Chapter 1

The officer told me my husband had been brought into the station during a vice raid in Chicago.

For a moment, I could not process it.

By the time I arrived at the downtown precinct and saw the tear-streaked woman Ethan was holding in his arms, something inside me went quiet.

Suddenly, none of it felt worth it anymore.

I walked up to him.

Ethan instinctively stepped in front of the woman, as if to shield her, and opened his mouth to explain.

I slapped him across the face.

"Ethan."

"You disgust me."

The sound of the slap cracked through the reception area.

Even the officer who had been explaining the situation to me froze. Ethan stood there with one hand pressed to his face, still too stunned to react. I raised my hand again, but the woman in his arms rushed forward to block him.

The slap landed on her face instead.

She cried even harder.

"What gives you the right to hit people?"

She was sobbing so hard she could barely breathe.

"What gives you the right to hit Ethan?" Her eyes were red, but she stared at me stubbornly. "You don't ask what happened. You don't care who's right or wrong. You just come in and start hitting people. How can you do that?"

Looking at her, I almost laughed.

It was so ridiculous I did not even want to waste another sentence on her. I lifted my hand again.

This time, Ethan finally came back to himself and grabbed my wrist.

"Enough."

"Olivia." His gaze went cold, and so did his voice. "This is not the place for you to throw a tantrum."

"Can you stop making a scene every time you feel like it?"

He shoved my hand away.

I was not ready for it. I stumbled back and hit my lower back against the corner of a desk. A dull pain spread through me, sharp enough to make my brows knot. Guilt flashed through Ethan's eyes. He moved as if he wanted to help me, but the woman stepped forward first.

She cried as she explained, "Olivia, there is nothing between Ethan and me. He only felt sorry for me and wanted to help. Someone set us up and made it look like we were involved in sex work. You've been with Ethan for so many years. Don't you know what kind of man he is?"

The louder she cried, the more pitiful she made herself seem, as if she had suffered some terrible injustice.

"If I were you, I would never embarrass my own husband in public. Even if something happened, couldn't you talk about it at home? Why make him lose face out here? Don't you know men care most about their dignity?"

Her tears moved Ethan. The pain and hesitation that had flickered in his eyes vanished, replaced by coldness.

He steadied Vanessa and looked at me with blame written all over his face.

"There was never anything between Vanessa and me."

"I've explained this to you so many times." He held Vanessa protectively. "Your own thoughts are dirty, so everything looks dirty to you."

Before I came here, I had thought Ethan might truly be in trouble.

I had even considered the possibility that someone had set him up and dragged him into a sex scandal, and I had already started thinking about how to handle it. I had wondered whether a competitor had designed a trap to shake the stability of the company.

But I had never thought it would be because of Vanessa.

Vanessa again.

She was the nightclub hostess Ethan had met half a year ago. The poor, damaged woman he could not stop mentioning. The woman who made him see himself as the savior in some redemption romance, determined to rescue her from her miserable life.

Because of her, we had fought countless times.

Ethan always defended Vanessa without thinking. He always decided I was being harsh, that I was the one in the wrong.

Later, I finally could not take it anymore and brought up divorce.

Only then did Ethan calm down.

He said, "I promise. There will never be a Vanessa between us."

He said, "Do you really think I don't know whether to choose you or Vanessa?"

He cried and told me he loved me. He begged me to give him another chance.

I softened.

I thought we had made it through. I thought the days had finally settled into peace, and Vanessa had truly been pushed out of our lives.

But only a month later, that poor, damaged woman returned in full force.

And she returned like this.

I looked at Ethan, at the way he had completely taken Vanessa's side, and exhaustion spread through my limbs all at once. It dragged at me until even the air felt suffocating.

"Forget it."