Chapter 1

On our third wedding anniversary, he went on another "business trip."

Two days later, his foster sister Shea sent me a friend request.

The moment I clicked on her profile, I saw the post. Him with his arm around her, watching the sunset on the beach. The caption read: "One phone call and he came running. Let that woman rot at home alone."

My hand trembled as I scrolled.

Further down, Shea had posted a photo of a limited-edition handbag. "He bought this for me. The ugly bag that came with it as part of the bundle purchase? He just tossed that to the woman beneath us."

That bag was sitting on my vanity right now.

My phone buzzed.

A message from Xander: "Did you get my anniversary gift? Do you like it?"

I stared at the message and felt something close to laughter rising in my chest.

"Got it," I typed back. "There's a gift waiting for you too. You'll receive it in a month."

Then I called a divorce attorney.

Lora's POV

"Ms. Lora, I have sent the divorce agreement you asked me to draft to your email. Did you receive it?"

I looked down at the freshly printed divorce papers in my hand and made a sound of acknowledgment.

"Once he signs it, I will be in touch."

I hung up. The front door opened.

Xander stepped into the entryway, tall, lean, composed, his face carrying the weariness of a long-haul flight.

"What are you reading?"

He pulled me into his arms without hesitation, his low voice settling near my ear, warm breath grazing my neck.

"Who were you just on the phone with?"

An unfamiliar perfume drifted off him.

"All done with business overseas?"

I didn't answer his question.

"Yeah, it was messy. I barely slept these past few days trying to get back to you sooner."

He buried his face against the curve of my neck and shoulder.

"Sorry I missed our anniversary again."

He held out a luxury gift box like he was presenting treasure.

"Take this for now. Whatever you want as compensation, just say the word. We'll do a proper anniversary celebration another time."

I didn't take it. I glanced at it once, then looked away.

"I've had my eye on a lakeside villa. That'll do. I just need your signature."

I handed him the last page of the divorce papers along with a pen, gesturing for him to sign.

Xander paused, visibly caught off guard.

In the past, whenever he had missed something important, he would offer to make it up to me, and I never asked for anything.

He instinctively reached to flip through the document.

"What? You don't trust me? Think I'm trying to steal your money?"

"Of course not."

Xander smiled, dropped the pages, and signed his name in one fluid stroke.

"Everything I have is yours anyway."

Once, those words would have made me feel warm all the way through.

Now they only made the cold in my chest sink deeper.

"What did you get me for our anniversary?"

Every year, I put careful thought into Xander's anniversary gift.

This year, I'd planned to give him my pregnancy test results. But that no longer felt right. A divorce filing would have to do.

"To punish you for missing it again, you'll have to wait a month."

I said it with a playful air of mystery.

Xander let out a low laugh.

"Fair enough. I'll take my punishment."

Then his hands wandered under my shirt.

My whole body went rigid. A wave of goosebumps swept over my skin. I was forcing down the urge to push him away, scrambling for an excuse, when his phone buzzed.

Xander immediately let go of me and walked toward the balcony, already answering the call.

Through the gap in the balcony door, fragments of the conversation drifted in:

"Okay. I won't touch her."

"Just you."

I pulled one corner of my mouth into a thin smile. No excuse needed after all.

Because Xander would put himself in the guest room tonight all on his own.

This had happened more times than I could count.

The call was from Shea, his foster sister, and the point was to make sure he didn't come near me.

Sure enough, a few minutes later, Xander came back into the living room.

"Sorry, something urgent came up at the office. I'll be in the study tonight. Don't wait up."

That evening, I sat alone by the bedroom window, and the past came rolling in like a tide.

I grew up in a small, poor town in the middle of nowhere.

When I was five, my parents left to find work in the city. On the winding mountain road leading away from home, their bus went off the road. They both died.

I was left with my grandmother, who was already old and fragile.

When I was thirteen, she got sick.

I was ready to drop out of school.

It was Xander's financial support that gave me the chance to keep studying and eventually leave that town behind.

From that day on, I made myself a promise: I would get into his university. I would not waste what he'd given me.

I did. I got in with strong grades, enrolled in the same program he'd studied.

My freshman year, Xander, who had by then taken over the family business, was invited back to campus as a distinguished alumnus to give a speech.

Watching him on that stage, easy and assured in every movement, I understood for the first time what it felt like to fall for someone.

Backstage, I went to give him flowers and thank him for his support.

He accepted them and looked at me.

"Lora. I remember you."

But I knew what separated us. I never let myself hope for anything more.

Then one night, I ran into him at the bar where I worked part-time.

He was alone in a corner, drinking in silence, a shadow across his face.

I couldn't help walking over.

He looked up just as I reached him.

"Lora. You have feelings for me."

He said it like a fact.

I froze. My face went hot.

"Then marry me."

He was looking at me like he could see straight through to whatever I was hiding.

Three months later, Xander married me over his family's objections. It was a grand wedding, the kind people talked about for years.

In the circles he moved in, Xander was known as a rare and model husband.

He didn't smoke, didn't drink, came home every night. He made me feel safe.

No scandals, no rumors. Reporters couldn't find a crack in him.

He was generous too. Jewelry, bags, clothes. I lost count of the things he gave me.

Everyone envied me. They said I must have saved the world in a past life.

I believed it.

Aside from working too much and being away constantly on business trips, I couldn't find a single flaw in Xander.

Yes, aside from the business trips.

My birthday: emergency abroad, business trip.

Valentine's Day: important meetings overseas, business trip.

Our anniversary: business trip again.

Three years of marriage, and almost every significant day had been spent apart.

Once, we planned a trip together.

We made it all the way to the airport. Right before boarding, Xander took a call, apologized, bought a ticket to Paris, and left me standing there alone.

I never complained. I only felt sorry for how hard he was working.

Every time he came home from a trip, I cooked a full meal to welcome him back.

Then came our third anniversary, and, no surprise, another business trip.

Two days later, a profile under the name Shea sent me a friend request.

I remembered Xander had a foster sister named Shea. She'd gone abroad a few years back and never returned.

I accepted.

What I found on her social media was three years of truth.

Every so-called business trip had been spent with Shea.

He'd had no time to take me to see the winter snowfall in Hokkaido, but in three years he'd taken her everywhere in the world.

When Shea mentioned craving pastries from a shop she'd loved as a kid, he boarded a private jet that night and delivered them himself. They were still warm when they reached her.

When Shea texted that she was upset and didn't want him sleeping beside that woman, he moved to the guest room and worked through the night.

Shea had also posted a screenshot of their messages.

In it, Xander had written that he married me as a cover. That he had never loved me.

The wife everyone envied, I was nothing but his shield.

The happiness I thought I had was a lie, start to finish.

I looked at the bag on my vanity, the one Xander had just given me.

I had already seen it on Shea's profile two days ago.

It was a bundle item. Xander bought it to get the limited-edition bag Shea wanted, and this was the piece that came along with it, the one Shea called old and ugly and told him to get rid of.

So he brought it home and gave it to me.

I didn't know how many of his other seemingly expensive gifts had come to me the same way.

I picked up my phone and called the attorney again.

"Mr. Brooks, the agreement's been signed. How soon can we finalize the divorce?"

The attorney on the other end seemed genuinely surprised the papers had gone through so quickly. A brief pause.

"One month from now."

One more month.

One month, and I'd be done with this three-way mess. Done with Xander's world entirely.