Chapter 3

I put my phone on the table and picked up the remote to change the channel.

A variety show was playing on TV, with a few celebrities on stage joking around and laughing extra loudly.

I leaned back on the sofa and suddenly thought the whole scene was absurd.

I was sitting in this two-thousand-square-foot house, clinging to a marriage in name only, waiting for a woman who would never put me in her heart to come home.

And she was with her first love.

Openly with him, and confidently so.

Because when we got married, she had made it very clear: if it weren't for you back then, we wouldn't have ended up like this.

What she meant was that I had broken her and Caleb apart.

I had stepped in and forced them to separate.

I had used my family’s influence and that lawsuit to harden the bind that tied her to a marriage certificate.

But what was the truth?

The truth was that my dad's company had run into a cash flow breakdown and urgently needed a large sum of money to keep things moving.

And her family's company had gotten tangled up in a troublesome lawsuit that needed my family's connections to smooth over.

The elders from both families sat down for a meal and settled the marriage.

No one asked me if I wanted to get married.

And no one asked her if she was willing to marry.

But in everyone else's eyes, this was a fair deal.

Her family put in money, my family put in connections, and each side got what it needed.

Only Caleb became the sacrifice in this deal.

She probably thought I had stolen his place, that I had turned him from the legitimate boyfriend into a first love that had to stay in the dark.

So she gave all her guilt to Caleb and left all her coldness for me.

On our wedding night, she drank a lot and was helped into the bedroom.

I helped her out of her dress, and she suddenly grabbed my wrist with frightening strength.

"Ethan Carter."

She said my full name, her voice hoarse.

"You know exactly what this marriage is about. I don't love you, and I never will. If you know what's good for you, just go to work and stay out of the way. We'll stay out of each other's business."

Then she let go of my hand and staggered into the guest room.

From then on, we kept sleeping in separate rooms.

She slept in the guest room, and I slept in the master bedroom.

I suddenly remembered that in three years, she had only walked into this master bedroom twice.

The first time was on our wedding night, when she came in to say all that.

The second time was last year, when I had a fever that shot up to 103.1, and my whole body was dazed and heavy.

The housekeeper called her, and she came back two hours later, stood at the bedroom door, looked at me once, and then told the housekeeper to take me to the hospital.

She left again after that.

She said there was an important party on Caleb's side, and she had to be there.

She didn't come home again that night.

When I woke up at seven the next morning, I looked at my phone and there was no message at all.

After washing up, I went downstairs, and the housekeeper was already preparing breakfast.

When she saw me coming down alone, she opened her mouth as if she wanted to say something, but in the end she only asked, "Sir, what would you like to eat today?"

"Plain congee is fine."

I sat down at the dining table, and my phone screen lit up.

It was a message from her.

"Caleb got drunk last night, so I stayed at his place to take care of him. I have a meeting this morning, so I won't be coming back."

I put down my phone and took a sip of the plain porridge.

"Housekeeper, help me buy a few more cardboard boxes these next couple of days."

She froze for a moment. "Sir, are you moving?"

"Yeah. I'm moving in a few days."

She opened her mouth, apparently wanting to ask something, but when she saw my expression, she swallowed it back.

In these three years, she had been in this house and seen everything clearly. She understood everything.

"Okay, sir."