live stream. My fingertips rested on the screen. The words looked like countless needles, until my eyes went red. I clenched my fists hard and read the apology aloud, carrying an emotion I couldn't name. Once I had it memorized, Egbert went live immediately. He spent a fortune, and the stream's popularity shot up in an instant. I knelt before Ava Finch as if I were numb. "Ms. Finch, I'm so sorry!" "And I'm even more sorry to the viewers watching on the other side of the screen, because I deceived them." "Ava Finch is a good doctor. I was jealous and afraid she would steal my husband, so I smeared her." "Before the examination even started, I arranged it with her and made her do exactly as I instructed—take off her skirt, pull up her top, and so on." The viewers in the stream immediately turned on me, calling me shameless. The apology wasn't over yet. I couldn't stop. Holding down the tightness in my chest, I kept reading. "I forced her to say those things on that live stream, because I used Mrs. Gilbert's position to threaten her family." The comments were all curses, everyone saying I'd be struck by lightning. Ava gently helped me to my feet, tears in her eyes as she accepted my apology. In the end she won everyone's praise, while I became a rat in the street that everyone wanted to beat. My phone rang. It was my father's number. I hurried out of the camera's frame before I answered. "Eugenia, you're not that kind of person! Why would you say those things about yourself?" "Is Egbert Gilbert bullying you? Is he using the Hensons and my life to force you to give in?" I didn't know how to answer him. When grief and rage overwhelmed my father at once, it finally triggered his illness. Terror scattered my wits, and I ran for the hospital, deaf to every sound. Egbert froze for a moment, then chased after me. Days of exhaustion piled up, and a sharp pain tore through my lower abdomen. Before I could even reach the door of the emergency room, I pitched forward and fell. Egbert reached out to steady me. I lifted my hand and knocked him away. But the pain was too much; I had no strength to stand. Egbert simply called the doctors over, and I was taken to the operating table, with my father in the room beside me. The doctors were helpless. "Mr. Gilbert, the baby in your wife's womb is showing signs of miscarriage." "All the senior doctors in the hospital have gone away for training. Only one is left, so it comes down to whether we save Old Mr. Henson or the baby in your wife's womb..." "Save my father!" My face pale, I begged with every bit of strength I had. But my father seemed to be conscious, and afraid of putting me in an impossible position, in the end he chose not to wake up. The sound coming from the red line on the monitor stabbed at my ears—he wanted the doctor to go and save the baby in my womb. I understood him. But he didn't understand me. His life stopped in the very moment the doctors turned to save the baby in my womb. I wept tears of unbearable grief, and the baby was cut out. As I was being taken to the ward, I wanted to go out and see my father. That was when Ava pushed the door open and walked in. "Eugenia Henson, why do you look ten years older?" "Ha, so what if you're stubborn? In the end I still used your Henson family and your father's life to force you to heel. All you could do was kneel like a dog and never fight back." "But I never expected that dead old man of a father to sacrifice himself to save the child." "So stupid!" I glared at her, furious, and she laughed again. "Isn't it stupid, though?" "Because the baby in your belly was never yours at all—it's mine and Egbert's." "While you were getting your checkup, I swapped your eggs with mine!" "Your father died for nothing. I really should thank him—sacrificing himself to save my child's life."