Chapter 4

I turned the doorknob and pushed open the door to see two intertwined figures on the sofa.

And the matching couple's pajamas I had treasured in the closet—the ones Ethan and I once wore—were now on Ethan and Nina.

My mind went blank. I couldn't control my questioning:

"Ethan! How could you bring her here! You know this is our—"

Before I could finish, Nina had already efficiently slapped herself across the face.

With a swollen face, she stood in front of Ethan, glaring at me with tears:

"Mrs. Turner, I just wanted to understand Ethan's past life, so I begged him to bring me here."

"If you're unhappy, I can kneel and apologize to you. Just please stop hurting him."

Ethan was heartbroken. He cupped her face, blowing on it repeatedly.

He looked coldly at the bodyguard.

The bodyguard behind me immediately grabbed my arms. His hand like a fan slapped my face hard.

Over and over, my ears rang.

I don't know how long it lasted before they finally stopped and released me.

I fell to the floor. Ethan looked at me with an expressionless face:

"Sophia, why do you insist on making yourself miserable? If you're not feeling well, just go home and rest. Why did you have to follow us here to cause trouble?"

I smiled bitterly:

"Go home? Do I still have a home? Is it even my home anymore?"

I looked at him with red eyes, tears mixing with nosebleed dripping on the floor:

"Ethan, why did you bring her here..."

"You can fool around with her anywhere you want! Why did you have to defile this place!"

"The thirty-year-old Ethan is already rotten to the core. Why do you have to destroy the only memory the twenty-year-old Ethan left me?"

Ethan's eyes flickered for a moment, but then turned to anger:

"I'm rotten to the core? How am I rotten? Sophia, don't forget—if it weren't for me, you'd be stuck in this cramped rental for life!"

"Don't forget, the money you used to buy this place came from my account! This place belongs to me too! I can do whatever I want with it!"

He laughed bitterly in anger:

"You say I'm defiling this place by coming here?! Forget defiling it—even if I blow up this dump, it's none of your business."

He had his men drag me out and placed several pounds of explosives outside the shabby building.

With one command, the house that held our only happy memories together was reduced to rubble.

In the flames filling the sky, my tears wouldn't stop falling.

Ethan stared at the tears on my face.

His anger dissipated somewhat, his tone cold:

"Sophia, what do I have to say to make you understand?"

"I gave you the status of Mrs. Turner. I let you live in the best villa. I let you carry bags worth hundreds of thousands. Even the clothes you're wearing now are haute couture that ordinary people could never afford in their lifetime. Haven't I been good enough to you?!"

"You're already thirty years old. You're not young anymore. Do you really expect me to still love an aging you?"

"I give you the dignity of being my wife, I give you a comfortable life. All you need to do is turn a blind eye and accept Nina and the child. Is that so hard?"

I met his gaze and said word by word:

"I'm not willing."

"Ethan, you've erased everything we had with your own hands."

"Let's divorce."

Anger and irritation flashed in Ethan's eyes.

He looked at me and said flatly:

"Divorce? Impossible. Even if I don't love you anymore, you're still my most important person. I won't divorce you."

He looked at me, saying each word clearly:

"Sophia, I've never wronged you. If anyone's been wronged, it's Nina—I couldn't give her a proper status, making her stay with me without name or title in her best years."

"I was going to give you some dignity, but I didn't expect you to be so unreasonable, making things this ugly."

He turned around, knelt on one knee, pulled out a huge pigeon-egg diamond ring from his pocket, and said affectionately to Nina:

"Nina, I regret meeting you so late."

"I can't give you a proper status in this lifetime, but I want to give you the grandest wedding and let everyone know you're the one I love most."

Nina covered her mouth, her eyes reddening, but she still turned her head away, looking dejected:

"I can't accept! I love you, so I'm willing to put aside my self-respect and degrade myself to be your mistress, but I don't want everyone to know I'm your mistress!"

"Unless..."

She turned to look at me:

"Unless Mrs. Turner witnesses our wedding and admits in front of everyone that the unloved one is the real mistress, that she's the third wheel!"