Xander Peterson had clearly told me he was on a business trip in Korea, yet I saw someone who looked exactly like him in a local livestream, kissing another woman with his arm around her. The gray overcoat he was wearing was the one I had ironed for him myself.

The shot lasted only three seconds, but it felt as if someone had dumped a bucket of ice water over my head. My chest tightened, and I called him on video at once.

No one answered the first call. The screen finally lit up just as the second was about to ring out.

Xander appeared on camera in a white shirt and dark tie, with what looked like a restaurant hallway behind him. His smile was perfectly natural. “Honey, what’s wrong?”

“Where are you?”

“In Korea, with a client. Miss me?”

“Are you sure?”

He frowned. “Chloe, didn’t I send you my flight and hotel details? Why are you suddenly asking?”

I said nothing.

He quickly smiled, then kissed the camera. “Don’t overthink it. I’ll make it up to you when I get back.”

After the video call ended, my fingertips rubbed unconsciously along the edge of my phone as I tried to convince myself that maybe I had been mistaken. Maybe it was just the same style of coat.

After all, we had survived our poorest days together. I mortgaged the house my parents left me, poured all my savings into Update Building Materials, helped him secure the first batch of clients and suppliers, and stood by him as he built himself up from nothing.

After I got pregnant and gave birth to Sunshine, he told me to focus on recovering, so I handed him the company keys, accounts, and decision-making power.

He had always been gentle, family-oriented, loving toward our daughter, and he always said he owed me a real wedding.

I didn’t want to believe that a man who once had nothing, a man I had lifted up with my own hands, would take my life and use it to love another woman after making a name for himself.

At least not now.

The next evening, Xander came home early.

Sunshine threw herself into his arms. “Daddy!”

He picked up our daughter, handed me the chestnut cake I used to buy all the time, and bent down to kiss me. “Honey, I’m home.”

He acted so naturally that I almost doubted whether those three seconds last night had really just been a nightmare.

Suddenly, I didn’t dare ask. I was afraid that the moment I opened my mouth, this family would truly fall apart.

At dinner, he wiped Sunshine’s mouth, poured me milk, and said with a smile, “My two babies both need to eat more.”

That night, after Sunshine fell asleep, Xander pulled me into his arms.

“Honey,” he murmured, his lips brushing my ear, his voice low and hoarse, “I missed you.”

His embrace was tight, his kisses urgent, filled with the heat of a long separation and a possessiveness that felt almost out of control.

But I caught a faint trace of unfamiliar perfume on his collar. It was very light, not mine, and not our laundry detergent either.

My stomach churned in that instant, and all my attempts to comfort myself were ripped open.

My body went stiff, but he only held me tighter and coaxed in a low voice, “Don’t overthink it, okay?”

Afterward, he went into the bathroom. His phone suddenly lit up on the nightstand.

A text from an unsaved number popped up. “Has she found out?”

My blood ran cold. So I hadn’t been paranoid. Every bit of my unease had been real.

I had just reached out when the bathroom door opened.

Xander walked out, his gaze landing on the phone first. The next second, he picked it up, turned off the screen, and slipped it into the pocket of his bathrobe.

He moved too quickly, far too quickly for an innocent man.

I looked up. “Who found out what?”

He smiled and bent down to kiss me. “Benita. She went behind my mom’s back to ask me for money again and was afraid she’d be found out.”

Benita, his money-burning younger sister. She was in her twenties, and Xander had spoiled her since they were little, giving her whatever she wanted. After our company started making money, she treated our home even more like an ATM.

But I stared at his pocket. “Why wasn’t there a name saved?”

He paused, then quickly smiled. “It’s her new number. You know she’s always losing phones.”

After saying that, he stroked my face. “Chloe, you’ve been too sensitive lately.”

I didn’t ask anything else.

In the past, I probably would have believed him.

But now, that text was like a tiny thorn lodged in my heart. I couldn’t pull it out, and I couldn’t swallow it down.

The next day, after dropping Sunshine off, I got a call from Clarissa.

“The usual place. Come now.”

Clarissa was my best friend and an agent at a film and media company. She was always busier than me, and always clearer-headed.

At the dessert shop, she sat in the corner with her laptop open, her fingers flying over the keyboard. My usual coffee was already on the table, with milk and less sugar.

I sat down and picked up the coffee. “Calling me out this early means something’s definitely up.”

She didn’t look up. “Chloe, you’ve gotten too comfortable lately.”

I frowned. “You called me here first thing in the morning to lecture me?”

She finally looked at me. “I’m trying to remind you not to turn yourself into Xander’s accessory.”

A sharp pain pricked my chest. “What exactly are you trying to say?”

Clarissa stared at me for a few seconds, then suddenly lowered her voice. “The night before last, I saw Xander.”

My hand froze around the cup. “Where?”

“Jubilee Tower.”

My breath caught. The last bit of shaky hope in my heart finally cracked.

In last night’s livestream, Xander had been filmed outside Jubilee Tower with his arm around that woman.

“Was he alone?”

Clarissa was silent for two seconds. “No.”

“A woman?”

She was just about to speak when her phone suddenly rang.

Clarissa glanced at the screen, and her expression changed at once. She raised a hand, signaling for me not to speak.

“...What? The reporters are already blocking the hotel? Don’t let them in yet. I’m coming right now.”

She snapped her laptop shut, grabbed her bag, and headed out.

“We’ll talk another day.”

“Clarissa!”

Her figure disappeared outside the shop. I sat there alone, my fingertips ice-cold.

The kiss in the livestream, the unfamiliar perfume, that message saying “Has she found out?”—they finally connected into a single line.

I didn’t know how I got home.

The living room was very quiet.

Xander’s changed clothes were in the laundry basket. I stood there for a few seconds, then suddenly walked over and searched through them one by one.

The shirt. Nothing.

The trousers. Nothing.

The jacket. Nothing.

Last was the gray overcoat.

I reached into the inner pocket and felt a square box.

The instant I took it out, I froze.

An unopened box of condoms.

After Sunshine was born, I got an intrauterine device. We didn’t need this at all. So it wasn’t meant for me.

The thought hit me like a slap across the face.

Tears fell without warning, and the box dropped onto the carpet with them.

He hadn’t been in Korea. He hadn’t been with a client. He had been lying to me all along!

And I had still been making excuses for him. For the man caught on camera kissing another woman, I had found excuse after excuse.

I stared at the box of condoms as my vision gradually blurred, my chest aching as if it had been hollowed out, leaving me almost unable to breathe.

Only at that moment did I finally see the truth.

I had bet my youth, my family property, and my career on him. I had given birth to his daughter and protected this home.

But he had already betrayed our marriage.

He enjoyed my money, my clients, and everything I had given, yet handed the loyalty and respect that should have belonged to his wife to another woman.

I wiped away my tears, picked up the box, and put it in my bag.

I looked up again, and the woman in the mirror was pale, the corners of her eyes still red.

But her gaze had slowly turned cold.

All these years, I had stepped back for too long, long enough for everyone to forget that Update Building Materials had never been Xander’s company alone.

The first sum of money was mine. The first batch of clients was mine. The most important supply contract had also been negotiated by me.

At least half of everything he had now should have belonged to me.

I couldn’t leave with nothing but a trampled heart. I had to take back my money, my career, and make him pay the price.

I put on the black coat I hadn’t worn in a long time, picked up my bag, and went out.

A taxi stopped downstairs.

The driver asked, “Where to?”

I tightened my grip on the strap of my bag, my voice calm.

“Jubilee Tower. Update Building Materials.”