After eight years of marriage, the passion between my husband and me slowly died out in bed. I was complaining about it during a girls’ night when a friend, hearing my woes, recommended a famous couple account on an international platform. “It’s actually quite a coincidence. They’ve also been together for eight years, and they still go at it five times a night!” “I know this account too! I’ve been following them for a long time. The guy is so devoted and the girl is amazing. Every time they post a spicy video, I’m drooling… Just remember, don’t play their videos out loud in public.” In the middle of the night, driven by curiosity, I followed their instructions and clicked on the profile. The most recent video was updated just last night. White lace paired with a black tie—the overwhelming sexual tension made me blush and my heart race instantly. The caption read: [Love has no expiration date.] Having grown up together for over twenty years, my husband and I had long viewed each other as an extension of our own bodies. Our intimacy had always been respectful and measured; we never interacted with such unbridled abandon. I watched the video with the mindset of someone trying to learn. But at the very end of the video, on the man’s forearm, where veins bulged with exertion, a familiar watch caused my pupils to dilate in shock. That looked exactly… like my husband’s watch. Throughout our marriage, he had kept himself completely clean and distant from scandal. Except for one time, the night before our wedding, when I caught him in bed with a young woman I didn’t know. As proud as he was, that was the first time tears streamed down his face. He explained with a trembling voice that he had drunk too much, mistaken her for me, and that it would absolutely never happen again. In the eight years that followed, true to his promise, we treated each other with the utmost respect. We were the loving couple everyone envied. I believed him, but I was terrified to gamble on it again. So, on the night of my husband’s thirtieth birthday, I specifically took time off work and took an 11-hour international flight to surprise him. I figured that if everything was fine, this would be the last time I ever checked up on him, and I could casually drop the news that I was pregnant. After landing, I walked into a convenience store to buy water, just like I usually do. The woman next to me was on the phone. “You’re so clingy. We haven’t spoken for an hour and you’re blowing up my phone.” “Just wait, I’m going to squeeze you dry tonight.” Hearing another person speaking Mandarin, I curiously took a second look. I froze instantly. This woman… was the young girl from all those years ago. 1 Having not seen me in years, she didn’t seem to recognize me and turned toward the checkout counter. I couldn’t hear what the person on the other end said, but she replied with a playful pout, “I’m not cold. I’m wearing a lot. If you don’t believe me, you can check later.” “You can slip your hand in, follow my waist, all the way down to…” As if possessed by a ghost, I pulled out my phone and sent a message to Julian Hayes. 【Julian, are you off work yet?】 He didn’t reply. The woman reached out and grabbed two boxes from the contraceptive aisle. The same brand, the same scent, the same size. The ones I was intimately familiar with, the ones Julian always used. Her voice was sickeningly sweet: “It’s your birthday today. You decide how many times we go.” I looked down at my phone. Still no reply. After she paid, I followed her out of the store. Her tone was coquettish: “Stop rushing me, I see your car.” The London rain hit my face, cold as ice. I pulled my coat tighter and hit the call button with a trembling finger. A cold, mechanical female voice replied, “The subscriber you have dialed is currently unavailable.” I understood. He had turned on ‘Do Not Disturb’. This year, he said the overseas branch was very busy, and once he stepped into the office, he had no time to answer calls. This wasn’t the first time I couldn’t reach him. A Bentley pulled up and stopped at the corner not far away. “Julian!” The woman quickened her pace and opened the passenger door. I turned my head slightly to look. With just one glance, I was nailed to the spot. The car window was half open. The man in the driver’s seat looked composed and aristocratic. The woman twisted her waist and planted a light kiss on the corner of his mouth. He gave a helpless smile. “Acting spoiled again.” The streetlights were dim, but I saw his face with agonizing clarity. The owner of this face had accompanied me for my entire thirty years of life. At three years old, we held hands as we walked into kindergarten. He secretly slipped me the candy the teacher gave him: “I’ll protect you, don’t cry.” At sixteen, he imitated a scene from a movie and hid a drawing of me in a book. When I found it, his ears turned red. “I like you, so what?” At nineteen, our first love, our first kiss. He was so excited he bought out the entire restaurant. “I want to tell everyone that I am the happiest man in the world.” At twenty-two, he successfully proposed in front of both our families, swearing he would only ever love me. Everything froze on the night before our wedding. When I opened the hotel room door, he was naked, tangled with a strange girl. That day was pure chaos. Everyone said he had drunk too much and mistaken her for me. Since we grew up together, they said I should give him another chance. Even the girl knelt down and apologized. She said it was all her fault, that she bribed a waiter to get a keycard, just to fulfill a fantasy of her secret crush. Julian, proud and overbearing since childhood, had red eyes for the first time. Seeing me crying silently, he grabbed a fruit knife and aimed it at his own heart. “Chloe, it’s my fault it’s come to this.” “If you don’t believe me, I’ll cut it open and show you. My heart really only has you in it!” Tears blurred his face. His voice kept trembling. “Don’t leave me, honey. I’m begging you. You know how long I’ve loved you.” “If you don’t want me, I’ll die. I really will die…” Later, I sealed that memory away. Having lived intertwined for so many years, I thought we were inseparable. I thought we would go from childhood sweethearts to growing old together. But in this single second. Our thirty years. Finally collapsed. 