For Clara, leaving Baybridge was not merely a change of location–it was the beginning of a spiritual rebirth.”
When she first arrived abroad, she carried a broken heart and almost no self–confidence. Yet the unfamiliar skies, the anonymity of a foreign land, and the freedom to breathe without judgment gave her the perfect space to heal.
Instead of dwelling on the wounds of her marriage to Adrian, she poured her energy into reviving the dream that had been stifled for so long–her art.
Using the seed money Jonathan lent her, along with the last of her jewelry, she rented a small shop in an art–filled town and founded her own gallery, “Double Light Gallery.” The early days were hard, but she savored them. She painted the walls with her own hands, curated the works, reached out to local artists, and personally arranged each exhibition. Every task was exhausting, yet it brought her a sense of fulfillment she had never known as “Mrs. Cole.”
Slowly, her sharp eye and unique taste earned recognition. The gallery began to profit, and her own brushwork grew bolder, carrying the calm resilience forged from past pain. A year later, her first large–scale independent exhibition, New Life, shook the local art world.”
Busy, radiant, and thriving, she was no longer shackled by memories of Adrian. That marriage, that man, had become nothing more than a fading nightmare she had long since woken from. She did not block out news of him intentionally; she simply no longer cared,
But in Baybridge, Adrian was unraveling.
Her firm departure and the final divorce papers shattered his arrogance like glass. At first, he raged, unwilling to believe she had truly left him. He used every connection to track her down, only to be thwarted again and again by the safeguards Jonathan had put in place.
The helplessness dragged him into darkness. He turned to alcohol, nightclubs, and fleeting women. None of them satisfied him, and in their shallow company, he only craved Clara’s cool grace more.
He even sank into delusion. Paying paparazzi to photograph him with different women, he spread the headlines himself –“President Song lives lavishly after divorce.” He convinced himself that somewhere, Clara was watching, that jealousy would drive her back to him.”
“She’s just angry,” he muttered into bottles, his eyes glassy. “I went too far and scared her. She loves me–she must. Once her anger fades, she’ll come back. She’ll definitely come back…”
Adrian refused to accept the truth: that she no longer loved him, that her world was now filled with new beginnings where he had no place.
As he wasted himself away, the Cole family’s company faltered, its stock value collapsing while he barely noticed.
Meanwhile, Jonathan watched from afar with cold detachment. But as Adrian’s scandals multiplied, he grew worried. If those lurid rumors reached Clara, they could reopen wounds she had just begun to heal,
After much hesitation, he set aside his work and booked a flight to the city where Clara had built her new life.
8:36 AM P P
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