Chapter 2

It was nothing more than a tiny scratch, yet Robert looked devastated over it. "Ellie, are you okay? I'm taking you to the hospital right now!"

With that, he grabbed Ellie by the hand and hurried out.

Watching his frantic retreat, I found the whole thing utterly pathetic. In all our years together, he had never treated me like that.

Back when I had a 104-degree fever, I had to drag myself to the hospital alone. Yet when Ellie had a paper cut, Robert looked as if his world were crumbling.

The affection radiating between them was practically blinding.

I had been so blind in my last life. It was staring me right in the face, yet I let them play me for a fool until it killed me.

Once they were gone, I stepped out of the office.

Immediately, my coworkers all looked at me like I was some kind of joke as the snide remarks began.

"Look at Melanie. Guess Robert chewed her out again."

"Seriously, she needs to stop throwing herself at Mr. Schmidt. Talk about zero self-awareness. How can she even compare to Ms. Gordon?"

"Exactly! Ms. Gordon and Mr. Schmidt are the real couple here. Melanie is just a parasite. Keep clinging like that, and she'll end up with absolutely nothing."

The laughter echoed down the hallway.

This wasn't the first time they had mocked me like this.

Robert and I had been married for seven years, but he refused to take our relationship public, claiming he wanted to avoid workplace gossip.

To keep up appearances, we never commuted together, and he treated me with harsh severity during office hours.

Naturally, the staff assumed I was on his bad side, so they constantly bullied me to score points with him.

Robert had watched it all happen with cold indifference. He even told me to look at the bigger picture and stop causing trouble.

In my last life, I swallowed my pride just to make things easier on him.

But I wasn't going to be anyone's doormat this time around.

I let out a chuckle and fired right back. "You guys can barely hit your KPI. Where do you get off judging me? Maybe focus on keeping your jobs before worrying about mine."

Leaving them red-faced and sputtering, I turned on my heel and walked back to my desk.

The moment I sat down, my phone rang. It was Robert, his voice clipped and cold. "Melanie, Ellie hurt her hand and needs to rest. She shouldn't be overexerting herself. You'll be taking over the rest of her workload today."

Then, Ellie's voice piped up in the background, thick with faux reluctance. "Robert, is that really okay? I'd hate to be a burden to Melanie."

Robert scoffed. "What's wrong with it? Coworkers are supposed to help each other out. Besides, you're giving her a learning opportunity. She should be thanking you."

Before I could refuse, he hung up and sent over a proposal Ellie had only written the title for.

This was exactly how it went in my last life. I did all the grunt work and took all the blame when things went sideways, while Ellie walked away with all the credit and the bonuses.

This time around, they weren't making a sucker out of me again.

Still, I wasn't about to let Ellie off that easily.

I accepted the file, did a quick copy-paste job from a random website, and shot the completed proposal right back to Robert.

With that out of the way, I pulled out my phone and messaged a contact. "Hello, I'd like to file a patent application."

The agent responded almost instantly.

In all fairness, the company's rapid growth was entirely due to the patents I held.

After I died, Robert used my patents to climb to the very top.

This time, I was going to lock down those rights first. Once the patents were secured in my name, every single product his company manufactured would be a direct infringement.