Chapter 8
At last, I finally had the time.
Before, maybe out of the sentiment of being husband and wife, I hadn’t drawn strict lines with
Ethan.
I only wanted the shares and dividends I was owed.
But Ethan broke our agreement.
He planted Chloe inside the company.
He even stripped me of my projects.
A company like that gave me no sense of security-no reason at all to stay.
When Daniel heard my decision, he looked at me in surprise.
only gave a bitter laugh.
Besides… Ethan and I will probably be divorced soon anyway.”
You saw that Miss Adams just now. She’s not a secretary. She’s his new mistress.”
Daniel’s joking demeanor faded instantly. His expression softened into sympathy.
I’m sorry-I didn’t realize.”
It’s fine.” I waved it off.
When I returned home, Ethan was waiting for me on the couch.
Have you decided? Are you really going through with the divorce?”
didn’t waste words.
Yes.”
He stared at me, eyes locked, as if trying to burn a hole straight through me.
You resigned?”
Yes.”
picked up a glass of water, but in the next instant it was snatched from my hand.
Ethan crushed me beneath his weight, his eyes bloodshot.
‘Why?”
His grip clamped down on my waist, almost bruising.
‘Do you hate me that much, Sophia?”
“Sometimes I just want to cut you open and see what your heart is made of.”
He spat the words through clenched teeth, but I only felt bewildered.
He had another woman out there.
He humiliated me, giving an intern a fifty-thousand salary, handing her months of my hard work
without hesitation.
And now he twisted it as if I were the one who despised him.
The cheater wasn’t me.
E
The one asking for divorce wasn’t me.
All I did was work too much.
All I wanted was to earn money.
What crime was that?
Why were men allowed to do this, but women weren’t?
Who wrote these rules?
For a long time, Ethan said nothing.
Then I felt it-a sudden warmth spreading against my chest.
He was crying.
I froze, stiff as stone.
His voice was hoarse, breaking like a child’s, muffled against my neck.
‘Sophia, let’s stop this… please? I won’t ask for anything. Do whatever you want. Be a workaholi
-I’ll support you. I’ll send Chloe away, I swear. I won’t use her against you again.”
‘Can’t we… go back to the way we were?”
‘No.”
My voice was calm-so calm it frightened even me.
‘Ethan, you disgust me.”
‘The moment you chose to cheat, there was no going back.”
had always told myself I was detached about this marriage.
That divorce was better, that men could be swapped out like accessories.
But only now did I realize-it had all been a mask.
Standing at the edge of this final step, I found myself more lucid, more rational than ever.
No one knew that when Chloe sat across from me at the café, throwing down those intimate photos,
my fingers nearly dug bloody crescents into my own palms under the table.
No one knew that when I handed Ethan divorce papers with a smile,
inside
my chest, my heart was bleeding.
Because Ethan and I had been childhood sweethearts.
We grew up together.