2 I returned to the apartment in a daze. My mom sent a message: 【How did it go? Julian must be thrilled to know you’re pregnant!】 I took a deep breath, swallowed the sourness in my throat, and replied with feigned calm: 【Not yet. I just got to his apartment, I haven’t told him yet.】 The apartment door was pushed open from the outside. It was Julian returning. Our eyes met. His gaze was unnatural for a few seconds before quickly recovering its composure. “Why didn’t you tell me you were coming? I could have picked you up from the airport.” My expression was flat: “I wanted to surprise you.” He walked over with a smile and gently ruffled my hair: “I can’t bear for you to be so tired.” “The flight must have been exhausting, right? It’s just a birthday, and my wife has to suffer through jet lag.” Julian was about to say something else, but his phone rang. Looking down to reply, his eyes held the gentleness and patience I was so familiar with. Then, he looked apologetic: “It’s a shame I have a client meeting tonight. My baby is going to feel neglected.” Before I could speak, he grabbed a piece of clothing from the closet. I instantly understood. He came back to grab a personal item that woman had forgotten. This apartment, where he stayed during his overseas business trips, was something I had decorated bit by bit in my spare time. I took a week off work and lost a major client to do it. But right now, the vase I had spent an entire afternoon hunting down and personally brought over from back home was gone. Even the photo of us stuck to the fridge had vanished without a trace. A piercing, damp cold seeped into my heart along with the rain-soaked clothes clinging to my skin. I abruptly stood up, grabbed my suitcase, and headed for the door. Julian followed: “Are you angry?” He wrapped his arm around my shoulders from behind: “The apartment hasn’t been cleaned. Let me book you a room at a five-star hotel nearby.” “I promise I’ll spend the entire day with you tomorrow, okay?” He tilted his head to kiss me, just like he always did. A strange citrus scent flooded my nose. It was that woman’s scent. I turned my face away. Julian didn’t seem to care and left in a hurry. In front of the elevator, a sleazy local guy whistled at me, his gaze sticky. “How much? If he doesn’t want you, selling to me is the same.” “He has a girlfriend. I’ve seen her. You’re so beautiful, why degrade yourself?” “All the neighbors know them. He wouldn’t even let his girlfriend walk. He carried her on his back all the way from the garage several times. That girl looked so happy.” He grabbed my waist, grinning as he tried to kiss me. Like a reflex, I stomped down hard on his foot. While he cried out in pain, I dragged my suitcase and escaped through the emergency exit. Even when I awkwardly tripped and fell, I didn’t dare stop to check for scraped skin. I scrambled up and ran downstairs. Heading straight to the airport, I sat blankly in the departure lounge. I didn’t understand. Why did Julian cheat again? During the first two years of our marriage, I often had nightmares. In my dreams, Julian was naked, holding a strange girl. When I woke up, I would always cry. He would hold me, coaxing me over and over again. “It’s all my fault. I made my precious wife sad.” He changed all his device passwords to my birthday and introduced me as his wife at every public event. Every day, he would report everything he did and everyone he met. Even when he had to stay in a hotel during business trips, he would leave a video call on all night, falling asleep to the sound of my breathing. Both he and I were carefully repairing that trust. When exactly did it start? Vaguely remembering the woman’s name, I opened the social media app and searched. It only took me a minute to find her among the many accounts with the same name. Because her profile picture was taken in Julian’s office back home. 3 The painting behind her was one I had specially commissioned from a master artist. Just because Julian mentioned he liked it, I personally visited the artist, standing outside the studio in high heels for an entire afternoon before finally moving the artist to accept the commission. Chloe was a somewhat famous travel influencer with a decent following. I scrolled down. The first post related to Julian appeared three years ago. Chloe had her fingers intertwined with a man’s, the background being our high school track field. 【Together with my high school crush!】 In that exact spot, eighteen-year-old us held hands for the first time. The night breeze was cool, and Julian was so nervous his palms were sweating. “When our hair turns gray, we’ll come back here together.” Mid-August the year before last, right around our wedding anniversary. Julian said he had business and couldn’t make it, but Chloe’s post showed him keeping her company at a street food stall. Last New Year’s Eve, I was hospitalized with a high fever from the flu. Julian appeared in Chloe’s video, intently disinfecting a scrape on her fingertip. The hand holding my phone was shaking. Julian’s face never fully appeared in any of the photos. But the familiar cuffs, the lines on his palm, made it impossible for me to keep lying to myself. Chloe’s newest post refreshed on the screen. The lace maid outfit in the picture was so revealing it made me sick just looking at it. 