Chapter 2

I took a cab to the hospital.

While I was getting an IV, I received a message from Logan.

In the picture, Claire was half-dressed and standing in front of a mirror to touch up her makeup. The red marks on her neck were impossible to miss.

He put on a fake act and apologized to me.

“Sorry, Mason. I didn’t know you were still waiting for Claire. That was my fault for not thinking it through and wasting your time.”

“But my design is being shown as the finale tonight. If it gets lost, it affects the whole company, so it makes sense that Claire was anxious.”

I couldn’t be bothered with that fake apology or the way he was showing off through every word.

I just blocked Logan’s contact.

I lowered my head and looked at the missing pinky finger on my right hand, and I knew Logan was just trying to provoke me.

After all, I was no longer the once-famous, gifted designer I had been three years ago.

Back then, Claire handled a company project with zero mercy and ended up provoking revenge from a rival company.

I gave up the world design competition, which was only held once every ten years, and rushed over in a panic.

To save Claire’s life, my pinky finger was cut off.

Because of that, I was hit hard, and my mentor also cut ties with me because I missed the competition.

After that, I left the design industry and stayed behind the scenes.

I still remembered that six months ago, I told her I wanted to return to work, because I wanted to design a true final masterpiece.

But Claire sneered coldly.

“You’re already old. Do you even know what’s trendy? The stuff you design probably won’t even sell.”

“The company exists to make money, not for you to have your little creative moment.”

I didn’t want to make things hard for her, so I quietly drew the designs and had them made by a factory.

I wanted to give Claire that pink diamond ring on our eighth wedding anniversary.

But what did I get instead?

She secretly took the ring, even let Logan propose to her, and let the internet believe that ring was Logan’s design.

In the end, she even used a cheap, broken pinky ring to humiliate me.

I thought this eight-year relationship had probably really come to an end.

After I finished the IV and got home not long after, Claire came in right behind me.

She threw the car key hard onto the cabinet and started scolding me the second she opened her mouth.

“Didn’t I tell you to wait in the car? What were you thinking? You just left, and you even smashed my car window. If something inside had gone missing, could you have paid for it?”

“You’ve got a fever and you’re still running around everywhere. Are you trying to die?”

After that, she took a box of cold medicine out of her bag. “I went to the hospital looking for you for ages and never saw you. This is medicine I bought for you.”

I had spent two hours getting an IV in the hospital lobby and never saw her at all.

So the part about her looking for me for a long time was just something she said offhand.

I said nothing and reached out to take the box of cold medicine, only then realizing it had already been opened before.

I subconsciously reached in to feel the powder packets inside, but instead I found a pink heart-shaped sticky note.

It said, “May our great designer Logan recover soon.”

And the signature read: Your loving Claire, forever and always.

I paused, and my heart had already gone numb. I just smiled faintly. “Thanks.”