After He Destroyed Me, I Became His Rival's Queen

At her mother's funeral, Claudia Simmons is handed a divorce agreement by her husband, Tristram Stephens, who arrives late with his pregnant secretary, Lois Swanson, on his arm. He calls the divorce a formality: once Lois bears his child and the baby is registered under the Stephens name, he will divorce her and remarry Claudia. Five years of marriage, two terminated pregnancies, and a botched procedure that left Claudia unable to bear children stand behind her. When she refuses to ever remarry him, Tristram mocks her as a barren woman no one else would want, then invokes her mother's memory as a final cruelty.

Back at the villa, Claudia finds Lois draped over Tristram in her own nightgown, and is told to surrender the best bedroom to the pregnant woman. She signs the divorce papers without argument, clutching her mother's memorial portrait, while Tristram watches her calm surrender with something tightening in his chest. He still believes she will come back to him.