【I bought it but forgot to take it. Good thing someone remembered. I’ll reward him tonight.】 So, that’s what Julian came back to the apartment to grab. In the comments, her fans were joking around. 【Brother-in-law is eating well! Sister loves him so much.】 Chloe replied: 【I can’t help it. I asked him today when he started falling for me.】 【He said it was eight years ago, the day I first bravely told him I liked him. He said my eyes were shockingly bright, and he never forgot it.】 【Thinking about how he was thinking of me during those years makes my heart melt completely.】 Eight years ago. That was the day I caught them in bed. I pressed my lips tightly together. But the tears stubbornly, silently rolled down my face. Chloe posted another video. The camera pointed at a large bed covered in rose petals. A woman’s voice giggled coquettishly: “My fans told me to ask you, now that you’re thirty, do you have any new plans for our relationship?” A man chuckled softly: “Plans?” “I do want a child. Baby, will you give me one?” The camera shook, and the sound of fabric rustling violently could be heard. My fingertips were stiff. I misdialed several times before finally calling Julian. The phone rang three times before connecting. My voice trembled as I asked, “Julian, am I still in your future plans?” He was silent for a few seconds, then said casually, “Of course, why wouldn’t you be?” “Oh, right, my parents said you had a surprise for me. They asked me several times, what is it?” From the other end came Chloe’s soft urging. “Hubby, if you don’t focus, I’m going to punish you.” If I hadn’t stumbled upon the truth, I probably would have been stupid enough to think it was his subordinate. My gaze swept over the torn ultrasound report in the trash can, and I said softly, “There isn’t one.” The surprise is gone. The love of the past, the future we looked forward to together. It’s all gone. Julian’s tone carried a hint of anger. “What kind of petty tantrum are you throwing?” “For you, I’ve turned down dozens of international partnership opportunities, just because you’re always so paranoid!” “I’m out entertaining clients tonight, considering our future, can’t you give me a moment to breathe?” Tears fell again, and I gave a soft laugh. “Julian, you’re right.” “I am throwing a petty tantrum.” “When you get back to the States, let’s get a divorce.” 4 Julian hung up first. He scoffed coldly, “Fine, throw a fit if you want to.” The disconnected dial tone echoed in the receiver, hitting my heart like a drumbeat. During the ten-plus hour return flight, I didn’t sleep a wink. It wasn’t until I lay on the operating table and the anesthesia flowed into my veins that I was finally freed from the endless agony. The day I found out I was pregnant, I was truly overjoyed. I thought this would be a new beginning for our little family. Just a few more months, and the baby would be born. Happiness was within reach. But now, everything had fallen apart. After resting for a day, I received another message from Julian. 【I’m back. Family dinner tonight, don’t throw a tantrum in front of my parents.】 【Chloe, you’re not a little girl anymore. There should be a limit to your temper.】 I replied, agreeing to attend. By the time I pulled myself together and arrived at the Hayes family estate, both families were already there. Julian sat down next to me. He looked at my averted face, his tone exasperated. “Are you still angry?” He pulled out a necklace and shoved it into my hand. “It was my fault, okay?” “An apology gift for you. Give me a smile, hmm?” My palms turned ice cold. Just yesterday, right before I was about to go into the operating room, Chloe posted an update. The messy bed was covered in gifts. She opened them one by one: a limited-edition crocodile skin bag, a custom luxury perfume, a diamond-encrusted bracelet… Only when she got to this gold necklace did she grimace in disgust: “The style is so old-fashioned, I don’t want it.” The person filming laughed indulgently: “I get you a gift for my birthday and you still complain. I’ll just go throw it away, alright?” I loosened my grip, letting the necklace fall to the floor. Julian frowned: “What more do you want? Take it or leave it.” Julian’s mother smiled affectionately, trying to ease the tension. “I heard you specifically flew to London for Julian’s birthday, but he didn’t spend time with you because of work. He was in the wrong for that.” My mom chimed in to smooth things over. “You’re going to be a mother soon, you can’t be throwing petty tantrums. It’s not good for your health.” “Be a… mother?” Julian froze, turning to look at me in disbelief. “Chloe, you’re pregnant?!” He stood up abruptly, the corners of his mouth uncontrollably curling upward. “I’m going to be a dad, aren’t I?!” The coldness in his eyes melted away, replaced by unconcealed excitement. I didn’t look away, clearly seeing every ounce of his emotion. But this time, was it real or fake? I couldn’t tell anymore. And I didn’t care. The elders from both families laughed out loud. “Look at this silly boy.” I said softly: “No.” “I aborted the baby.” The atmosphere froze. Julian’s excitement stiffened on his face. Panic flashed in his eyes for a few seconds before he squeezed out a smile: “Chloe, don’t make jokes like that.” I didn’t respond. I pulled out the pre-prepared divorce agreement from my bag. Then I gave a slight smile: “Julian, I met Chloe.” “If we don’t get a divorce, are you going to make her be the other woman for the rest of her life?”
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